Custom order was accepted: What are next steps?

[misterpenguin]

I’m a first time seller, and I have a buyer who asked me to make a video. I created a custom order and sent it to him.
He replied to me that my terms were OK, and asked if he could pay a deposit and the rest on completion.
I’m not clear on how this works. Here are my questions:

1. How do I get him to officially accept the offer so it shows on my dashboard? All he did was reply to my message that it was OK.
2. How do I invoice him for the deposit payment, and then again for the subsequent payments?
3. How do I get paid? I followed the instructions to try to set up Paypal but it’s grayed out.

If someone can point me to anywhere in the FAQ that these questions are answered I’d appreciate it. I searched but couldn’t find anything.

[blaisefaint]

Dear Mister Penguin:

I suggest that if the Buyer is not willing to pay in advance, you do not have a meeting of the minds.

Fiverr Forum

Warning signs of a potentially troublesome buyer

Have you been conned by a buyer? Just spent 10 hours on what should have been a 1 hour gig? Had to give a refund on finished work just to get rid of an awkward buyer? On Fiverr you don’t want to spend time on difficult customers. Most buyers are...

Reading time: 16 mins ? Likes: 291 ❤

It sounds like you should read the Fiverr Terms of Service: https://www.fiverr.com/terms_of_service

I don’t believe this transaction will be worthwhile for you. I strongly suggest you contact Customer Support to ask for their guidance. support.fiverr.com

Good luck,
Blaise

[misterpenguin]

Dear Mister Penguin:

I suggest that if the Buyer is not willing to pay in advance, you do not have a meeting of the minds.

Fiverr Forum

Warning signs of a potentially troublesome buyer

Have you been conned by a buyer? Just spent 10 hours on what should have been a 1 hour gig? Had to give a refund on finished work just to get rid of an awkward buyer? On Fiverr you don’t want to spend time on difficult customers. Most buyers are...

Reading time: 16 mins ? Likes: 291 ❤

It sounds like you should read the Fiverr Terms of Service: https://www.fiverr.com/terms_of_service

I don’t believe this transaction will be worthwhile for you. I strongly suggest you contact Customer Support to ask for their guidance. support.fiverr.com

Good luck,

Blaise

Blaise, thanks for the reply. The issue is that the deliverable is a custom order video and it’s based on meeting various benchmarks on the way to completion - creating the treatment, making a rough cut, and delivering the final product. Should I create separate offers for each of those steps even though they’re all part of the same overall project?

[blaisefaint]

Dear Mister Penguin:

Do you want to do work for which you will not be paid?

I see no point to begin work on this project until it’s paid for in full, as the Fiverr Gods intended.

If your Buyer agrees to break it into several different jobs, will it be worth it to you knowing that at each stage they might not agree to fund the next stage?

http://blog.fiverr.com/fiverrcast-episode-37-gig-best-practices-transcript/

My take on it is that your trust level with this Buyer is low, and I believe it’s in your best interest to keep it simple.

On the other hand, if you hope to build separate gigs around each piece of this custom gig, then it may be a worthwhile learning experience.

Good luck,
Blaise

http://blog.fiverr.com/custom-offers-taking-business-next-level/

[misterpenguin]

Dear Mister Penguin:

Do you want to do work for which you will not be paid?

I see no point to begin work on this project until it’s paid for in full, as the Fiverr Gods intended.

If your Buyer agrees to break it into several different jobs, will it be worth it to you knowing that at each stage they might not agree to fund the next stage?

http://blog.fiverr.com/fiverrcast-episode-37-gig-best-practices-transcript/

My take on it is that your trust level with this Buyer is low, and I believe it’s in your best interest to keep it simple.

On the other hand, if you hope to build separate gigs around each piece of this custom gig, then it may be a worthwhile learning experience.

Good luck,

Blaise

http://blog.fiverr.com/custom-offers-taking-business-next-level/

It’s an expensive (four figures) custom order, and the buyer has committed to it but requested that the payments be broken up. To me, getting a portion of the total in hand and delivering it in segments is worth the risk that he may choose not to finish the project. It doesn’t cost me anything to stop working partway through, and the alternative is that I demand full payment up front and he declines the entire offer.

[blaisefaint]

It’s an expensive (four figures) custom order, and the buyer has committed to it but requested that the payments be broken up. To me, getting a portion of the total in hand and delivering it in segments is worth the risk that he may choose not to finish the project. It doesn’t cost me anything to stop working partway through, and the alternative is that I demand full payment up front and he declines the entire offer.

Dear Mister Penguin:

Sounds like you’re willing to break it up into smaller projects and you’re comfortable with the risks involved.

So, either 1 you make a custom order for each step out of the 1 gig.

Or 2 you create a gig for each step of the process and create a custom order for this particular project for each gig.

1 is the easier way to go, but 2 helps you to establish these piecemeal gigs for the future. Would you rather have 5 reviews for 1 gig from one Buyer, or 1 review for each of 5 different gigs from the one Buyer?

Here’s a quote from one of the Fiverrcast transcripts I cited earlier:

Each Gig that you create on Fiverr should describe one type of service. We see certain sellers creating Gigs and we understand people are ambitious. They want to cram as much as possible into one Gig. So we see suggestions or we see Gig titles like – that says, “I will do anything you want for however amount of money.” I will do this or that, two different services, and that’s – while we understand kind of the why, why a seller would position their service like that, at essence Fiverr is a marketplace for Gigs which are defined tasks. They’re services with a beginning and an end.

How this works at this point is whatever you and your Buyer work out.

That’s the thing about Custom Orders… they’re Custom.

Good luck,

Blaise