donnovan86

And in general those that bother to leave it, leave a negative review or certainly not very bright. I think they said they implemented private feedback because they said some buyers are afraid to say exactly how they feel in a public review, because they might be scrutinized by sellers. And based on what stories were on the forum with buyers harassed by meksells saying "why did you not give me 5 star", I see where they are coming from. As always, due to other people's mistakes, we all get punished. And yes, in most cases it has a very bad impact on our revenue. Because not a lot of people leave private feedback, and obviously having 1 negative out of let's say 5 can be extremely problematic. At this point, I just deliver the best work I can and stop worrying about all the random metrics. A lot of things are outside of my control, and I have enough things to worry about these days anyway.

I mean, compensation and benefits would appear from a company that you work for, you were hired by them, etc. We are freelancer, we use their platform to find work, but we handle our own income, taxes, etc. So realistically, I don't see what kind of compensation one would want from Fiverr. It's all about your performance, if you have poor performance or you broke the rules.. then they take action. It's hard Always try to find a secondary or multiple sources of income. Today's environment is uncertain to the point where if you keep all the eggs in one basket, that basket can break and you can end up without any income.

It might be that some person rated you poorly when it comes to private ratings. I had only 5 star reviews for months in a row, and when dealing with a similar issue, my success manager from Fiverr said that my buyer satisfaction rate (shared privately at that time) was quite low. She also told me that even if someone gives you max rating publicly, they can still leave a bad review privately. Also, some people ignore private reviews and if someone leaves a bad private review, that can have a lot of negative impact on your gig.

There's no monthly evaluation anymore. That's the thing. Now if you fall under the treshold, you have 30 days to recover. As for becoming a TRS.. it's manual and only Fiverr's team can pick you. Also if you were not picked, they will re-evaluate in 6 months. So basically you now have 2 chances a year to become a TRS. 1 every 6 months.

Fiverr uses AI to try and avoid hiring people for these tasks. And I doubt they even care who is an agency and who's not. Clearly as long as an account makes money for them, it's fine 🙂 I can tell you for a fact that there are writers who on YouTube and even on their LinkedIn say they outsource, some even have their own outsourcing business you can see clearly.. yet on Fiverr they say "I will write", I will do, etc. And obviously you are compared to those because they are a seller just like you. I know Fiverr has the Agency feature coming soon, but do you really think these people will admit they outsource and apply for an agency spot? Unless they are offered major incentives, they are much better off misleading people and competing against solopreneurs like mine or you. It is what it is... but the fact that now the success score is lowered because someone is outsourcing and you get penalized for actually doing the work on your own.. that's a whole new level of being unfair.

Obviously everyone is treated as an "account", unless those people will choose to apply for an Agency. But it's clear that they compare accounts between each other, and if you're an agency or you outsource your work, obviously you obliterate the competition when it comes to volume. I am certainly faster than a lot of writers, but even I can't compete with someone that outsources to 10-15 other people.

Everyone's business is hurt one way or the other, to be honest. The change to this new level system was not smooth, there are still a lot of unknowns. For example I saw people still complaining about cancellations damaging their success score, even if it's supposed to be fixed. Then we have you as a seller being compared to other sellers and their performance, even if that "seller" is in fact an agency. How can I compete with another writer that outsources 30 articles a day, and I write everything myself? Come on.. if you think that's fair... That's where my issue stems here.. but at the end of the day I know that we won't have that much control. The platform has investors, stockholders, they are the ones deciding what features are added and where the platform goes. I've been asking for a way to stop people from purchasing gig package multiples.. for years and years. And it wasn't implemented, most likely never will. I get the outrage people have and I have my own disappointments with this level system, but at the end of the day I just try to focus on my work. I talked with someone from Fiverr, shared my feedback, and unfortunately I don't think there's anything else I can do.

Now we get into another thing.. Those sellers that say "I will" yet they are an agency. However they don't disclose that, and buyers trust them. Dishonest practice, very common. I am proud to say I've accomplished everything I did here without external help. Yet obviously people will compare me and other solo freelancers with "agencies" that are presented to buyers as a single person working there..

You don't. The only problem is that you can't have 20 gigs anymore, they limited us to 10 as a level 2 seller. I have 4 so I am not affected, but having no difference between level 1 and 2 when it comes to the number of active gigs, then all of a sudden 30 for TRS.. That doesn't sit right with me.

I guess. But as I said, that email doesn't share any detail. They do say this: "To enhance your skill set, we recommend focusing on continuous learning and development within your field. Consider taking online courses, attending workshops, or seeking mentorship opportunities. Here are some resources to keep you competitive." - which for someone with a decade and a half in their field.. I find it hilarious. So yeah, nothing really helpful, but I get it, this is a general email sent to everyone. I would appreciate if they actually said why they didn't consider you as a TRS, especially since there are 2 evaluations a year.

Yeah, I got the email last night, and it's the most AI generated email I have ever seen. It doesn't say WHY you were not made a TRS. Instead, it basically says something along the lines that your quality doesn't match what they want from a TRS. At this point I don't even care, it's not like it will make a huge difference aside from a shiny badge and colorful presentation for my profile. I was TRS for years and there's no major sales difference, at least in my niche anyway. But re-evaluating every 6 months, that's brutal 🙂

From what was mentioned, even if you lose your level you can still have Seller Plus. The change is only for new sellers, they have to reach a certain level to qualify. But if you already pay for the service, you can go ahead and continue paying.

I mean, the new level system was launched a month ago so I assume the grace period ended today. They did say the new level system will enter in effect starting with March 14th..

I think the changes are still not seen, they might appear a little later. I would just wait until tomorrow.

I just got this notification. Funny enough to receive it on the 14th :)) Are those changes already active or not? Because this seems like a scheduled notification you forget about, one that arrives after the fact 😄

Yes, the level system was introduced on Valentine's Day, but it did not go into effect until today. The idea was to show sellers their current score and give them a month to improve. Starting today, as far as I understand, there is no evaluation date anymore. You are evaluated on a daily basis and if you fall under the level treshold, then you will have a 30-day grace period to get back on track. So yeah, that's why I am confused when I see all these countdowns and people expecting certain things.. They did make some fixes, like the cancellation issue, but I doubt they release any new feature today. If anything, starting today, the new level system is the one and only system. I am sure that if Fiverr does launch something today, we'll have a news post coming sometime later.

I mean, they said that the entire process of shifting to the new review and level system will be gradual. The stuff we saw in mid-February is final, now changes are going into effect. So it's today when people start getting their new levels.

Level 2 sellers have 10 gigs starting today. They used to have 20. So.. it's even worse.

Well I am in that boat, I have over 11k reviews on my main gig and 17k on my profile, yet it's still 1k+ for Fiverr. Of course, people see the difference when they open that gig's page, but most people don't click.. Clearly newer services have a major advantage. I don't think it's either of those. It's just encouraging sellers to create new gigs all the time, at least in my opinion. Do you think they will ever change that? I don't think so. I think they are doing this in an effort to help everyone have a fair shot. But if you already have 1000+ orders/reviews, do you really need help? 🙂

True but then again, it will only help so much. At some point, you will feel the downside just like everyone else. And even there, it seems they just cover the past 2 years, so if you have been here for 5, 10 years or more, it's not like you will have a huge advantage.

And there you go. That's why some people have a very low score, despite having tons of great public reviews. It's unfortunate because those automatically-fulfilled or even publicly reviewed orders without a private review should automatically have a positive private review. But they don't. And if no one leaves a private review, but someone that left a bad public review did, then obviously that brings severe damage. I can say it from my own experience, between March and July or so last year I had my worst possible tenure here on Fiverr. And I had only positive, in fact only 5 star reviews. Yet my success manager said that I had multiple bad private reviews, which made no sense. Aside from some people not leaving reviews, some of them leave those private reviews randomly too. And it took a long time to step away from that lack of orders, I was lucky I had return clients.

https://events.fiverr.com/whatitmeanstobetrs It's a webinar about what it means to be TRS, how you can get there, what criteria Fiverr has when it comes to choosing a TRS, etc. At least that's what I think OP is talking about, as I only received an invitation to the TRS one. Well, I don't think there will be more info shared other than what's already available, so it seems like a skippable one.

To be honest, pretty sure nothing will change on the 14th when this goes live. They are testing a thing that I've seen in my Chrome for quite a bit, and that's scores with double digits, for example here's how yours looks. Hard to say if they will go ahead with this, but they might. And I saw on the forum others were saying about various different tests. At this point, I have no idea what they will end up with. But if they want everyone to not have 5.0 scores anymore, I guess this double digit approach will do the job 🙂

Well the thing is, I've been fortunate enough to have my gigs seen as Recommended when it comes to Promoted gigs. So, based on what Fiverr says, my promoted gigs have a higher chance of surpassing competitors. But in general, I couldn't care less about Promoted Gigs myself, I always kept it on as an extra source of orders and for me it works that way. I have multiple return clients that I found via promoted gigs so.. Since it's highly connected to the gig performance or success score, I can see why it might not work for some people. Even in my case, when I had very few orders, it's not like promoted gigs was doing good. So in general, if your gig is doing well, promoted gigs will do well too. However, I actually have a spending limit and in general, I am fine with it. I heard about people spending $50 for a single order, others get orders with under $1 spent, so it certainly depends on competition and niche. Ahhh yes, the big bucks 🙂

It might be worse, because some people don't leave a public review, but they might leave a bad private review. Also a bad private review weighs more because a lot of people don't even leave private reviews in the first place.