katakatica

I'm more concerned than upset (though perhaps that's what it might seem like.) I've had about 7 cancellations since last January, of which two were valid (well..sort of) and all the rest were either misaligned expectations AFTER an order was placed (e.g write more for what I paid', buyers disappearing before sending in details or people demanding something I do not write as it's too explicit for the site. I don't think I personally will be affected all that much. However, I am worried because humans are, well, humans and you never know what some people might do knowing that they still get to leave a review after cancellation. I've had people curse, harass, stalk, etc. me. I'm worried that this might be the source of more issues in the long run. That being said, with the specifications, it does seem like it might work. I can, however, understand why people might not agree with it. You don't have to be a bad seller to worry, you can be a pushover (like me, which I try to fight against, yes) or just on the cheaper side and target the wrong audience. Since private reviews exist though, I do think that our actual (non just public) performance is what matters, so I'm not sure if reviews on cancelled orders will really do that much since they seem to have the option to do so already, it's just hidden / private. We'll see what this change brings I guess.

From what I understand, officially, if they order by mistake / etc. (which would have to happen to cancel like that), they won't be able to leave a review, only if the seller is unresponsive/late/delivers, but the work isn't good enough. I wonder if these will be normal reviews, though, because who would leave a 5-star review on a bad experience, right? I do agree though that this IS risky, though, because things can get blurred very fast. Seller doesn't reply within an hour of the order being made? They are being unresponsive. They aren't sending updates 2 days into the order process? They are late, etc. While this - normally - shouldn't be the case, I've had some buyers complain (many of them cancellations in the end) because they'd thought that the order would be delivered sooner. Sure, but...there's a deadline for a reason. I do think that this COULD be good if it's handled well (CS looks into buyers potentially being manipulative/etc.), but I'm not sure the capacity for that is there. I guess it'll all boil down to how buyers behave. Will people who are actually just scammers even bother to leave reviews after they get their money back? I'm not sure, honestly, but it's really hard to tell.

Not every seller claiming that is innocent, but some are (and some buyers are... quite hard to work with.) I understand what you're saying, but I do find that it's very easy for buyers to make up lies on the spot if they want to get away with something. People lie, both sellers and buyers and it's a very tricky thing to navigate, I think. I'm not saying that I'm perfect, heck, I've' f-cked' up a lot, but I HAVE been played a lot as well and still continue to be messed with. My personal concern is that this is only going to get worse because now we can even get a bad review for a cancellation. Basically, buyers who knew how to play the system (as few as they are, hopefully) could get an even bigger advantage. (sorry for the cursing; it's not directed at you, and I can totally understand where you're coming from!) Though... It COULD be a good thing in a sense since some sellers might choose to take the money AND the bad review (push for the order not to get cancelled/etc.) If the product is delivered, it SHOULD be the standard to get paid for it, I think, so honestly, who knows? Bad sellers WOULD eventually be weeded out, though...maybe... but I'm not sure that's what will happen first. It's all down to how things aren't all black and white I guess. Some sellers lie, some buyers lie, too.

The bare minimum, as a buyer (for me) is gigs and profile descriptions that make sense. You say, amongst other things, 'I am a skilled data entry, copy past, web research, B2B generation'. ESPECIALLY when looking for a data entry specialist (or, just anyone, honestly), I don't want to see such mistakes. (English IS important in your case and either honing it or learning how to at least correct your basic mistakes HELPS. Having others help would just create more trouble later on.) People are telling you what's wrong and all you say is 'ok' or ask them to help with what you're supposed to know. Take a step back and study your profile. Can you TRULY say 'oh, I can do all this' or are you just trying to get easy money? LISTEN to what others say and READ up on what you are trying to do. Buyers go for sellers who have experience partially because many newcomers present like you - and that's NOT a good thing.

Could you elaborate, please? Are you thinking that Fiverr is the one sending spam messages? Why would they then block them right away? I might be misunderstanding you, so I'd love to know what you're thinking! It really wasn't THIS bad up until a while back, I think. I hate making new gigs because 10-15 minutes later, the spam starts (I'm assuming it's either bots of actual people), creating accounts and just messaging everything that pops up as new. I really hope it'll go back to 'normal' (which means spam, but not this bad) sometime soon...

I genuinely don't think the two things have anything to do with each other. Your buyer profile shouldn't affect your seller profile. However, it is heading towards the holiday season/summer (kids are slowly finishing school, people are going on vacation more/etc.) It might be just a slower period for briefs in your category (OR... due to your SELLER performance. Hard to say.)

Isn't this bad for Fiverr in the long run, though? If someone orders, say, 10x the basic package because it's due earlier (even though it wouldn't be) than the premium and they get a 'yeah, well, sorry, that's a bug' from the seller, aren't they risking a mad buyer? Sure, they'll likely only be mad at the seller themselves but still.. I mean sure, more words=longer delivery time SHOULD be common sense, but when we KNOW some people refuse to read the gig descriptions, I feel like this is just a set-up for failure. (yes, I had some of those recently and I barely get direct orders which is honestly a relief at this point.) That being said... You might be right, and this is just how it's always going to be. I guess I just like to hold onto the last bit of hope I have, ha.

I'm actually not sure but what do you mean by slow? You haven't gotten any sellers offering to help you yet? (I'm assuming you posted a brief.) From what I remember when I tried last time you should get a notification about it I'm guessing that you can probably review it there!

I sent out an extra the other day, and they accepted it a few days later (the base order was already delivered); the deadline for the extra was on that same day (even though I asked for 5 days...) It really looks like a faulty/weird system from my side, to be honest. Back when I had wordcount extras on, someone ordered 5 times the sample package (completely wrong gig, too), but the deadline stayed the same... Explaining that to someone while on vacation (my fault to be fair for not tinkering with the deadline but still) was NOT fun. However, when the extra isn't turned on, it's completely fine (from what I could see, they can't input a custom word count, though of course, they could still potentially buy x packages.) The two things could be completely different as well (though I reckon either CS or my SM saying something about the extra package being an issue. It really seems to just differ between even subcategories is my idea, which... is kinda weird but I'm not sure what we can do. Maybe it'll get corrected at some point?

The way I interpret 'Christian media manager' is a bit different perhaps (some others explained it already quite wonderfully as well) but in this case, I think of 'Christian' a bit more as an adjective. It's not the person (though of course it does hint at it) who is a Christian necessarily, but they are used to dealing with religious content. So for example, Christian could be replaced by something like... Sports or video games in a way as well. Or just religions in general. I can understand where you're coming from though, but it's a niche vs personality (or just human) trait / belief question. As @vickieito said above, they might just be a lot better at their certain niche than others would be since they know the community itself.

Which top-rated freelancer is saying this? (Actually don't say who because it's against rules) are you sure they are actually succesful? Or are they just lying? There are many of us on here who are genuinely doing well and sleep. Heck I take weekends (and some random) days off and don't even have the Fiverr app. You need real talent. I haven't seen your profile so I can't judge you on it but that's all you need and a way to know how to sell it. It's hard but staying in front of the screen at night doesn't bring you that. Study something you can already do well and take what people say with a pinch of salt. Many will lie on the internet, after all.

Hey! Which sub-category is the gig in exactly? Perhaps ghostwriting (or something else) now has that limit I guess? If that's the minimum, than that's the minimum, I don't think you can do anything to be honest. Keep a reasonable word count for the first package (and the rest) to avoid burning out and do your best. (I did take a look and your pricing looked a tad wonky at a first glance, the more words you get the cheaper it gets (per 1000 words / etc.) which might not work out for the best. I personally think it's easiest to keep the pricing a bit easier to track (and more far on you, too.)

I just realized my phone messed this up (or my brain. Lol) When your target audience IS English-speaking was my whole point. It was a long week.

That's fine but advertising SEO / advertising services with broken English when your target audience doesn't speak English IS an issue. I wouldn't mind paying say, an artist who only speaks French or something but you need to be able to communicate (and they need to be able to carry out their job.) There are niches you can't work in without being fluent in English (or other languages depending on where you are.)

I've been on Fiverr for six years and I can't say I know the algo that well. I'm sure youtube ads can be good if done well but just that and SEO isn't everything. It boils down to performance in the end. I genuinely think that you might require a bit more time to really understand it. 100 impressions in day for a new gig is good but you need more than just that. Good luck though!

I will try to say this in the least painful way, but because your profile (gigs, etc.) makes you a clear target for spammers/scammers. A lot of people on here are desperate for money, and they are quite easily targeted because, well, they are easier to fool. Basically, the messages you are getting are from spammers/scammers who either want to lure you off the site or just people with bad intentions whose messages were marked as spam. Now why you ONLY get messages from them could have different reasons. Perhaps actual buyers don't quite trust you (yet) since you seem to offer so many things (but make spelling mistakes/etc.) Maybe your niches are hard to break into... Hard to say. Disregard spam (save for marking it as spam yourself) and look around the marketplace to find a way to attract real clients! Good luck!

I do think that, at the moment, your gig crosses the line. While it doesn't have any images of that sort, I would really think hard about it since the tag (NSFW) itself, which is also in your name, could also become a trigger (though I'm not 100% sure about that.) That being said, of course, it's put to you in the end! Good luck scoring your first sale!

Hey! So spam is pretty normal; every time I launch a new gig, I get bombarded with it as well (and I'm far from new.) However, if I were you (I had a look at your gigs), I would read the TOS VERY closely. NSFW content isn't - really - allowed, especially not art (unless it's for artistic reasons, and that's a bit of a thin line sometimes.) While it's definitely a good niche to some extent, it could get you booted off the site if you cross the line (AND it could also get you a good amount of... not-so-fun buyers.)

So... I started calling days without orders 'involuntary vacation' in my head, which makes life a bit easier. No work? That's okay, go and do some errands you've been pushing on for ages. (though for me, that does include working on my gigs, so...) (Love the post, though I do hope it won't be misunderstood.... or that it will? Which one applies in this case?) I did actually consider decreasing my prices for like, two days, though, but I quickly realized that does NOT work.

Hey! That - could - work (if you do so say on Discord servers or something) but writing to other sellers on Fiverr itself is against the TOS and is considered spamming. I think that has to be added / specified. I mark everyone who writes to me that way as spam myself. Outsourcing your work is also a grey area now due to changes in the TOS (others can tell their buyers to seek you out but can't sell your work as theirs for obvious reasons) so I would thread very carefully for both reasons. My one advice is to sell what one is really good at - and to learn how to sell it. Vague but works. Edit: even on social media / etc. I wouldn't advertise myself this way but what I meant was potentially meeting with experienced sellers who seek out someone to help them out. I felt like this needed to be added!

I wasn't sure how the calculation works for it, in my book, "two months ago" for one of reviews could be say, 62 days ago (but still in April (was that then?). Didn't see exact dates so my bad there. Also can't Math apparently. You're right though, that IS 4.5 (unless the reviews are both rounded up.... But we would see that, right? CS has been silent for nearly a week for me though so not sure if OP will get a useful answer quickly but if it IS a bug I guess they would!

Looks like you only had a few reviews in the past few months. It's very possible that with the 4 star one you have now, your rating dips down (since you didn't have many orders to start with and it's measured on a 60-day basis.) I'm assuming that one of the orders you had before doesn't count anymore, hence the drop. Calculate it to check (if it doesn't add up, I would worry.) but other than that all you can do is deliver orders and hope for good ratings. No immediate way of fixing it.

Heyhey! VN writer (for a while) here, with perhaps one of the 'best-ish' seller VN gigs (not sure about that one; I just like to brag 😛 so don't take it too seriously. I think you're on the right path, but your gig does end a bit too abruptly for me. I think adding a list of your fave genres or something could round it out a bit! Something I'd sort of warn you about (though I know that the furry fandom/world is a tad different and the price of everything is quite high) you might be charging a bit too much for a first gig. I'm not exactly sure (it depends a bit on how long your pages get as well), but starting a bit lower with the possibility of writing more might be a bit better in the beginning. Potentially, I'd also make sure to mention that you write non-furry VNs as well (if you do so at least) just so people know to widen your target audience a little! A catchier gig image could help as well (mine is under construction so it's not a good example at this point either, but yeah!)

Last time (a few days back) I needed a quick thing that they fixed within an hour I think (TRS only here, not a PRO.) However, the time before that, I think a few months ago I had something actually urgent that took I think over 10 hours or so AND the first answer they gave me was completely irrelevant so it seems to really depend. I think there's a lot of people all but spamming them which probably doesn't help either but yeah, it can be quite stressful.

Two words: be vigilant. Everyone can get scammed, but to avoid it, they have to be able to know what to avoid. If you want a logo and only want to pay $5 for it, well, you'll get something that's worth that much (and the same goes for many other things.) Oftentimes, something that sounds to good to be true is...yeah, just that. That being said, even if you do end up scammed YOU have to be the one on guard. You have 3 days to review the order once it's been delivered and say 'wait, this isn't it'. If someone doesn't send you the actual thing you ordered (I think there's like, one category that's an exception to this but the rules for it are there clearly) don't accept it, simple as that. After the 3 days pass or you accept the order, things get trickier. (now, should it have to be this way? No, but global markets like this get tricky for sure.)