Jump to content

donnovan86

Seller Plus Member
  • Posts

    7,351
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by donnovan86

  1. @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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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...
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. Ideally you want to use your own account. Even if you don't have PayPal in your country, there are other withdrawal options.
  11. 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 🙂
  12. https://www.fiverr.com/support/articles/15140188560913 You may want to read this article too.
  13. If people want to become TRS these days, that's the requirement. Among many many others. TRS has become a lot more stringent when compared to the early days. https://www.fiverr.com/support/articles/15140188560913#h_01GZXDBQT2VP37JF9XCNHZ6M19 In this article they say this: There's no specification when it comes to what is the limit, but there's clearly a limit and I can tell you for sure that the limit is not $5. @vickiespencer, this is what I was talking about 🙂
  14. I think it's $15, I thought it was $10. Anyway I kept prices way too low for a very long time and now with this cancellation change I will attract even more bad actors, so it's the perfect time to increase prices I guess.
  15. Yes. I think that's what detracts Fiverr from giving me the TRS back, otherwise my gigs have great stats and stuff. Filip, do you have any idea what's the lowest bar for TRS when it comes to pricing? I know they said there's a certain treshold, but they never said it, at least not that I remember anyway.
  16. You said buyers need to provide quality work. That would be sellers. And it's obvious anyway...You can't survive on a marketplace like this without being good at what you do.
  17. Well this is not automated. I have been on Fiverr 10 years almost, lost the badge due to things beyond my control and even if I am eligible, I never got it back. It's a manual process, someone from Fiverr needs to see you as a must-have for the top rated badge. I will be honest, and please take this as honest feedback, you have 2 pretty bad reviews in the last few months, so that alone will not be appealing to anyone from Fiverr.
  18. Thanks for inviting me to the conversation. Well, after checking the OP's profile, I did see he had some bad reviews within the last half year. So that might be a factor. Fiverr is harsher with TRS and Pro sellers, because you can easily get removed from these programs if you don't fit their criteria. The thing is, if they see bad reviews or they have buyer complaints, they can remove these titles. Remember that TRS are manually vetted, and they do check every TRS manually from time to time to see if they still fit. Also, there might also be the case that becoming a TRS requires you to charge at least $10 or $15 for your lowest gig package these days, which OP doesn't. So there can be a number of things. I get it that Fiverr wants to keep their criteria secret to prevent abuse, so I understand why the reply was generic. There were a few negative reviews over the past half a year or so, I think that might be the reason. Either that, or buyer complaints that led to them removing the badge. Or, which I think might be the main issue here, you have a lower buyer satisfaction rate than you should as a top rated seller. If that's the case, then they push you back in search. Apparently they also study every TRS manually to see their performance.
  19. We are talking about reviews for canceled orders though. Hopefully they are more lenient here. If they stick with the standard procedure for regular reviews, I agree that would be pretty bad.
  20. This is very subjective. The fact that you only see the bad parts shows you are very subjective. There are positives too. Obviously I am not a fan of cancellations penalizing sellers, but as far as I saw the situations are very specific. And as the Fiverr team said, you can go to customer support and they will look at things objectively. If you fulfill your work the way you promised in the gig description, then you should be fine since Fiverr has your back. We will have to wait and see. Honestly this should affect me the most because I tend to be a higher volume seller, which means the chances of dealing with bad buyers are much higher. But, as I said, for me it's a wait and see situation. I will certainly have to make some gig changes, that's for sure.
×
×
  • Create New...