vickieito

I think it's worth it to have the Seller Plus Premium plan. We often get to try out Fiverr's newest features. I had the Request to Order feature when it was in beta mode. I just used Fiverr's new partial refund feature - this allows you to give partial refunds on orders without canceling the orders. It seems to be working great so far!

Hi @pradeepcep, you have to be on the Standard tier before you become eligible for the Premium. I lost the Seller Plus feature in May, but got it back in June (and I had to get on the Standard Plan and then the Premium plan back to back, see charges below). I did get the same rate of $29/mo that I had previously for the Premium plan (instead of the $39/mo), so that was nice: If you want the Request to Order feature, you have to be on the Premium plan. When I lost the Seller Plus feature, I was willing to pay $40/mo just for the Request to Order feature (that's how much I love it)! It hasn't affected my sales at all - I actually make more and I have less cancelations.

Hi @zakijesk! Welcome to Fiverr and the forum! Those are great numbers, how are they looking now? I would make a different gig for each service - this would make it easier for relevant buyers to find you. I do recommend keeping the title short so that it can be read by a buyer without the buyer having to hover over the title. Buyers only have seconds to decide whether to click on your gig card or not - so the easier you can make it for them to understand your services, the better chances you have of them clicking on your gig card. You also have too many words on your gig card. Try to have 1-3 words that clearly describe your services. It no longer exists. Fiverr got rid of that. I see that you include a lot of what you do, but try to focus less on what your service is and more on what it can do for your clients. Clients need to be reminded of why they need your services, so if you can make a compelling case of why they need the services (and how you are the solution), you'll have a better chance of getting orders. Also, can you share your data? How many impressions, clicks, and inquiries are you getting right now? Is it increasing, decreasing, or staying the same?

Hi @pradeepcep, have you considered subscribing to the Seller Plus Premium plan? They have a feature called Request to Order and it has been a lifesaver for me. No one can place an order without first contacting me (the order button is grayed out). Before that, I did have $5,000 on my gig prices to prevent people from ordering. Now I can list any prices that I want because no one can order.

Hi @sadikur24, I think you have a profile and gig that looks pretty typical for someone offering SEO services. I also think that you focus more on keywords and what you can do rather than what makes you unique and what benefits you can bring to your buyers: 1. Your gig images have too many words - just have 1-3 words that clearly describe your services. Buyers only have a second or two to decide if they will click on your gig card or not. 2. Try to focus on your Unique Selling Points (USP) so that you can differentiate yourself from other sellers offering the same services - why should buyers hire you? 3. Shorten the long lists telling buyers what you will do and focus more on what benefits you will bring to them - what value do you offer to your buyers? What are their pain points and how are you the solution to their problems? If you have numbers (i.e., impressions, clicks, number of inquiries, etc), I can provide more specific feedback on what you might want to work on to get orders.

As I mentioned, just mention in your bio that you have been gone and are back in business. You only need to do that to get your first customer because once you deliver, the last delivery will be updated. It's very common for sellers to pause their business and come back again.

You would have to do that with CS, ...but why do you want to create a new account? This current one has 15 reviews on it already so it'll be easier for you to get orders than if you just start from scratch again. People are less trusting of new accounts (and Fiverr isn't approving all of the new accounts being created). I think you have have a better chance just with revamping your current account. Just mention in your bio that you are back in business!

Oh, did Fiverr get rid of those types of services? I couldn't find "hairy guy in blue spandex" using Fiverr's search and there used to be a Lifestyle section with those birthday greetings! Where did that section go???? I remember that guy. 😂He might have inspired the guy with the goat to sing the Happy Birthday song, too! @smartdezigns, I think that's awesome you were able to help so many of your friends be successful on Fiverr! Have you considered doing business coaching as a gig? I think everyone needs the help of a coach when starting their business. An hour after I posted my first gig, I hired my first business coach, a nice lady from Pakistan (I got scared and lonely within the first hour of being on Fiverr). 😅 Having a coach made all the difference for me. This is definitely the hardest thing I've ever done! I agree that many people would be happier with a secure job and guaranteed income. However, it's hard to go back to that life once you get a taste of freelancing. I love being able to change my prices whenever I want and being able to work and take naps when I need them. 😊

And then once you start getting orders, getting more out of each order becomes a priority. I just checked my performance this year versus last year - I made the same with 18 orders this month as a similar month with 62 orders. So I'm making 3.5 times more per order than last year. Without all the headaches that come from having too many orders.

Unfortunately, one bad private review can affect your visibility in search as well as your eligibility for different programs, such as Promoted Gigs, especially if you don't have many reviews. This can last 3-6 months or longer. I'm not sure why you lost Seller Plus because that usually happens when you drop a level and you are still Level 2. I think you are on the right track to turning your account around. You've had great reviews since that negative one - and that's really the only way to turn around from a negative review - keeping your buyers happy and delivering excellent services.

Hi @videolabs - I am a Seller Plus member and I had the same experience - I had it, then it disappeared for two weeks, then I got it again early this week, and now I no longer have it again. According to the Success Managers on the forum, this feature is currently undergoing updates that can possibly go into August. During this time, our eligibility to have this feature can change on a daily basis.

@stevebatesvo - Normally when someone posts in the "Fiverr Questions" category, they are looking for answers from the community. I provided a response on why there may be issues with sellers understanding the simple differences between the two terms we were discussing (i.e., Fiverr is using the terms interchangeably). Sorry if I misunderstood your intent. I thought you wanted a discussion but it looks like that wasn't what you wanted to hear:

I think we are talking about the same thing. On Fiverr's Help Desk page for the "First-Time Buyers Promotion, it says that this promotion is for "new buyers" aka "first-time buyers" aka "first-time customers" for that seller. This would be okay if the promotion was shown only to First-Time Buyers, but it's being shown to buyers like me who have already bought gigs - we are being shown the First-Time Buyer promotion. I already bought 111 gigs as a buyer, so I shouldn't be shown the First-Time Buyer promotion (but I am because Fiverr is using this terminology wrong ... it should be called "First-Time Customer Promotion"). Fiverr is trying to make it clear on their First-Time Buyer Promotion Help Desk page that this promotion is for buyers who are new-to-the-seller buyers. So, based on Fiverr's terminology, they should have called this promotion "First-Time Customer Promotions." That's why I think Fiverr should change the name of the promotion to "First-Time Customer Promotions." Yes, some buyers will be both First-Time Buyers AND First-Time Customers ... BUT there will be a lot of First-Time Customers to the seller who are experienced buyers on the platform as well. I think the change in title will be more representative of what the promotion actually is - First-Time Customers for the seller. Note: I have had 4 order so far through the First-Time Buyer promotions and when I viewed these buyers from the Buyer Insights I can see that these "First-Time Buyers" actually have 500+ orders completed already. So they are clearly First-Time Customers, not First-Time Buyers.

Looks like Fiverr needs to change their First-Time Buyer promotions to First-Time Customer promotions! If it's the same Seller Plus features that are using this terminology interchangeably, it's no wonder why sellers are confused between the terms! They should probably revise where they start introducing other terms, such as "new buyers" and "past buyers."

No, our conversations pretty much sound like yours. Many of my friends have a lot of talent and show interest, but then don't follow through. It seems like a good idea at first but they learn that Fiverr isn't a place to get money quickly - it's like any business that you have to build over time. So they quickly lose interest. Some think Fiverr is still a place of $5 gigs and don't think you can make real money here. They ask me why I'm giving up my food science job to compete with the man singing the "Happy Birthday" song with his goat. And there are others who don't want to do the "hard stuff" and tell me that they will just work under me ... expecting me pass work on to them (I politely decline).

It would be helpful if Fiverr followed their own terminology. For example, a First-Time Buyer should be this: BUT Fiverr also launched the First-Time Buyer Promotions (which should be called First-Time Customer promotions, since these buyers aren't new to the platform, they are only new to the seller): https://www.fiverr.com/support/articles/13736487784721-First-time-buyers-promotions?segment=seller When I visit a seller's gig page, I sometimes see the First-Time Buyer Promotion popup (even though I have purchased over 111 gigs on Fiverr). So Fiverr is clearly not using the right terminology there. @stevebatesvo - can you share with me where Fiverr is using the "First-Time Customer" lingo? I'd like to see other instances where these terms are being used interchangeably.

Yay, @looseink! Happy to see you a member of the Seller Plus community! 😊 I was actually trying to get less activity, but higher quality leads. I was already turning away 95% of the buyers in my inbox but now I'm accepting about 75% of the projects coming to me. So yes, I am making more $$$ now than I was before being on the Seller Plus program. I think my overall impressions are less but I have a much higher conversion rate. So the things that I learned/has helped me include: 1. Request to Order - has been a real game changer for my business. It helps me to plan out my orders and create a schedule that works for me in my life. I also have less cancelations and can politely say 'no' to clients that I know will be difficult. It's wonderful knowing that I'm not forced to take on every project that a buyer wants to push on me. 2. Accountability partner - My Success Manager is my best accountability partner. If I tell her I'm going to reduce my time on the forum to work towards my goals (and then I see her on the forum) ...hehe ... I quickly leave the forum and get back to working on what I was supposed to be doing. 😅 3. Thinking outside of the box - It really helps to have a Success Manager who has a different perspective than I do. She often makes suggestions that I've never even considered, or considered, but quickly dismissed. I started offering video consultations (where previously I refused to even do Zoom calls), and found it's a great way to quickly make extra income. I had to be willing to get outside of my comfort zone to make that change happen, so it was helpful to have a Success Manager pushing me along. 4. Restructuring all my gig packages ... so that they work for me. Previously they were structured to give my clients the best deal possible, but I was getting burnt out a lot. I did time studies on every one of my gigs and calculated the prices that I needed to have in order to hit my income goals. This was with the help of my Success Managers. 5. Niching down - Funny how I was optimizing people's resumes but I could not optimize my own business by niching down. I was a jack-of-all-trades with gigs in virtual assisting, data entry, presentation designs, beta reading, and writing. I was having a hard time defining who I was, what my anchors were, and who my target clients were. I felt like I was spread thin over all of my different gigs but didn't want to let them go. I also didn't want to call myself a writer for the longest time (but slowly made the transition from "freelancer" to "freelance writer" to "technical writer"). I got rid of my Research & Summaries and my Data Entry gigs and started focusing on my technical writing more. I really think your success depends on you - whether you have Seller Plus or not. I believe it's a combination of factors, and you really get out what you put into your business. So I take the reigns on my Seller Plus experience, not my Success Manager. I tell her what my goals are, where I'm heading, and what I'm working on. I really love the Seller Plus program and tools, forum, and having a Sucess Manager in my corner. As for the Zoom meetings, I really don't use them. I've had 3 success managers and 3 Zoom meetings just to introduce myself to them. The rest of our conversations are by email. It's much more convenient communicating that way.

@slightly_mad - My FIverr account hacking was due to malware found on my computer. Which came from me downloading a zip, rar, or other file (I do get a lot of requests for me to view resumes that I have to rewrite ... there were a few files that didn't open correctly). I had several tabs open on my browser when the malware/Trojan software that was downloaded, so it didn't matter that I had two-factor authentication on all my accounts - any tab that was open was vulnerable to the attack. At the time of the attack, one of my clients had just requested a revision on an order and I tried to respond but was immediately kicked out of my account. So to my client, all she knew was that she requested a revision, then her order was immediately canceled, and there was no way for her to contact me. I later found out that all of my orders in queue were canceled when my account was shut down. For me, I could see a red banner across my screen saying that my account was no longer active and an email was sent to me explaining why. The email was in my spam folder and it said, "As you requested, we have shut down your account ...." I immediately forwarded the email to support@fiverr.com and asked why my account was shut down and told them that I didn't make that request. My Seller Plus manager also looked into this issue for me and told me, "You made a request to shut down your account because you have multiple accounts." Which wasn't true, so she told me to wait until CS responded to my ticket. They did two days later, and told me that suspicious activity happened right before my account was shut down (all of my Earnings were withdrawn to a different PayPal account). So CS believed me and reinstated my account (in restricted mode) so that I could go through a list of security measures to protect myself. I followed their steps and got my account fully restored after four days. CS also compensated me for the loss (unlike PayPal and other online accounts that were created/affected by the hacking), restored my seller level (I dropped down to Level 1), and fixed my stats for me. I was disqualified from the Seller Plus program for a month, but I got that back as well. Now I have a continuous scan for malware (and also scan every file that I download), changed all my passwords so that there are no duplicates, and also have ID theft protection with continuous monitoring for suspicious activity. I also no longer keep multiple tabs open when I work on my computer. It's a pain to have to log back in so many times a day, but it's worth it to have that extra step to ensure my accounts are secure.

It is a checkbox that the client can "check" to allow their delivery to be added to the live portfolio. I can't remember the exact wording, but I know I don't like it because it calls the image a "delivery." I make each image special and separate from my actual delivery (even if it is a PDF). Sometimes the client will allow me to use their actual delivery, but most of the time, I have to modify it/remove client information for them to approve the sample.

Sometimes buyers are checking their deliveries from their phones. I noticed sometimes mobile view makes the delivery look funky, with bad formatting and missing pages (especially if they are viewing a file that isn't a PDF). I try to let my buyers know about this common problem beforehand so that they aren't alarmed when they see this issue from the mobile view (this may cause a buyer to mark the order as "partial delivery" like @smashradio mentioned, or the buyer may mark it as "poor quality," leave a bad review, try to cancel, or accuse you of outsourcing the work).

Hi @code_with_j - Always send an attachment with the delivery to avoid the empty delivery warning in the future. This can be a Word Doc with a quick summary of what you did or an image file with a screenshot.

Sounds like a good choice. CS should be able to adjust your stats so it doesn't affect your order completion rate - the buyer didn't provide everything that you needed to complete the order and was asking for something outside of the scope of the order.

This is a great option! It's better to do this as soon as possible so that the buyer is aware. Another alternative to pausing your gigs or going out-of-office is to update your gig packages so that there's plenty of time to complete your gigs (when I was busy I put 14-day deliveries on all of my gig packages and removed the option to expedite the orders).

You can request a cancelation through the Resolution Center, explaining to the buyer that they have not provided you with the information needed to complete their project. You can always create a new order when the buyer is ready with the correct files. As long as the buyer places a new order within 2 weeks, the cancelation will not affect your order completion rate. CS can't change your stats on a late delivery, but they can for canceled orders. I believe the orders would have to be canceled before they go into late status. When I had a non-responsive buyer, I have had CS help me push through a cancelation before going into late status.

Hi @rsh_editor - most likely your gig ranking went down because of the 1.7-star review that you received last week, not because of a buyer who never placed an order with you. If this buyer left a negative private review, it can affect your gig's visibility in search for 3-6 months. So read the buyer's comments and make a reply to show that you care. Work on improving your services so that you can keep your buyers happy. This will also help you to improve your visibility in search.