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Pick your sellers right


prathibha_md

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Hi Buyers,

Maybe you have heard this before but after facing the same scenario over and over again I thought of posting this. I have been getting gig offers by few Fiverr buyers regarding my gigs, but when I see their messages and check out their profiles they happen to be Fiverr sellers just like me. They have similar gigs as mine but less specific.

In simple terms, they accept gigs beyond their capability and outsource it to other sellers who are qualified in the particular gig they accept. I never undertake gigs from other sellers to make them look good. I pull my own weight. Only thing is maybe you will get the same product delivered once those sellers outsource their work yet if they do not find a qualified seller for the gig you agreed you will end up with a bad delivery.

My advice, Fiver has over millions of gigs and over thousands of sellers so check out their ratings, read their reviews and do a little background check before you process the order,

Wishing you all a great Year ahead!

Prathibha

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I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here? It seems your only point is that buyers should check out a provider before buying a gig, which … fair enough?

To respond to some of your previous paragraph, outsourcing is a perfectly okay business practice. It’s your choice whether to accept work or not. It doesn’t matter if you think your gig description is better than the other seller’s - they got the order, not you, and so it seems the buyer disagrees with you. As far as the buyer is concerned, they shouldn’t need to know if the work is outsourced or done by the seller they bought off, so the risk is on the seller to find another seller they can trust and rely on or their reviews will reflect the results.

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I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here? It seems your only point is that buyers should check out a provider before buying a gig, which … fair enough?

To respond to some of your previous paragraph, outsourcing is a perfectly okay business practice. It’s your choice whether to accept work or not. It doesn’t matter if you think your gig description is better than the other seller’s - they got the order, not you, and so it seems the buyer disagrees with you. As far as the buyer is concerned, they shouldn’t need to know if the work is outsourced or done by the seller they bought off, so the risk is on the seller to find another seller they can trust and rely on or their reviews will reflect the results.

Let me make myself clear. I am not against outsourcing. For example, let say you design logos. But another seller has no clue on logo design create a gig about designs and send an offer for logo design or a buyer place an order, not being able to complete the order the seller look for others who are actually doing that gig. it is not outsourcing but simply taking jobs that they cannot do or complete that is not about the matter of gig description that is putting up a gig description to which they are not qualified of.

If both the sellers are logo designers and one is overbooked outsourcing his/he gigs is totally ok because they both are qualified in the gig they market. What I am talking about is something totally different.

@zubairfb Yes, you totally have the right to accept or decline an order as long as you are qualified for that particular order or you are capable of completing that task you are about to uptake.

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I don’t think any seller outsources his work. Think about it, why would I pay someone else to do my job? That costs me money, and even when I get a $50 order, I don’t have time to hire another seller and wait for him to do my job.

Hiring sellers on Fiverr is easy. Just look at their portfolio samples, and read their reviews.

As for the background check, how exactly do you do that when sellers aren’t allowed to share personal information?

Seriously dude, it’s a $5-$10 order, it’s not a big deal. You order, give instructions, and wait for them to do the job. Then you accept it, demand a modification, or demand a refund. It’s just that simple.

Enough with the “are you available” and “can I see some samples.” If you want to chat, go to the forum.

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@fastcopywriter Actually, some sellers do outsource work, or at least try to (they might also try to get you to reduce your prices, so they would earn more).

Are you speaking from your personal experience or from someone you know? Now, if we’re talking about sellers charging $200 to $500 for a project, it’s a possibility. However, I really doubt it, reputation is everything on Fiverr, who wants to get a bad review because the person you outsourced your gig to did a bad job? Or take this possibility, what if your client demands a refund? Then you’ll have to asked the outsource party to refund you as well. This will create problems.

Let’s look at it this way. I have a woman who works for a real advertising agency, their clients pay her $100 for each radio commercial. She used to hire me for $5, now she hires me for $10. Her agency doesn’t have enough writers, so I pick up the slack. In the end, she’s delivering quality work and her clients have no idea I’m the one writing it. So that type of outsourcing I understand, but a Fiverr seller outsourcing his work? That’s ridiculous. Even if I was getting 100 orders a day, I don’t have time to supervise a bunch of sellers doing my work, it’s a lot easier and faster for me to do it myself.

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Are you speaking from your personal experience or from someone you know? Now, if we’re talking about sellers charging $200 to $500 for a project, it’s a possibility. However, I really doubt it, reputation is everything on Fiverr, who wants to get a bad review because the person you outsourced your gig to did a bad job? Or take this possibility, what if your client demands a refund? Then you’ll have to asked the outsource party to refund you as well. This will create problems.

Let’s look at it this way. I have a woman who works for a real advertising agency, their clients pay her $100 for each radio commercial. She used to hire me for $5, now she hires me for $10. Her agency doesn’t have enough writers, so I pick up the slack. In the end, she’s delivering quality work and her clients have no idea I’m the one writing it. So that type of outsourcing I understand, but a Fiverr seller outsourcing his work? That’s ridiculous. Even if I was getting 100 orders a day, I don’t have time to supervise a bunch of sellers doing my work, it’s a lot easier and faster for me to do it myself.

I agree with @fastcopywriter.

In fact there was another thread on this forum ranting about this exact same perception of being ripped off by sellers who outsource to other sellers. Perhaps the forum mods could merge the two threads for the sake of relevance?

There are two sides to this coin called reselling. Buyers today are quite savvy and everyone who is in business knows the general range of what a certain service costs. If they are paying a sub-contractor more than what the sub-contractor is paying you, it's mostly because they have added value to the package before purchasing content and will add value to it after you provide the content. Typically, Keyword Research (33%) + Content (33%) + Uploading and marketing (33%) There might be aber…

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I agree with @fastcopywriter.

In fact there was another thread on this forum ranting about this exact same perception of being ripped off by sellers who outsource to other sellers. Perhaps the forum mods could merge the two threads for the sake of relevance?

There are two sides to this coin called reselling. Buyers today are quite savvy and everyone who is in business knows the general range of what a certain service costs. If they are paying a sub-contractor more than what the sub-contractor is paying you, it's mostly because they have added value to the package before purchasing content and will add value to it after you provide the content. Typically, Keyword Research (33%) + Content (33%) + Uploading and marketing (33%) There might be aber…

Thanks for the comment. I’ve never seen forum mods merging threads, that might actually hurt the SEO of the site. More articles, means better google results.

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Are you speaking from your personal experience or from someone you know? Now, if we’re talking about sellers charging $200 to $500 for a project, it’s a possibility. However, I really doubt it, reputation is everything on Fiverr, who wants to get a bad review because the person you outsourced your gig to did a bad job? Or take this possibility, what if your client demands a refund? Then you’ll have to asked the outsource party to refund you as well. This will create problems.

Let’s look at it this way. I have a woman who works for a real advertising agency, their clients pay her $100 for each radio commercial. She used to hire me for $5, now she hires me for $10. Her agency doesn’t have enough writers, so I pick up the slack. In the end, she’s delivering quality work and her clients have no idea I’m the one writing it. So that type of outsourcing I understand, but a Fiverr seller outsourcing his work? That’s ridiculous. Even if I was getting 100 orders a day, I don’t have time to supervise a bunch of sellers doing my work, it’s a lot easier and faster for me to do it myself.

Are you speaking from your personal experience or from someone you know?

Personal experience. Some sellers wanted to know if they could outsource their work to me (because of this reason or that), and asked if I was willing to do it for $5 (instead of $15).

@silkroute I’m not talking about being ripped off, I’m talking about those who want me to do the work, but don’t want to pay my prices. The solution is simple, of course: I refuse.

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Are you speaking from your personal experience or from someone you know?

Personal experience. Some sellers wanted to know if they could outsource their work to me (because of this reason or that), and asked if I was willing to do it for $5 (instead of $15).

@silkroute I’m not talking about being ripped off, I’m talking about those who want me to do the work, but don’t want to pay my prices. The solution is simple, of course: I refuse.

That’s interesting. I wonder how much they were getting paid for it? Let’s do the math.

I get a $15 order ($12 after Fiverr’s 20%)

I hire you for $5.

That means my profit will be $7.

Now, if I was getting paid $50 and I could hire you for $5, maybe it makes sense to outsource, but like I said, it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth.

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Are you speaking from your personal experience or from someone you know?

Personal experience. Some sellers wanted to know if they could outsource their work to me (because of this reason or that), and asked if I was willing to do it for $5 (instead of $15).

@silkroute I’m not talking about being ripped off, I’m talking about those who want me to do the work, but don’t want to pay my prices. The solution is simple, of course: I refuse.

Rejecting work which does not compensate for our efforts is the naturally logical thing to do, it is still mutually exclusive to what happens to the final work after it is delivered (or whether it gets resold at a higher rate). Reselling has nothing to do with us freelancers demanding the remuneration that we deserve. It’s a completely orthogonal issue.

If you are not being paid what your work deserves, then that is one issue. (It needs to be resolved on its own merits)

If some sub-contractor is being paid more for doing the same, then that is a separate issue. (I still insist that he is not being paid ‘for the same work’. He is being rewarded for hustling and bringing in the sales)

Almost none of my gigs use ‘gig packages’, and almost none of my sales are below 35$ per gig. If the work was not worth what I demand, they would be paying 5$ to someone else. As long as I am paid what I think it is worth, I do not bother whether they resell it or use it for themselves. Some of my clients have indeed been web development agencies, but I never bother myself over how much they might be making off my code. I get paid what I ask, I get raving reviews, and the same buyer comes back again for repeat sales. I am only 2 months old, I have only 25 sales to my name and already received tips from 4 people who have become repeat customers after falling in love with the value that I offer. So, here is a case of someone paying more than what I asked.

asked if I was willing to do it for $5 (instead of $15).

want me to do the work, but don’t want to pay my prices.

I don’t know why the sub-contractor revealed how much they were being paid for the gig by their buyer, instead of simply working out an arrangement which is acceptable to both of you and has nothing to do with the other buyer. If you negotiate well and make a value proposition which you are confident no other seller would be able to match, you can always command higher prices. Everyone has their USP, just find yours and wear it like a badge. I am mindful of the fact that all a buyer needs to do if they find my quote too high is to use the search bar to find someone else to do it for 5$, but the fact that no one on Fiverr does complicated programming projects makes them see value in my proposition. Make a value proposition and raise your prices, as @emmaki always keeps saying.

The solution is simple, of course: I refuse.

Or, you could hustle and justify the value that you offer.

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That’s interesting. I wonder how much they were getting paid for it? Let’s do the math.

I get a $15 order ($12 after Fiverr’s 20%)

I hire you for $5.

That means my profit will be $7.

Now, if I was getting paid $50 and I could hire you for $5, maybe it makes sense to outsource, but like I said, it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth.

Now, if I was getting paid $50 and I could hire you for $5, maybe it makes sense to outsource, but like I said, it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth.

It seems that way to me, too. All I’m saying is that it happens.

I don’t know why the sub-contractor revealed how much they were being paid for the gig by their buyer,

I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough. The buyer didn’t reveal how much they get from their buyer (I saw how much they charge on their gig page, but that doesn’t matter now, nor do I care what their buyer gives them). What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

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Now, if I was getting paid $50 and I could hire you for $5, maybe it makes sense to outsource, but like I said, it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth.

It seems that way to me, too. All I’m saying is that it happens.

I don’t know why the sub-contractor revealed how much they were being paid for the gig by their buyer,

I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough. The buyer didn’t reveal how much they get from their buyer (I saw how much they charge on their gig page, but that doesn’t matter now, nor do I care what their buyer gives them). What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

I understood that and reaffirm your right to refuse clients.

What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

The above case is clearly an issue of the buyer being stingy. We all get such buyers and we all refuse to work for unfair prices. Reselling or outsourcing as a business practice has nothing to do with this. Sometimes there is an overlap but not necessarily.

A = People not willing to pay fair prices.

B = People who pursue reselling as a business model.

mutually-exclusive-vs-independent-event-thumbnail.jpg.ae292629b2468db9e7ef4174feefc1e2.jpg

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What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

I understood that and reaffirm your right to refuse clients.

What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

The above case is clearly an issue of the buyer being stingy. We all get such buyers and we all refuse to work for unfair prices. Reselling or outsourcing as a business practice has nothing to do with this. Sometimes there is an overlap but not necessarily.

A = People not willing to pay fair prices.

B = People who pursue reselling as a business model.

c382eed90de0c27b35d43a20bd5a381124c7168f.jpg

Reselling or outsourcing as a business practice has nothing to do with this.

Sometimes there is an overlap but not necessarily.

I understand that. That’s why I said “they might also try to get you to reduce your prices, so they would earn more.”

Again, I apologize for any confusion.

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I also had a person who did that. She was reselling my gig. Basically just copied everything in my gig and the changed the pricing while I sell at 30$ she was selling at 50$. When she got a client she would forward the work to me to complete at 30$… She did not even care to check if the work was done correctly, when I would submit the final work she would forward it to the client without double checking… When I found out what she was doing I politely asked her if she was reselling my gig or she was the main buyer, she said she was the main buyer and was buying from me and was using the output for personal use… One day I cancelled/ refused to do the work on checking she had a pending order. She decided to keep on ordering after I cancel. So I just waited to the clock to almost hit zero then I contacted cs and they cancelled the order on my behalf… She contacted me stating that I have left her in a big mess and that one of her clients has cancelled the contract they had…

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Reselling or outsourcing as a business practice has nothing to do with this.

Sometimes there is an overlap but not necessarily.

I understand that. That’s why I said “they might also try to get you to reduce your prices, so they would earn more.”

Again, I apologize for any confusion.

Got it.

Generally speaking there are a large number of people who want to rip off freelancers, a smaller section of them are resellers, and an even smaller section of them are able to continue to successfully and consistently do it for long periods of time. It is a minority within a minority, but the attention they are getting is disproportionate to its actual occurance. I’m not speaking about just your posts, all of which I agree with, but there are at least 4 other threads and many people within each of those threads raising this exact same concern while the occurrence of someone running a profitable business from pure reselling and no value addition is actually infinitesimal. I assume a lot of Fiverr work actually is outsourced work from bigger agencies or freelance contracts trying to break down the work into small bits and getting many people to do it. We have a vested interest in letting it continue. It would hurt business if reselling is looked at in a negative light.

Buyers trying to shortchange freelancers is a widescale and legit problem, no disagreement about it. But I do not think that reselling as a business model provides any extra impetus to people who already want to cheat. My only contention is limited to the context in which reselling is being linked to stingy buyers trying to ripoff sellers.

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Now, if I was getting paid $50 and I could hire you for $5, maybe it makes sense to outsource, but like I said, it seems to be more trouble than it’s worth.

It seems that way to me, too. All I’m saying is that it happens.

I don’t know why the sub-contractor revealed how much they were being paid for the gig by their buyer,

I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough. The buyer didn’t reveal how much they get from their buyer (I saw how much they charge on their gig page, but that doesn’t matter now, nor do I care what their buyer gives them). What I’m saying is that I charge $15 for the work they wanted me to do, and they wanted me to do it for $5.

I understand. Personally, I never lower my prices for anyone. I told a buyer, “Sorry, my name is not Walmart, I don’t do discounts.”

Ironically, I did lower my prices for a few of my gigs because this December has been horrible for my sales. If my base price is $10 and I don’t get a single order, I’m losing money. But if I charge $5 and get 5 orders, I’m making money, and some buyers might order more gigs extras than they usually do.

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I was once Outsourced. The seller had an order for $60 , my gig was offering the same package for $30. The seller trusted my work and i delivered Excellent Quality for him. He had 7 orders in Queue ,thats why he outsourced ( thats what he told me) .

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From personal experience and knowledge - there’s a lot of outsourcing and reselling in translation. This is a statement of facts, confirming what catwriter wrote for my category, no moral judgement.

Actually, I don’t see so much of a problem here for the seller, if both seller and reseller do some work and get some money, fine, if the reseller is upfront about it and the seller has the choice to accept or decline, perfect, but, depending on the kind of work being outsourced, I do see a problem for some buyers, though that might be due to some of the kind of work I do specifically and not affect most of the gigs bought and sold on fiverr, neither most of the translation gigs.

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Is this really a thing? I had someone offer to do my jobs for me for a lower rate than I charge, but it looked like spamming to me. Besides, my gig is a writing gig and this person clearly did not write English well at all.

As a buyer, I don’t care who does it as long as it’s done well and worth the price. As a seller, I want to do my own work, not entrust it to someone I don’t know.

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Is this really a thing? I had someone offer to do my jobs for me for a lower rate than I charge, but it looked like spamming to me. Besides, my gig is a writing gig and this person clearly did not write English well at all.

As a buyer, I don’t care who does it as long as it’s done well and worth the price. As a seller, I want to do my own work, not entrust it to someone I don’t know.

Exactly my point how ca you trust the quality with the outsourced work!

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