smashradio

There are more than 255,000 sellers on Fiverr. Out of those, only a few will ever make it past the 1 order mark and have any chance of success. Is it because the "system is rigged"? Perhaps because buyers are "unfair" in choosing sellers with a track record for success? Obviously, the system is rigged. It's rigged to match the best seller with the right buyer. That's why the Fiverr algorithm and metrics used for deciding who makes it is ever-evolving. The system is rigged so that Fiverr succeeds. And that's a good thing because a strong Fiverr is a better Fiverr. If you're misrepresenting yourself and your skills, the system is rigged to keep you as far away from buyers as possible. In my view, the number one reason why a new buyer isn't making it, is because they lie about their skills. Far too many are lying about their skills and misrepresenting themselves to the point that it becomes ridiculous. The screenshot below is not fake. It's from an actual seller profile on Fiverr: Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter. If you're not an expert, lying about it won't make you one. If a buyer ever decides to make an order, they will walk away disappointed. Angry, even. Pissed off because they expected an expert and received an amateur. For the seller, the result is a negative review, no more orders and a trip to the forum, asking why the orders have stopped rolling in. Thankfully, Fiverr has ways to separate the wheat from the chaff by using its algorithm. But the algorithm can never be perfect. It all begins with every person out there who thinks lying about their skills can land them success. It won't. It's not just unethical. It's useless. If you wish to go into freelancing and have any kind of success, you better be honest about your skills. And your limitations. You need to invest time in your skills. You need a proper business strategy. Now go out there, learn new things, and if you're feeling sad right now: don't. If you don't know how: learn it. Then come back to Fiverr, with a plan, a skill and something to contribute to the platform. That's the way to success.

At some point, I just give up. I'm sorry, but this is the most blatant misrepresentation of skill I have ever seen.

Here's the thing about sharing contact information on Fiverr. If it's strictly needed to perform the service you've bought, the info can be shared on the order page after the order has been placed. The following is from Fiverr's Terms of Service: To protect our users' privacy, user identities are kept anonymous. Requesting or providing Email addresses, s***e/IM usernames, telephone numbers or any other personal contact details to communicate outside of Fiverr in order to circumvent or abuse the Fiverr messaging system or Fiverr platform is not permitted. Any necessary exchange of personal information required to continue a service may be exchanged within the Order Page. In short, you can share contact information but not in order to circumvent the Fiverr messaging system, or payment system and so on. Fiverr will say that this is because of privacy, but it's just as much about keeping the business on Fiverr. After all, Fiverr is a business and they want their profit. I don't blame them. But let's say you and me are working on a project with your team. I need access to Monday to do my part in the project. That would be a good reason for sharing some information inside the order. Another example is if a developer would need my e-mail to set up an account for me when developing an app or website. Stuff like that. But it has to happen inside the order, not before or in the regular inbox.

Hey Nick! I took a look at your thumbnails. I'm by no means a designer, and I actually hired a designer here on Fiverr to do mine (we're both VOs). With that said, my first impression is that your thumbnails are not professionally designed. They are not ugly. But they aren't great. I'm not 100% happy with my own and they are made by a professional designer. I can't design myself, but I know what I like when I see it. Here are the specific issues I have with yours: They are very green. Perhaps a bit..too green? The font and background is very 90s. The clip art microphone is also very 90s. The photo of you could be of better quality. It's way better than having no photo at all, but I would perhaps hire a pro photographer or a friend who's great with a camera, find some nice location in the later afternoon/early evening light outside, and get some better photos taken. I think it's the lighting that ruins them for me. Very "office" lighting reflecting off of you. On a different point: I'd increase my rates right away. 5-dollar-gigs attracts the worst buyers. The first word I saw was "CHEAP". That's a big no-no in my book. Cheap means low quality. Cheap comes across as being flimsy. Without value. If your value proposition is that you have great rates, how about trying the word "affordable" instead? It's gentle, positive, and doesn't give the same bad connotations as "cheap". But please, don't sell anything for five dollars – your time and skills are worth more. Your current thumbnails get the message across. So you have a starting point with your layout, though. Hope this helps! And I don't mean to be negative or anything. But you asked, so this is only meant as constructive criticism. Again, I'm no designer. These are just my two cents on them.

I'm glad I don't drink. 😂

No. First of all, that's not allowed and not OK. It's a violation of the Terms on Fiverr and could get you in trouble. Secondly, it's a big red flag for me when a buyer wishes to talk outside of the platform. There's no reason to do so, and they might be attempting to scam you. Even so, the buyer has already shown a willingness to break the rules, and that in and of itself is a red flag. I've already written a post about red flags on Fiverr, this being one of them.

It takes a long time to work yourself up the system on Fiverr. It also depends on your competition and gig optimization. Your gig descriptions need to be optimized for the right keywords and use relevant tags. That helps the algorithm to know when/if your gig is relevant. After this, your visibility is calculated based on your performance. I see that you have a couple of less than stellar reviews. This might also indicate that a buyer wasn't 100% happy with your services and left negative, private feedback to Fiverr. Your buyer satisfaction is very important and if it drops, so does your position on Fiverr. This might be one of the reasons why you're not showing up in search. And even if you did show up on page one, it is likely that other sellers will get the sales anyway, since you're competing against people with much longer track records and five-star reviews. A great place to start improving the on-Fiverr-marketing, would be this thread:

This might help:

It is not. You can contact Fiverr Support. Make sure to document everything. I once bought a video intro, and found out years later that it was stolen when my wife, who used the intro, got a copyright strike. Fiverr appreciated my report. I'm not sure if the seller lost his/her account or not, as I didn't bother following up on it, but this is clearly unacceptable and needs to be reported. The order was refunded to me by Fiverr. In your case, the order was cancelled. Cancellations do hurt us sellers, so there's some "comfort" in knowing that their completion rate will have gone down, and that can hurt future business oppurtunities, at least for a while. In regards to reviewing the orders: you've got your money back. The buyer got a cancellation on their stats. Fiverr works by promoting the best buyers, so when something like this happens, they do get penalized, like others have pointed out before me. You might think a bad review would be useful for other buyers in the future, but the fact is that if a seller keeps doing what they did here, they will just disappear from the search results one day, not to be heard from again (except on the forum, where they will complain about orders going down). You got your money back. The sellers got a slap on the wrist anyway. They do. At the cost of their freelancers, too. Did you know buyers can make an order, complete it, and then contact customer support and get it cancelled, even if they accepted the delivery in the first place? Or that buyers can just disappear with no consequense, in the middle of an order, leaving us hanging with the threat of late orders? Did you know that, if my house burnt down today, and I ended up delivering an order 20 minutes too late due to that fire, it would hurt my account and nobody would care? Fiverr does protect its buyers by the very nature of how it works: if your stats drop too much, you're off the map. There are tons of mechanisms in place to keep buyers on their toes about quality, speed and communication (as it should be!). In this case, Fiverr protected you. They gave you your money back when you weren't happy.

Yeah, this is an issue. They should do the same with gig extras ordered after the fact, as they do with revisions: if the original order is delivered on time, that will count as an on-time delivery. Revisions still cause orders to show up as "Late", but it doesn't affect your on-time delivery rate. To avoid this issue, you could always avoid using order extras, and rather just send the buyer a new, unique order. The buyer still has to pay the processing fees, so it should make no difference for them. Just explain that a technical issue with the delivery time counter makes it easier to do it this way, if they should ask.

You did the right thing. But as @newsmike said - reach out to Trust and Safety with this one. People like this shouldn't be allowed to be on the platform.

There are plenty of posts about this on the forum already. You could start by reading this guide:

It's coming, according to @frank_d so we have something to look forward to.

There are tons of posts about this on the forum already. Here's a good post with a collection of great topics on how to improve your business on Fiverr:

Nobody on the forum can help you with your account issues. You have to contact Fiverr support. Send then an e-mail from the account you registered with on Fiverr, to support@fiverr.com. If your account has been disabled, you should already have an e-mail explaining why in your inbox.

Yeah, I'm like that, too. But I find that whenever something keeps me from enjoying life, it's easy to quit. If it's something truly enjoyable (read: Coca Cola Zero) I'll binge, binge and then binge some more. Perhaps I'll stop when I get my first heart failure. 😆

Also, I read "3 years later" with a fake french accent in my head. I've been on Youtube too much.

What the hell. Me too! Just after I wrote an awesome response! Whoot.

Welcome, Will! Nice to have you with us! I'm Leo, but most people call me Mr. Dear Sir Smash. After spending some time here, you'll understand why. I also go by the name of monsieur, but I don't let just anyone use that title of honor. I've dabbled in web development myself, also mostly word-of-mouth. I've never marketed those skills, and probably never will. I prefer to have a small project here and there. My passion lies in voice overs, content writing and translation. That's what I do here on Fiverr. I've been here since 2014, so it has been a while! Success on Fiverr is all about making your buyers happy and knowing how the system works. But mostly just about making your buyers happy. Just like in the real world, word-of-mouth will work in your favor (business = business) so I like the way you phrased it: "Having FIverr as a virtual word-of-mouth". Again, welcome! And if you ever have questions, we're a bunch of Fiverr nerds on here, always happy to help!

Why? Because you don't want to put in the work and research it takes to be successful as a business? These metrics are there for a reason. To maintain the high quality provided by sellers, to weed out the bad sellers, to ensure the buyers can trust the platform, and to help us as sellers improve our business. That means you need to put in the effort if you want to succeed. If a seller don't wish to do so, they don't deserve to be listed next to a seller that does. It's about taking your business seriously. Asking for more flexibility is basically saying "I don't want to sell more, deliver great quality, on time and be responsive. I want to do business my way, yet I want to be just as successful as the people who actually do work hard for their success". Nope. If anything, I think Fiverr should become more restrictive with who they let onto the platform. Not less. That way, we can separate the wheat from the chaff and make Fiverr known for its quality, rather than its quantity.

I found the opt-out! It's "conveniently" placed at the bottom of your public profile page! Who would have guessed. I'm sure that's not random, at all.

I hope Fiverr begins to charge for being a seller. A monthly cost.

My bedroom curtains are better looking than this. It was 20 bucks at Ikea.

You just have to interpret it right. If you don't understand it, you don't understand art. Don't you see the blue representing the patriarchy and how it influences post modern post modernism?

Marketing via Facebook ads doesn't really work, because Facebook rejects the ads. I'd recommend setting up a landing page that leads to your Fiverr profile and then market that on Facebook. I don't know about Instagram. It depends on your niche, I guess. The chances of getting an order depends on the audience, ad, what you're offering, your budget and so on. So it's really hard to tell!