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Be fair!


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Buyers, this is coming from the heart of an irritated and tired seller.

The following to come are solutions to frustrations i have had to deal with lately.

So as to not delay:


  1. Converse with your sellers before hand.

    Buyers, if a seller clearly states in their description to MESSAGE THEM PRIOR TO PLACING AN ORDER, Please follow the simple request. Sellers are sometimes booked up, dealing with modifications for the very picky buyers and most importantly trying to balance their daily lives. Be it another job or household. BE FAIR! and please be REASONABLE.

    If in the event you DO NOT see that request in the gig description, still send a simple request via inbox asking if they are able to take on your job and question their turnaround. DO NOT ASSUME they can, and more importantly because you need it for a deadline, inconsiderately put a 1 day rush on the order.

    I have had to deal with too many of you as the old year came into the new year. So much so my blood pressure has escalated ridiculously.

  2. If you desire a modification, send a modification request! You cannot assume that once you send an update (through the job or inbox) the seller would be able to make the changes right away. (We are after all trying to do work for other buyers not just you).( Also I dont know about other Sellers, but not all my updates come through, however modification requests i get immediately.) But you then fuss when the order is marked as complete and you didn’t get what you desired. There are certain things built into the system for a purpose, utilize them. Hint [When you request a modification, a job cannot be closed until the modified job has been submitted]


  3. If an order is closed and you did not get the chance to review and make changes, don’t blame anyone but yourself! It is your duty after the job has been submitted to ensure all is up to your satisfaction. Don’t take your dissatisfaction and carry it into the Sellers inbox demanding X,Y and Z/give a horrible review/or more so to Fiverr Support to get a refund AFTER WORK WAS SUBMITTED. Technically when an order is closed a Seller is not required to deal with your work again! IF you failed to respond in the THREE DAY time frame, it’s all on you.

    Now there are some buyers who ask nicely to make the changes, and there are sellers who would nicely comply (myself being one, hence im taken advantage of). But don’t over do the foolishness. If in the event you are going to be away, simply place a modification request and explain to the seller the situation. When you return you both can work from there.


  4. DO NOT CREATE AN ORDER FOR $5 expecting $100 worth of work. There are extras on most sellers’ page. If you desire certain perks, do the honest thing and pay for it! Do not be dishonest, then get upset when some sellers refuse to feed your dishonesty. If in the event you truly did not know, then feel free to kindly ask if the seller would be interested in providing whatever extras and PAY FOR IT!


  5. LEAVE A REVIEW! Most buyers tend to leave reviews when they are heated/upset/disappointed. Other than that, they take the work and go. the least you can do is provide the seller with a review! Despite how long you may deem the process to be, we would have taken longer working for you/patiently modifying your work. Leave your hardworking sellers a review. We’ve earned it! Don’t you say? Also do the community a favor and let them know who are the go to’s and the ones you should run far from.



    To close, every Seller is as different as is every buyer; But as we all would like to be treated fairly, when you have the opportunity to show forth kindness and fairness, PLEASE DO SO!



    In the past few days i have gotten so sick of buyers (excluding from my return buyers) That i actually contemplated quitting fiverr. Graphic Design is my passion, but my health is more important. I have held a great deal in and i really hope this does not fall on blind eyes! There are sellers out there who are really trying to make you happy. Because you have had bad experiences with the site, or more so have had a bad day, doesn’t mean good sellers deserve nor desire to feel the brunt of it.



    BE FAIR BUYERS!
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You make valid points. Now let me make a couple of suggestions for the sellers:


  1. Put your account on hold if you are not going to respond to a quote request. That way we will know you are unavailable so we can check other sellers.

  2. Most of us understand that Fiverr is a bargain and that sometimes life (or other buyers) eat up some of your time. If you are running late on our job, please take just a moment to respond to us when we ask 4 or 5 days after your deadline, what the status is of our order. I think most of us want good sales. Communication by both parties is key to achieving that goal.


  3. Please don’t accept my order and then 3 or 4 days later decide it’s too much work. If it’s too much work, be honest at the start - we will understand and go find someone who can do it.



    These suggestions are based on the few interactions I have had so far on Fiverr. To be honest, I haven’t been real impressed with most of the sellers I have contacted. Seems like communication here is a one way street most of the time.
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Both posts above have good points. I would like to respond to liquorlist #3 above. As a seller, I take on every job with good intentions of completing them but some things are out of my control. Lets say I get 3 orders in one day. Lets call them order 1, order 2, and order 3. Each order has a 6 day deadline and when I took them on there was no problem with completing all 3 in 6 days.



Order 1 completed in 2 days…Order 2…completed in 2 days…4 days have passed and I’m ready to do order 3 when Order 1 requests a modification – I have to do it or be late. Meanwhile Order 2 also wants a modification. Now I’m up past midnight trying to get the modifications done for order 1 and 2 so I can do order 3, but Order 1 and 2 keep asking for more modifications and I realize I won’t be able to complete order 3 on time.



So what are my options? I don’t want to cancel orders 1 and 2 after hours of work, if not days. Since I did not invest any time in order 3 yet and time is running out to complete order 3, from a business perspective I would cancel order 3.



This could be fixed if fiverr did the following:


  1. When a client asks for a modification more time is added to do the modification, but that isn’t the case. You are stuck with the original due date of the gig.

  2. Fiverr should allow sellers and buyers to adjust the due date. If that was the case, I think most buyers would agree to extend the due date v.s. cancellation but again, Fiverr doesn’t have this feature. Since there is a mutual cancellation feature why can’t Fiverr have a mutual due date extension between buyer and seller.



    Sellers don’t have a crystal ball to foresee if a buyer will request modifications, not only once, but sometimes 2, 3, 4 times. The seller either does the mod or gets a bad rating. Most of the mod requests I do are because of buyer mistakes or suddenly they realize they wanted something different than the original request. After spending 10, 20 or even 30 hours on a gig, cancelling it and not getting paid for the time invested is not a very attractive option. Also buyers hold the rating over seller’s heads so you either do as they ask, or get a bad rating.



    Bottom line, some things are out of the sellers control. As a seller, at times I have to do what I need to do from a business perspective when there are unforeseen circumstances that screws up my schedule.



    I know some here will say “make your gig due date longer” My answer is I tried that and got no orders. When a buyer sees that an average completion date is quite long, they skip it and look for a gig with a shorter completion date.



    Fiverr could fix this problem but I’m not sure they are interested. I sent Fiverr a ticket with a real life scenario like above and their answer was “cancel the gig”
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Reply to @liquorlist: Communication is a big thing for me. Hence i demand it from my buyers.

Your points are well received but you should also be aware, that if a Seller puts his/her account on hold(vacation mode) through the mobile Fiverr App a buyer can still order their gigs.

I have complained to Fiverr about this and nothing has been done as yet. i still do remain hopeful.

I do apologize on behalf of those sellers who made your experiences bad ones, by your points seems like you have been getting them back to back. But i do hope you keep your level of communication solid. You will indeed meet the Seller to give you exactly what you are paying for! 🙂

Cheers mate!

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Reply to @steveeyes: WOW!! smh! i am truly sorry to hear this! But i must agree some buyers instead of compiling their list of modifications they pile them on one by one like they’re the only client! I find it highly and utterly annoying, so much so i enforce how many modifications you can have/let them know of any pending deadlines. Some are really awesome, and others behave like spawns from the underworld. I fight to keep my cool with those.

There are indeed things Buyers take advantage of and Sellers have to feel the brunt of it.

But you have some really great ideas, with the mutual due date extension and added time for modifications! Really wish they would look into these and make them a reality.

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Instead of just cancelling an order (order 3 in your example) wouldn’t it be better to just communicate a brief note to the buyer and give them the option of finding another seller or extending the deadline?



I would find that much more preferable to being ignored when I ask for a status or just having my order cancelled without notice.

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Reply to @jdadvertising: I tried that…I once put in my gig description only one modification but that doesn’t mean the buyer has to comply. As long as there is a modification button, buyers can request a modification as many times as they want and if you don’t do it your options are (1) cancel it or (2) get a bad rating.

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But having said all that, as a buyer, I just would like a little communication.



I sell a LOT of stuff…in the RW, on eBay and on an international website I own and run. I have a personal 24 hour policy on responding to any communication. Do I achieve that 100% ? Heck no. But I work hard at making it happen because I am interested in two things - customer service and return business.



My days are usually 18-20 hours long. Do I expect everyone to be so dedicated? No, but I do expect a response in a semi-timely manner when I’m the one doing the buying. If you have customers asking for too many modifications, let them know there will be an upcharge. If they don’t like it, they can shop elsewhere. Also, is it not possible to put a limit on the number of mods? For five bucks, I wouldn’t even think about asking a seller to make more than one mod and then only if the change was a result of my lack of preparation.

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Reply to @liquorlist: Let me reply to both of your responses.



Fiverr controls the clock, not the buyer or seller so there is no option to extend the the deadline. If you followed the scenario above, most sellers try to complete all gigs. I know I do, but I can’t control how many times a buyer may ask for a modification



From a business perspective, it doesn’t make sense to only take on 2 orders. Like I said, I don’t have a crystal ball. If I limited my orders because something MAY happen, than I my as well close up shop. You can’t control how many gigs are purchased at a time – no such feature. Buyer sees a gig and places the order.



Based on Fiverr’s lack of features to fix this problem, sellers will do what is best for their business and in this case cancelling a gig makes much more sense than limiting orders. Based on your suggestions, problem isn’t solved and you may be happy, but not everyone.

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Reply to @liquorlist: It’s not always that easy. Some buyers are very inconsiderate and dont give you the option to accept their job or not! They just order it and expect you to get the work done! (Worse yet at a 1 day rush) They then come back at their own time (after submission close to deadline) and expect you to bend over backwards and come through your legs to get things modified. They would then unnecessarily nit pick and find a modification for something as small as a full stop, when they could have revised the work thoroughly and stated all that in one message! Not 10 modification requests each for only ONE thing!

So sellers are always at the mercy of buyers! Worse yet when hell sends forth one of its spawns. They would order work, wait till the order closes and then come back and threaten to leave a bad review if you dont fix the work. So at the end of mostly everything the Buyer is left happy. The only thing we can smile for is the finances. Other than that nothing.

We’re lucky if we have a buyer nice enough to grace us with a review. Smh.

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Reply to @liquorlist: I know that I strive to send buyers updates every 24-48 hrs even if just to give them an idea of where their order is. Even so, more than half don’t respond to my updates and they ignore my 1 mod policy and keep asking for freebies. Sellers cannot refuse orders, cannot set a limit on incoming orders, cannot extend the timer’s deadline, and also cannot set any limits on the modification feature.

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Reply to @liquorlist: Let me just say your response is from a buyers perspective. Forget ebay or other places…this is fiverr. Communication isn’t a problem for me so that isn’t the issue.



So please know this is how Fiverr works.



I can tell a buyer I charge for modifications. I could tell a buyer that only one modification is allowed…BUT I CAN PREACH IT FROM THE HIGHEST MOUNTAIN AND A BUYER CAN STILL IGNORE IT.



You are a buyer…when you get your gig delivered there is the big modification button for you to use. No matter what a seller says in his gig description (which most buyers don’t read) you can use the modification button as many times as you want and not pay a penny for a modification even if the seller said in his gig descrption there is limit or a charge for doing modications. When buyers hit the mod button your options are (1) do the mod, (2) cancel it or (3) tell the buyer to take a flying leap and risk getting a bad rating.



Fiverr needs to makes changes allowing buyers and sellers to make changes to the deadline when unforeseen circumstances messes up the schedule. Do this and than everyone would be happy.

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Reply to @jdadvertising: Tried that…been here on fiverr since 2010 and there isn’t too much I haven’t tired. You may find this hard to believe, but things are better for sellers today than it use to be. At one time any cancelltion could destroy your fiverr level. Even if the cancellation was initiated by the buyer, it still counted against the seller. I lost my level 2 twice because of that. But Fiverr changed it so now mutual cancellations is not held against the seller’s level. You have great ideas, so keep doing what works for you. I think every gig has a different twist and what may work for some gigs may not work for others. But believe me, I have told buyers after 2 or 3 mods this is the last one, but that didn’t stop them from asking for more. And i do cancel gigs when a buyer becomes super unreasonable but after investing hours in a gig, my hope is I get paid for the hours invested.



Anyways, good points. Wish you luck.

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Reply to @steveeyes: And my perspective as a buyer should be a seller’s primary interest right? And my perspective is that in my short time on Fiverr, I have seen a near total lack of interest on the part of sellers to communicate well. It’s a fact. If this doesn’t apply to you then don’t burden yourself with it. I’m not saying YOU are not communicative. It stands to reason that any seller on this forum communicating, is interested in communicating.



So take that out of the equation and my complaint stands firm - most of the sellers I have tried to communicate with on this web site need to be doing something else besides selling on Fiverr if they aren’t going to make some attempt to keep their paying customers in the loop.



What I am asking is not unreasonable. All this other jazz is just noise.

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Reply to @liquorlist: I see we are not on the same page or communicating. Communication is not the issue based on your #3 comment above. I stand by my feedback that communication and customer service is not an issue I’m concerned about but the fact some things are just out of both the seller and buyers control.



https://www.fiverr.com/steveeyes/create-a-video-scribe-or-whiteboard-animation?funnel=2015010915435805715651640



The reality is that SOME THINGS ARE OUT OF THE SELLERS CONTROL AND NO MATTER IF YOU GIVE OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER SERVICE, YOU CAN’T CONTROL WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE CONTROL OF.



Fiverr could fix this by allowing the seller and buyer to mutually agree to changing the gig’s deadline date.

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