visualstudios

Final Cut, Apple Motion for motion graphics. All the people that said "after effects" make me question if they know what "video editing" means...

If Fiverr ordered from you, then yes. I have Fiverr as a top client because I have edited multiple videos for Fiverr. If you just work on the platform, then Fiverr is not your client.

Focus on skills, and market research. The more you know about what people are looking for and not a lot of people are offering (well), and the better you get at doing that... the better results you'll see.

Well, briefs and buyer requests aren't it for sure. What should someone starting on a platform do? Offer something different from what's already out there, or something competitive enough to compensate the lack of social proof and experience. If they can't do that, maybe do something else other than trying to get on a platform that has no place for them. It's just the reality of it. If you want to start from zero in a place where people already have more experience, portfolio, clients and reviews than you, and you aren't better than them in some way, and there are already enough of those experienced people to take care of all the buyers, there's nothing you can do, you'll never get any clients, because there's no reason for them to go with the worse option. Usually what most people do is to try to compete on price, but at a certain point even that will not work, since there are already a lot of people with low prices and tons of reviews. That means the category is saturated. Supply and demand - if there's already enough supply for the existing demand, you shouldn't start in that field. It's full. Of course, if someone is amazing at what they do, they can always start out from zero, and they'll beat the competition, even in a full field. But only 1% of people can be the 1%. Most people are not amazing, that's why amazing is amazing - because it's rare.

But if buyer requests / briefs are attractive and get good buyers, the problem persists. If a new seller applies, and an established seller also applies, who do you think the buyer will pick?

This could theoretically work, but would be more risky for buyers - what if there isn't anyone on the platform that can fit what they want? They would have the money locked up then, and that would make people afraid of buying in. My proposal (don't find what you like, get your money back no questions asked, since no work was done) is the most frictionless way to do it.

The current one is far from ok, that's the point. The current one is broken.

You're not paying for that. You're paying for the order, if it moves forward. If it doesn't, you aren't paying. You're temporarily locking up funds that you intend on spending anyway, and that you can get back anytime you wish, if you don't want to move forward. That's not the same as paying. Paying for briefs would be if you had to pay $x to use them, in addition to an order cost. Or if you had to pay $x to use them, if you ended up not going ahead with anyone by placing an order. What I propose would cost $0 extra for the buyer in the case they picked one of the sellers that apply, it would just be the order cost. And if they didn't like any of the sellers that apply, they would get the money back. So no, they aren't "paying for a lottery".

I don't understand. No, you don't. You, by placing a brief, still get to chose who you'll work with. If you don't like any of the freelancers that "bid" on it, you cancel the brief and get your money back. Where's the lottery? You aren't actually paying to place a brief - you're only actually paying if it moves forward to an order, which you would pay for anyway. Otherwise, you get refunded. The point is just proving you actually have the funds for the budget you claim to have, and are willing to spend it if there's a choice you like. If you decide you don't like any of the options, you don't move ahead, and get the money back. No lottery. And that would be much better. That's what we need - a way to deter non serious buyers from using the briefs section. Those can just contact freelancers directly, no harm done. Most of the buyers using briefs, shouldn't be allowed to - they don't use it properly and they do deter good sellers from engaging with the system, which makes it worse for everyone. Only the serious people would use briefs under my proposal, whereas now most buyers using briefs are not serious. This would be win win.

You wouldn't be "spending blindly". If you didn't find the right freelancer for your brief, you could get your money back. You would still talk to them before accepting to move forward. It's exactly the same thing as placing an order - you also need to pay upfront, "blindly", before you get the work done. This would be no more risk whatsoever. Makes no difference.

Of course, but that isn't related to what I said. If a buyer wants to make a brief for $100, or $10, they still could under my proposal - and they would be matched with sellers that actually want to sell for $100 or $10. That's good. What would stop is people creating briefs for $1000, when they have no intention of spending that, and just want to be seen by more and better sellers. I set a minimum price for the briefs I want to see. It's useless, because I still get a ton of garbage briefs, that just lie about it. This causes a lot of higher priced sellers, which in a lot of cases tend to me more serious, to simply deactivate the briefs feature altogether. Just like buyer requests before - 99% of the sellers actively engaging with it weren't the best, since the best wouldn't waste their time there, they would get direct sales, and buyer requests wouldn't even be worth it. What this means is that any buyer hiring through buyer requests (and briefs, even if to a lesser extent) is more likely to get a bad seller, since the best ones, on average, are less likely to waste their time with that, because the quality deals just ain't there. If buyers actually had to put the money they budget for up front, the situation would improve substantially.

I addressed all that already. CS would need zero involvement in this. Refunds can be automated. Buyer wants to place a brief, it's like placing an order, pays (brief budget + transaction fees), Fiverr keeps the money. Buyer finds a freelancer, the brief is converted into an order, already paid for. Buyer wants to cancel the brief, clicks a button, brief is removed, money is returned (minus fees). No human interaction at any point in this process. Transaction costs are covered by buyer fees, which they would naturally pay for briefs, as they pay for orders. No downsides.

What difference does that make? What issues? Send me money, I'll send you money back. No issues. The fee buyers pay for orders (which is non refundable) pays any transaction costs, if needed. It doesn't cost $1000 to place a $1000 order, for a buyer, it costs $1000 + the fee. Make briefs the same. It can be automated, and it can cost next to nothing. No need for CS, no need for any manpower, buyer wants to back out, clicks a button, gets their money back. Even if 100% are refunds, Fiverr loses nothing. If anything, Fiverr gains something by having the cash on their side for however long, generating interest. This could be implemented with next to no downsides for Fiverr, no excuses. The only "downside" would be that this would make a lot of bad briefs from non serious buyers disappear. But that's not a downside - that's an upside. Those briefs ain't generating Fiverr any real money either way, and getting rid of them would motivate many more serious sellers to activate the feature, and reduce the bad sellers selling through them and giving buyers bad experiences.

Canadon't

Yeah, fiber will usually improve integrity.

Pretty much this. The issue with asking for a budget, is that people can write whatever they want on there, even if it's not their real budget, just to be seen. Here's an idea for an improvement: have buyers actually have to pay for the briefs when they place them. Want to place a brief with a $1000 budget? Pay Fiverr, just like it was an actual $1000 order. That means the buyer is actually committed and serious about what they are asking for. Then, once they select a seller to go with, the payment gets transferred to the order. If the seller you want to go with sends you a higher priced proposal, just pay the difference to place the order. Do not allow bids under the budget, to avoid meksells and race to the bottom pricing. If the buyer ends up not selecting anyone in x amount of time (say, a week), the money gets returned to them, and the brief removed. This would decrease worthless briefs substantially, and increase the likelihood of conversions immensely. Would this decrease the number of buyers placing briefs, because they don't want to put the money upfront? Probably, and that's a good thing. Those buyers are not serious about actually spending what they claim, so there's no loss there.

Because unfortunately it exposes one of the main issues with the platform - buyer quality. The majority of buyers are not qualified, and they come here because they want cheap. If most of your users aren't professionals, have unrealistic expectations, and want to spend too little, a feature like briefs can never work properly.

Much better, but still not great. A lot of people just put a random number for budget to get seen, or for ridiculous package deals, which makes the cutoff pointless. What good does it do for me to set it to "only show me briefs above $500", if then I get matched with people with a $1000 budget asking for "100 videos for my YouTube channel"? I got 1 or 2 clients from briefs so far, and I responded to maybe 10 or so. I could take it or leave it.

I don't think it's necessarily overpriced, but I do think it doesn't sound professional in the least. "I will do that for free" on half the items, and a "discount" on the other half? Why? That's a quality guarantee right there. If they were any good, they wouldn't need to discount all they do, and offer half of it for free. What level is the seller, how's their English, how are their reviews, what skills do they have that they can prove (through portfolio, for example)? I can definitely see a serious professional in the publishing business charging several thousands for a book publishing and promotion deal, but it won't be structured like that, it won't be described like that. That entire exchange just screams low value.

I think that will have a minimal impact. Many (many) sellers are over the 20k limit for years before they are TRS, some never do. As long as they don't make the process less demanding, it won't make any difference.

AWESOME!

Well, if you get a public 1 star review, it's guaranteed you got terrible private feedback. Nobody gives a seller a 1 star public review and then good private feedback.

I've set it up, and removed it. I found that the follow through was much lower with the automated message than just having the buyer wait for my response (I always respond in well under a day). I feel like if a buyer gets an automated reply (no matter what it is), they'll be more inclined to immediately go to another seller, as they'll feel like we're not available. It's weird, but otherwise I can't explain the fact that I can be sleeping and only reply to a buyer 8 hours after their message, and the rate at which they'll keep the conversation going is much higher than when they got the auto message with some version of "Hey, I'll get back to you within the day". They just ghosted. Now I don't have it, and 95%+ of people get back to me even if they wait 8 hours for my first reply.

That changes nothing, a new seller won't get an order just because they are online. If the seller is offline and a buyer comes across their gig and likes it, the buyer can leave them a message. Or they can just place an order, you don't need to be online to receive an order, makes no difference. If you mean to say new sellers can only get orders from buyers that need to receive the final product now, and that can't just send a message or place and order and wait, then they are going nowhere as sellers anyway. Buyers that act like that are buyers you shouldn't want, that's a red flag.

The question doesn't make a lot of sense. I open the app on my phone when I'm away from my computer, to answer messages and such. In the app, out the app. I'm not "active" on it. Why would I keep it open, to stare at it? Whereas on my computer I have a browser permanently open, with a Fiverr tab permanently open. It's not comparable.