leannelrivers

Start from where you are with what you've got.

I didn't make any jokes about dying. I said I've never died and I was serious. The vast majority of the posts in the forum are from people who want to know something and many have light-hearted and funny responses. Nothing is meant to be offensive or hurtful and if this is something extremely sensitive for you then clarification in the title wouldn't be a bad thing.

If you don't want any fun or humour in anyone's responses, fair enough, you can always put in your title that you only want serious responses.

I've never died so I'm not sure. The stats probably go down to 0% after a while.

And risk getting reported if it's spotted.

I grew up with dogs, by that I mean my family had dogs, I wasn't raised by dogs in the wild or something. But now I'm a cat person. Dogs are beautiful souls but far too needy. Same reason I don't want kids.

Because sometimes it's nice to be involved in a post that has nothing to do with gigs and impressions.

No, it isn't true. The forum has absolutely no link to the Fiverr platform. And the "mentors" pushing this should stop. The forum is for having questions answered, learning and connecting. People believing that forum activity converts into orders are wasting their time and filling the forum will unnecessary posts and responses.

If you click on Seller Plus you should get the information. Or search the forum, there are at least two official posts about it.

I second looseink. Your education definitely comes first and your well-being. Having said that, it's fantastic that you're getting orders on Fiverr and have the opportunity to earning money on your own terms through college. If I'd know about Fiverr when I was a student I might not have been killing myself in a restaurant for a hell boss during the evenings. Knowing your own line and capacity is important. If I have a lot happening outside of Fiverr, I will set my out of office for a couple of days or extend my delivery times to get a bit of breathing space. It's also great to consider a future with Fiverr but, personally, I wouldn't recommend that anyone throw all of their eggs into this basket. It can be volatile and unpredictable when it comes to orders. But not for everyone!! Anyway, education is important precious and making money is great. Enjoy both and take care of yourself. By the way. Once you have a good chunk of reviews under your belt, consider raising your prices. What you're offering is gold at $5. I just finished a TV pilot draft at 55 pages and my writing mentor charged me 75 euros to read it and give notes and I was MORE than happy to pay that.

You can try the export to CSV on your earnings page too. This will give you a revenue report. I don't know if that will be enough but you can try. Do you not have a bank account already where you send your earnings too? Bank statements should be enough.

Only CS can help you with this. It's a pain in the a**, but if you haven't broken any rules, they can't restrict you for long.

You mean if you freeze and don't physically move or just stop wiggling your mouse? I guess the same amount of time in both cases. I don't know that amount of time.

Using auto refresh will at best get you a warning, and a possible account suspension.

This is just how it works for every seller on here. Why would you give up? Especially with gigs that already have reviews. You're already way ahead of many sellers considering how saturated your category is. Giving up and moving to another platform won't guarantee results either.

Well, one thing we can all agree on is getting rid of scams is a great idea. Receiving low quality once in a while is a given, but having to budget for work you'll need to toss sucks. I want happy buyers too, not just happy pockets.

I get this very often too. "Can you please send me your demo without the Fiverr reference?" Fiverr still has a shady, cheap reputation with many people. Just the name alone sends some people running for the hills. (I love your voice by the way.) You would still have access to those people. I can't imagine Fiverr adding a membership fee for buyers too and IF a membership system was introduced, I'd be surprised if Fiverr set it so high as to wipe out anyone who might not be able to afford it. Having a system that would help deter scammers and low quality sellers would, hopefully, help the talented new sellers get their foot in the door because at the moment there are some great freelancers who are lost in the sheer number of gigs similar to theirs. And people are forced to price themselves as low as possible just in order to compete with all the other $5 gigs. Video editing for $5 ,for example. It's a joke. I've often helped out new business owners and students with their projects for a very low price because sometimes it's just good to help. So I don't think buyers on a low budget would suffer too much. But if sellers felt safe enough to raise their prices, even to $10, then buyers who expect the world on a plate for nothing would maybe need to work a little harder on building good relationships because they would be dealing with sellers who are a little more serious and invested in themselves. And I'm not referring to you in any way when I mention these kinds of buyers. More revenue is obviously Fiverr's goal. It's my goal too. It's every sellers's goal. But Fiverr also do a lot to push their image as a quality marketplace that gives talented freelancers a stage to succeed and that imagine doesn't align with the amount of dodginess on the platform. I feel I'm starting to go off the rails here. Great thread though!

Agreed. Give everyone a chance to find their feet with it for a month or two. And you're right, most things come with a fee and why shouldn't they? I expect payment for what I provide and my clients don't sulk when they have to pay me.

I would hope that most of us do consider the feelings and the impact a high fee would have on new sellers. We were all there and we didn't suddenly become cold-hearted and uncaring once we got our levels. Having said that, a monthly fee would really help to solve the problem of scam sellers and sellers looking to make a fast buck without having developed the necessary skills to provide a decent service or even write a decent gig description. There are many such sellers on Fiverr and it drags the platform down and saturates the place so much that talented sellers, new or not, tend to get lost in the ocean of gigs. Fiverr is investing a lot in the growth of the platform and I would assume the overall reputation is important. The random $250 figure was just thrown out there and I would consider that too high. I'm with raghnalltuathai, the idea of a lower membership fee is more palatable and it would be manageable for most people who are serious about their freelance career. Most of the successful freelancers I know have invested hundreds, if not thousands, into themselves over the years and it does reap rewards. looseink mentioned "Fiverr Lite". Why not? Or a tiered payment system. It may come across as hierarchical and brutal but some kind of quality control would be great. There are a number of other platforms that have a paid membership AND vet freelancers before accepting them regardless of whether they pay or not.

I've thought about a paid membership but I imagine it would be a high price. At least with commission you only pay when you earn. But if you're raking the orders in it could be very lucrative to not pay 20% on every order and every tip. I would definitely want to see some improvements on the seller side, especially with the decisions CS make about certain things and how they manage stats. On the other hand, paid membership would wipe out many people from having an opportunity to offer services here if they couldn't afford the initial fee. On the other OTHER hand, it would clean the place up a bit. Whatever Fiverr decides, I just hope it's well communicated in advance instead of it being another thing we kind of just wake up to.

Buyers with business client status or VID can request video calls through zoom, they're automatically recorded by Fiverr. You will see the video call option in your messages with such buyers. Outside of these cases, you are risking your account by communicating off the platform unless absolutely necessary. In that case, I guess contacting CS is the right way to go.

I’ve got my second one coming up after the weekend. We’ve had a couple of email exchanges leading up to that.

I joined just under 2 months ago and it’s been well worth it so far. The changes I made were followed by a slow period but I have no idea if that had any direct relation. Things have really taken an upswing again since. I got a lot of orders in and can see how that relates to what I’ve done to improve my gig based on the advice of my success manager. I had a steady flow of orders before but wasn’t coming up in certain searches. She’s pushed me to step out of some comfort zones too and go for certain things that I wasn’t seriously considering until now. Maybe I’m paranoid but I’m also not sure how much should be discussed about it. It’s also great to have one-to-one time with someone from the Fiverr team. She has a face and everything!

I know, it happens far too often and needs to change. I can’t say for sure. Maybe the fear of buyers complaining about the platform is greater than the wish to protect the worker bees.

Ugh, things like this really get my back up. I’m sorry for you. I would absolutely refuse to cancel because it really sounds like he’s trying to rip you off. You can also contact CS and see what they suggest. There’s no problem with offering discounts that you’re comfortable with but “My dad died and I don’t have the money.” A classic sob story and one I never believe, maybe I’m harsh. Good luck!