cubittaudio

You live in Glasgow? One of my favourite cities. We were up there for a few days last year. It hammered it down with rain, but we still had a great time. We’ve done a few city breaks over the last few years, and the people in Glasgow were by far the friendliest we encountered.

Whenever I see the ‘is being online 24 hours a good idea?’ argument play out on the forums, I always think of an analogy with a bricks-and-mortar business, like a cafe. Let’s imagine you’ve opened a cafe. You’re in a busy part of town, with lots of other cafes nearby, and people are walking past your cafe each day. The odd person here and there even pops in to ask about your food/offers. But for the most part, you’re just not getting any business. Nobody is coming into your cafe to order food or drinks from you. You’re not making any money, despite being open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Would your first instinct be to say “I know what the problem is - we’re not open 24 hours! If only we were open 24 hours, we’d definitely get loads of business!”? Being open 24 hours COULD in theory, drive some business. After all, there’s a chance that at 3 in the morning, options are limited, and so people are more likely to choose you because they need something immediately, and they don’t have many choices available. But when you consider that the holy grail of any business is repeat custom, being seen as ‘the only option’ isn’t really a good way to generate that kind of business. You’re being chosen because you’re the only option, rather than because you’re the most suitable option. Plus, if we compare it to Fiverr, let’s assume you’re not the only 24 hour cafe in town anyway… So it’s not really a Unique Selling Point after all. Contrast that with a cafe that is only open during the hours of 7am to 5pm - but their focus is on amazing, unique food options that really resonate with the local community, delivering exceptional customer service and building a brand that people get excited about. Which one do you think is more likely to be a great business? Or more to the point, which business strategy do you think is more likely to generate amazing results?

Interesting. I’m always a bit skeptical when it’s from Customer Support; they tell different sellers different things about established practices like cancellations, so until it comes from somewhere more official, I wouldn’t necessarily bank on this being accurate. Certainly all the wording I’ve seen so far suggests that Fiverr will expect sellers to have some tangible experience and success on the platform before they make this available to them. But I guess we’ll see.

Where have you seen this? There has been no indication that “all sellers” will be getting this. We’re a Top Rated Seller, and we still don’t have access to it. If you’re a Level 1 or Level 0 seller, I would work on the assumption that this won’t be made available to you, and focus instead on reaching the criteria needed for it to become available.

For what it’s worth, we don’t have it - we’ve been a Top Rated Seller for about a year now, with gigs in the relevant categories. So right now, I couldn’t tell you why some are being chosen, while others aren’t. In terms of this not being open to newcomers - whilst this might be a bitter pill to swallow, the decision does make sense. Have a look at the main page of this forum, and count in a day the number of people posting “How do I make more sales?” posts. Then look at the quality of their gigs. 9 times out of 10, they are sub-par (to be polite). Now think of how many people don’t post on the forum, but still slap together some garbage gigs and assume they should be getting sales. Hundreds, if not thousands every day. Do you really think Fiverr want those gigs on their front search pages? Promoting gigs gives you the potential to be the first thing a buyer sees when they come to Fiverr, potentially a buyer who is brand new to Fiverr. Fiverr want those buyers to have a good impression of the site. So yeah, I think it makes sense to only allow sellers and gigs with a proven track record to take those spots, at least for the time being. Fiverr want to do all they can to make the experience for the buyer positive, and that benefits all of us - a rising tide lifts all boats. Is it fair? Yes, and no. No because I get that there are some amazing new sellers who would love to pay their way to the top spot, but won’t be able to. And Yes, because new members will just have to prove themselves the old-fashioned way, just like the rest of us did when we started out. It may not be like this forever - perhaps, as time goes on, they’ll open this up to more people. But right now, I think it’s the right call.

You said it perfectly! My order requirements are a bit more strong because it forces buyers to think about what they are giving me. It’s a total team effort and buyers have to take some responsibility for the outcome of the project too. I would rather have fewer buyers who I can really pay attention too, than 20 orders in my queue. The quality of your work and your buyers who love your work, will in time, be a repeat-business machine! That is what all business owners want… 80% of your sales come from 20% of your buyers. Ads will only get you poised in the right spot but you better be ready to serve as a professional. I have changed my mind on the ads. At first it seemed like things were changing on the first two pages. But like always, I was just patient and used my down time to improve my portfolio, gigs and demo. I am actually grateful for those few weeks. I see an increase in new and great buyers. So somehow they are still finding me. I already know sellers who are opting out of the Ad program after paying for ads because the results are not as organic. I am sure it’s paying off for others. I am just going to stay positive and hope the ads are successful. My TRS is golden and I appreciate Fiverr in so many ways. I was the type of child who actually had to do chores to get allowance money. Nothing is given to you on Fiverr, you have to earn it… not just by numbers and stats but there is a magical mix of buyer love and appreciation, respect for the customer service team, an inward look at yourself and answering your inquiries in the middle of the night. You build it and they will find you. LOVE this! Brilliant quote, and a great way of summarising success here. 🙂

Not sure if it’s already been mentioned on here, but if you like Chillhop, search for ChilledCow on YT, Spotify, Apple Music etc. Constantly updated playlist with super relaxing hip hop beats with no lyrics.

Hi Declan, I find it super frustrating personally, and it’s high up on my list of things I’d like to see Fiverr change. In the past year, we’ve noticed a huge push in Fiverr promoting the platform outside of the US, particularly here in the UK. We would often see it being advertised on the escalators on the tube, even as recently as a couple of months ago. We’ve always found that about 50% of our business comes from the UK, but recently we’ve noticed that a large percentage of those buyers are brand new to Fiverr, so the marketing seems to be paying off. It’s being seen as a serious work tool here in the UK. With this in mind, we recently changed all of our $ pricing to be more appealing from a £ perspective (getting as close to rounded £ figures as we can). So long as the currencies don’t fluctuate too much, this means we can say something like “It’s going to cost you $30, or around £25 etc”. But it’s difficult; as I’m sure you’ve found out, you can only use increments of $5, so no matter what you do, it’s never going to be perfect. Yes, it’s a US system… Yes, the overwhelming majority of buyers are US based. But, as Fiverr look to expand into other markets, they would be wise to give those markets the courtesy of allowing them to use their own local currencies more effectively. US buyers only make up about 20% of our revenue; if given the choice, I’d much rather set rates in £, and then convert to $ for our US customers. Money talks at the end of the day, and if enough customers suggest to Fiverr that they would like to see more rounded prices in £, then perhaps we as sellers will get that control in the future. What might be even better, is a feature where sellers set multiple prices, to cover not just dollars, but some of the other major currencies they operate in… Euros, GBP, AUD, CAD etc. And have the site apply the correct pricing based on the buyer. If you go to iTunes to rent a movie here in the UK, you don’t get the $ price converted to £, you get the localised price, for the exact same thing. There’s no reason why it couldn’t work here.

77% is amazing! You can see that you’re clearly doing really well here, congrats! Our’s is 30%. I think Fiverr’s analytics (or lack of) kind of suck overall, but I really like the world domination one!

Hi Tom, I use Crunch accountants, and it was whomever I spoke with there (it’s a team of people so I couldn’t give you a name) who confirmed this work was out of scope. I believe this is because of the geographical location of Fiverr, but also because of the portal method of operating, explained in the link below. GOV.UK VAT rules for supplies of digital services to consumers in the EUFind out about the VAT place of supply rules if your business sells digital services to private consumers in the EU. Unfortunately, the whole ‘portal’ way of working is still quite new to some accountants, especially the more old-school. Crunch are good as they’re much more up to date with how the world works now, but they’re not the cheapest. Could be worth having a chat with them though.

Along with Fiverr being your customer, the income is Out of Scope when it comes to VAT as Fiverr are registered in Tel Aviv.

I’ve always interpreted this rule (and who knows, I could be WAY off the mark…) as ‘you’re not allowed to have two gigs offering identical services’, and I figured it was to stop the influx of people who have been instructed that the key to Fiverr success is to max out your gig allowance. There are videos on YouTube (some with millions of views) that say that if you offer Wordpress Fixing as a service for example, your first job should be to make 7 gigs all offering Wordpress Fixing, to give you 7 x the chance of appearing in search. If this is the case, I get why they enforce this. The search results are already bogged down without each new seller duplicating their gig x 7. And you can see it happening, almost all of the sellers who post a “I can’t get any sales, what should I do?” post in the forum have 7 gigs, all pretty much identical. It’s a mess. But I think if you can prove that there’s a genuine reason for the difference (gender and usage in our case) it should be allowed. It’s not spammy to offer a VO gig for general commercial use, and another for Podcast Intros, and another for Voicemails… It’s entrepreneurial, and helps position you better in the search, making the experience better for the buyer. But, ya know… it’s Fiverr so who knows!? 🙂

It’s a pretty baffling policy when you think about it. I understand that Fiverr do this to avoid fraud, but there must be a better solution than simply saying “two people from the same location/IP address can’t have an account”. In your example, your husband could be happily working away and generating more income for Fiverr, but has chosen not to in case you both lose your accounts. It just all seems a bit counterintuitive to me.

Hi, It’s fine for you to do this. There’s nothing in the TOS that says that a Fiverr account can’t consist of more than one person. It’s what we do; we’re a couple and we live together, but we also both offer Voice Over services. When we started, we knew that by having 2 separate accounts running off of the same IP, and offering essentially the same service, we would risk losing our accounts, so we pooled them into one and honestly it’s made the business so much better for us. Do you have a ‘brand name’ for your account? For example, our’s is Cubitt Audio. You could always sign off your messages with your brand name rather than getting bogged down in which of you is typing the message? Good luck!

Super impressive! 18 months on the site and 25% for us!