donnovan86

Well it is simpler. As a buyer you just press 2 buttons instead of 3 and just ignore any of the other stuff. Kesha said that if both of those options are 5 stars, you will have 5 stars. So it should be easier, technically, since there's less stuff to press.

Until now, people had to rate the communication level, service as described and recommend to a friend. Instead of 3 ratings that would lead to 4.3 or 4.7 ratings for example, now you have delivery quality and how was it to work with seller X. That's why if one of the metrics is very good and the other is exceptional, the seller gets a 4.5 rating. So it's easy to spot where the new system is used and where it's not.

You already know the person is coming out of spite towards you and cancel without working 🙂 Well 2 of the 3 reviews you received are 4.3 stars, so they are using the older review system. Only that 4.5 star review is with the new system. So, it has to do more with your clients and how they perceived the work rather than the new system confusing them, most likely. For some reason this new review system doesn't appear all the time, only for some orders. And the "used to 5 stars", that's the thing, it will be a thing of the past, as Fiverr tries to differentiate sellers, they will make changes so not everyone will have every order rated with 5 stars.

I agree man, but then again, that's the same risk for a real-life business. In some way it is, in some ways not really. For example, as I said, having 4.5 instead of 4.3 and 4.7 is an improvement. Not making it clear how those emotes will impact the result is a downgrade. But I saw Fiverr shows the final review score, so if that person presses Publish, they know very well what they are rating you. Sure, there will be some buyers that will rate randomly just to get rid of it (again, lower priced sellers like me are the ones to be worried here), or they purposefully rate you that way. In which case, they could do that beforehand. If anything, we have 2 things to worry about now instead of 3 (communication, value, whatever they were). The chances of someone spending hundreds of dollars out of spite.... that's much lower when compared to buying a $5 or $10 order to damage that person. I stopped one of my gigs because a person (clearly was the same person because they had the same cancellation message every time, and all accounts were from June 2023) decided to play with my cancellation rates and placed an order, then refunded it. They did this like 4-5 times. So you can imagine I was not happy, but there's not a whole lot you can do either. I even asked them what they need so we can avoid cancellations, and they didn't reply, just Sorry I can't for each cancellation message. I don't think this review system will make any difference, be it good or bad, at least from that perspective. If there are maleficent people, they will find ways to hurt you, or at least try to do so. I have been on Fiverr for a decade at this point and I've seen my fair share of people that want to damage accounts...But Fiverr tends to deal with them pretty nicely, in my experience.

That's the same on Google. You don't know that. Usually people that spend more tend to be more careful when it comes to reviews and how they rate people. $5 clients, I can tell you for a fact that I had a dude reply at 1 AM his time with a 1 star review and when I asked what was wrong, he said he was sleepy. So it won't get worse than that. I still have that review, because Fiverr already penalized me once on a similar issue with feedback manipulation, so I just let it go and moved on. But in general, any professional will not deduct stars just because you didn't blow their mind every time. There are nutsos, but I can assume at a higher pricepoint they won't be as prevalent. I don't think this change will be massive or gamechanging. I find those emotes unnecessary, but removing 4.3 and 4.7 reviews is a step forward, speaking as someone that had those reviews without knowing what was wrong. Having 4.5 is better, in my opinion, instead of those two. Yes, it does make people think twice if they leave 5 stars or less, and that's the point. As I said already, I think those that will suffer the most will be people that charge less, because buyers can be way more manipulative. Pro sellers, unless the buyer specifically wants to damage your reputation, I don't see this issue affecting you at all, as long as you provide the service according to your gig's presentation. So I don't see a reason to raise the pitchforks just yet. Although I will expect some people here and there that will be affected by the change, but hey, the same thing happened with reviews for canceled orders.

I was saying through the spectrum of not paying for sales. You pay for impressions. Fiverr only deals with services and with the platform, not with regions and stuff. Sure, they could do targeting, but that would require them to acquire buyer data. And I don't think they do, not that much anyway. Most advertising methods will only provide impressions, not sales. You're the one in charge of sales. That's my point.

Well that's how most ad systems work. Same with Google, they won't track your sales, you receive impressions, you pay them. You still need to have a great profile to generate sales, you just pay for more eyeballs on your service hoping to bring in more sales 🙂 You should try it, at least in my case it's not super expensive and it worked quite well.

Well you are comparing apples with oranges. You are free to select any pricepoint you want, and obviously the more people pay, the more they expect from that service. It's human nature. Then again, if we are talking about the same service sold for $5 and $100 for example, I am pretty sure the latter will surpass expectations anyway if it has a higher quality. It also depends on the niche, for example animations at $5 vs animations at $100 will obviously be way worse. But in the case of writing, $5 or $10 articles can be very similar, sometimes identical to $50 or $100 writers, some people just charge less. Maybe the more expensive ones come with extra research, some bells and whistles. So it comes down to value for money, which is an intrinsic factor. Obviously a ton of people just want to ask as much as possible to make a profit. Others think about the buyer experience, as you said you're not taking low qualtiy projects. So I think as long as you're focused on delivering the best result, you should be fine. This entire debate makes the new review process more complicated than it really is. If anything, I am fine they are removing .3 and .7 reviews, and instead you just have .5s. That was a personal pet peeve which I am glad they are addressing. Not a fan of emotes though.

Not really. There are many people with lots of 4 star reviews that are very high in searchy. The problem is when you get a bad private review, that's when things become problematic. And that's what affects ranking.

Obviously. And it will continue. Some trust the reviews of a seller. But there are some people that instead of saying HI, they just ask me if I use AI. That's quite insulting from my perspective, because it's not a conversation, it's just starting with the worst assumption. Even if I always want to help everyone if I can, the reality is that people who start with AI questions are usually very hard to work with. And the funny thing is they don't really tell you what tool they are using, they just use the AI "reason" as a way to ask for a refund. So yeah, it obviously happens quite a lot throughougt the writing category. And unfortunately there's not a whole lot we can do.

Yeah, IF Fiverr allows that. A lot of the sellers that were actively selling that kind of stuff are gone so... ?

That's quite unethical and illegal though. Other things I could see but this... no one offers their consent for their email to be sold in bulk to others...

Yeah but it's not on Fiverr. It's using Fiverr talent. OP was asking if you can earn passive income on Fiverr. I know a few sellers that were making quite a bit of money with some passive income ideas, but upon checking I can't find them anymore. So I assume Fiverr shifted their direction and doesn't allow that kind of service anymore. Plus, if someone does have such an idea, they keep it for themselves, to avoid competition 😄

You expect people to hand you a winning lottery ticket, right? Obviously if someone is earning passively on Fiverr they won't share their secrets.

They could make any review shared by a seller for their buyer hidden until the private review period is over, then it appears on their page. That would allow transparency on both sides, and sellers can speak their mind instead of being worried about a bad review. I agree, the current system allows buyers to be very vindictive if they receive a bad review. Some don't care, but there are a few that do.

It's up to you. If you expect sales from it, then it's not for you. This is more to provide you with tools that improve your overall experience, but they are not mandatory. And also you can talk with someone from Fiverr that can give you some guidance on how to improve your gigs. For some people that's great, for others less so.

Well a lot of 24 hour buyers don't even leave reviews. Actually it will be very bad if you are dealing with extremely demanding buyers, regardless of price or quick delivery. Fiverr needs to show buyers exactly how each option affects the review. Because as everyone said, a simple emoticon can easily ruin the reputation of a seller, so that's not exactly great. More transparency is better, and honestly I don't see emoticons as a professional way to rate people. Use it for the fun categories, but when it comes to a professional service.. I much prefery the very bad/very good route or just stars..

I see that a lot of sellers have 4 star reviews so this new review system is definitely working if Fiverr wants to eliminate the overwhelming amount of perfect reviews people get every day. We'll see, but at least in the last few days I saw quite a lot of 4 star reviews with great texts attached to them, so the way the rating is calculated with those emoticons is quite strange. Because in general, people tend to seem very happy.

Do they show the final review score before you press Publish? Like it showed in the initial image posted by Kesha? I mean this:

What do you think? If you have to ask, even you know it's not ok.

That's what I was afraid of, really. Random reviews made by people that have no idea how their small choice impacts their rating..

Well most sellers have 4.8 to 5 stars. That makes it very difficult for a buyer to narrow down the best option.

That's always how change will be. Obviously we just have assumptions man. It's hard to predict how things change. But as I said to Mandy earlier, if we don't adapt... there's not a whole lot we can do. It is scary and challenging, but AI might open new opportunities too.

Exactly, they are using AI as a tool. AI is not replacing them. Regardless, as I said, it's hard to predict things, I am not thinking many years ahead. In just a year, AI did its number on Fiverr orders and a lot of people are struggling right now. Plus, with these changes like reviews for canceled orders and now a new public review system with emoji, Fiverr is eliminating even more sellers from the equation. It was never easy to be a freelancer, but it seems now it's one of the most challenging times yet. However as I said, we have to adapt. I don't focus on what the future of AI is, because I don't really care about AI. I know there's a ton of money in the industry and that attracts lots of players, even Windows 12 will have AI features. But the things is, we need to learn how to use it, not to make it fully replace us.

There's no guarantee, but I can only assume that farming, medical services, dentists, some form of entertainment won't be replaced by AI. Even writing, despite the fact that some will just use AI to write stuff, the truth is that you will always have people that want human-written content. That won't go away, and that's why I am not very worried about AI myself. Of course things always change, but we can always adapt. That's why it's hard to create a list, because things are always subject to change.