Jump to content

donnovan86

Seller Plus Member
  • Posts

    6,934
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by donnovan86

  1. The thing is, if this buyer didn't share his requirements, the order is inactive. I have inactive orders from 2020... so as long as there are no requirements, the order stays inactive in your account. Maybe the buyer wanted to purchase but they don't have the requirements. As long as the order is not started, there's nothing to worry. You can try and send him a message in the inbox, just to see if he has the requirements, etc. Trying to cancel before allowing him to say anything might not have been the best play..
  2. A Fiverr representative said people that buy and sell on the platform will not be able to leave any review on canceled orders. That's to prevent bad actors. Well for most writers it is AI, but Fiverr's new systems don't help either. It is what it is honestly.. there's nothing we can do other than adapt and move on.
  3. Well Fiverr wants buyers to be happy and come back. It's their platform so they get to choose how they penalize sellers if buyers are not happy. I've been dealing with a lack of exposure for months now and it has affected my life and Fiverr work. But I also realize it's not my platform and this is what happens when you rely on a platform made by others. It is what it is.
  4. So my success manager said that the buyer satisfaction rate is calculated over the timespan of 90 and up to 180 days. So cancellations and bad reviews can affect us up to half a year. Which is why I assume many of us have issues right now
  5. I agree, manual writing won't go anywhere. What CHATGPT and other AI writing tools will do is remove a lot of the bad gigs from Fiverr that were usually spinning any existing text. Now people can receive a similar result for free. Quality writing is not going anywhere. I agree, AI hit me too, but I am still writing and will continue to do so. However, this shows that having a secondary or third source of income is not just extra money these days, it becomes a necessity 🙂
  6. You can check the forum. You are new to Fiverr, so Fiverr gave you a boost to have a chance against more established service providers. But that boost is obviously over at some point, so you have to promote your gigs yourself. And also try to find a client or two, because you have no reviews...
  7. I think Fiverr should allow us to see the buyer satisfaction rate, at least the overall number and see if it's ok or not. I don't like contacting my SM every week or month just to see if they were changes. I know they are busy and honestly if I had a graphic or just a number to know this, it would be much easier. Hopefully they eventually add this as a Seller Plus feature. In your case, those buyers might have left some bad private reviews. I saw you had multiple reviews that were close to 3 stars, a single star review within the last 3 months as well, so those can be the main reason. Also, AI might also play a factor when it comes to having less orders..
  8. It depends on the niche, but I will say this, if you talk about Seller Plus, that won't give you more impressions. It all comes down to the algorithm and they make some changes that penalize sellers if they don't have great performance. I will agree that the last 3-4 months were the roughest ones in my entire Fiverr tenure of close to 10 years now. I have seller plus and I can tell you it won't give you extra clicks or anything. The Promoted Gigs, maybe, but that's an ad system. Yeah, the thing is that clients also get to leave a private review. And as you imagine, that private review can sometimes be random, or a buyer might punish their seller for nothing. First time buyers (for you or the platform) will have even more say in the algorithm too, so that alone is why a lot of sellers are dealing with problems now. Plus, in the case of my niche (writing) and your niche (voiceover), AI has become extremely problematic, so Fiverr is not really to blame.. there are AI services that end up offering a similar service at a lower price, sometimes way lower. So you can see why buyers go to that instead of Fiverr.
  9. If there were 3 warnings, then the account is done, at least most of the time. If it was a mistake from Fiverr, they do check again and sometimes the accounts get restored. However, the chances of it being a mistake are very low. So more often than not, these decisions are final..
  10. Yes, I have no idea how people come to an English speaking platform trying to offer services to someone yet they don't even bother to improve their English.
  11. Even better, learn English 🙂 Grammarly can only do so much, and it's not always accurate, nor will it replace good old English knowledge 🙂
  12. I would personally go with extending delivery times. However, if you don't want to open the Fiverr app or your PC to reply to clients, just set yourself unavailable until you come back. It will take a while to pick up, but it seems the ideal option. In the end it's up to you, there's no good or bad option here.
  13. Well Fiver can tell you, no one else can. But I would think that if you see your own gigs when you are logged in, that shouldn't count. However, if you are logged out, I think it counts. It's only speculation honestly, only Fiverr knows.
  14. @leannelrivers hit the nail on the head with her recommendations. Aside from that, I would say to always stay professional. Don't let your anger get in the way. Instead, cool down and maintain a great sense of professionalism no matter who you are dealing with. Reply fast, deliver your best work and obey the terms of service.
  15. Only Fiverr can tell you that. But if I am to assume, they won't agree with you using someone else's account. If the old account got disabled, reinstate it. Anyway these are things you have to deal with either with Fiverr or Payoneer, the forum can't tell you anything other than assumptions.
  16. I don't understand what you mean here. I of course know that this change can be dangerous. I am one of those sellers. Actually high volume sellers are the most affected by this.. you have a much higher chance of dealing with bad buyers due to the sheer volume. And with Fiverr's focus on buyer satisfaction rate, if multiple buyers rate you low in their private reviews, you're done. So yeah, don't think anyone is safe from any penalty. Even I started focusing more on taking less, but more expensive gigs recently because for some reason despite having only great reviews, people leave random reviews privately. But it's not my platform, so I abide to their rules. I expect to not like some of their changes sometimes, but as I said, it's not our company. So, ideally we as freelancers need to have multiple sources of income. It's a very black and white approach to this. The chances of dealing with a bad buyer are not 100%, especially as a newcomer. However, like in any business, you have to perform your due dilligence. Offer samples, talk with the buyer, understand their expectations, and refund if things seem very weird or if the buyer starts being problematic. I had a cancellation this week and it was amiable, the buyer didn't contact me before placing the order and he was unable to convey his exact thoughts. No matter what I delivered (and I shared multiple versions), it was not ok for you. At that point, you just refund and go onward. I barely refunded any order this year, but I understand situations like this can happen. What this update will do is it will make sellers increase their prices and stop dealing with problematic buyers. And they will also take the money and a bad review instead of trying to protect their ratings. I can tell you for a fact that high volume sellers are affected as well, because the buyer satisfaction rate will influence exposure. So even if you have 100 orders a month or more, a few bad private reviews can easily push you. That previous update from the beginning of the year with the focus on new buyers was a nail in the coffin for many volume sellers, because a lot of new sellers leave random reviews, especially for those with low prices because they don't really care. Anyway as I said here, we have to wait and see. We don't know how Fiverr support reacts, if they will protect sellers when they deal with abusive buyers during these cancellations, etc. Instead of thinking about scenarios, let's wait and see. I am also not really keen on reviews for canceled orders, but if it's handled properly and Fiverr protects sellers in those cases of abuse, it should be fine. For me, it's definitely a "wait and see" thing. Does this mean we should expand to more income sources? Absolutely, you can see how the global economy is right now, and AI has only made things worse...
  17. Fiverr is an international platform and aside from the Russian incident (which is obviously an isolated incident), they wouldn't stop access to people from any country. With that in mind, I am not 100% sure what country you mention, but I am pretty sure I had a lot of buyers from there too if it's the country I think you are refering to. If it's spam, just mark it as spam, that's what I do and I move on.
  18. This is more of an update to benefit the platform. There are way too many people with 4.8-5 star reviews, to the point where ratings make no sense. Fiverr tries to find ways to show who really deserves the 5 star or 4.9 star rating when compared to people that curate their reviews and cancel stuff whenever they feel it affects their stats. That being said, it does leave some room for vindictive buyers, but overall it should benefit the platform in the long run. I mean.. I had my only cancellation in months the last few days. And it was due to the buyer not exactly knowing how to explain what they want. I offered 4 versions and he didn't like them, so obviously I decided to refund him, and we both agreed it would have been better to contact first. He was very professional and courteous, and also appreciated my work, it just wasn't what he was looking for. Does that mean he would leave a bad review when it was a courteous, amiable refund? I doubt it. So there will be some cancellations like this when the seller might not be a good fit, but as I said, I really tried based on the info that was there. I am sure any buyer would appreciate the work that went into it.. Of course there will be bad buyers that try to take advantage. But I think that will surely be in the minority. We will see next week, when I am sure some people will start posting on the forum about their cancellations.
  19. They don't take the tip. They take 20% off every transaction. They do that for tips too, in order to prevent system manipulationb (some people would just place $5 orders and use tips to give the rest to a seller, thus getting a lower price, etc). You already know if there's an opening for people to manipulate the system, they will use it.
  20. Among others, they read the forum. There's already a PLETHORA of content here that people can use to create and/improve a freelancing business.
  21. If anything when you have a higher level, you get less exposure when compared to lower levels, because Fiverr thinks you already have a customer base and some experience.
  22. When you receive a new BADGE and level, that means you are competing with people that have the same level. It's way harder to compete with people that have been for some time on the platform. Even now it's easier... when you get to level 2 you will compete with most people within your niche, since I assume most of them are a level 2 seller.
  23. Ideally you want to use your own account. Even if you don't have PayPal in your country, there are other withdrawal options.
  24. Fiverr didn't say anything about this. HOWEVER, it will damage your stats and push you back in search anyway. And depending on the situation, the customer might go to customer support anyway and you might end up with a review. Ideally, you want to cancel the order right away if it was forced on you and it's not something you can do. Otherwise.. that cancellation might come with a review 🙂
×
×
  • Create New...