How do you select which buyer requests to respond to? [FEEDBACK WANTED]

[twistedweb123]

The buyer requests section (https://www.fiverr.com/users/YOUR_USERNAME/requests) is a great feature to find buyers ready to purchase, just waiting for the right offer. It’s especially popular amongst new sellers and can be a really great tool to help get those orders rolling in.



However, with seller responses limited to 10 per day, you need to be selective and mindful in which requests you respond to.



So, today I’m asking two questions:



1. What current information within a request makes you decide if you submit an offer or not?



2. What information would you like to see added to requests to improve your ability to decide what you should submit to?



For example:

1. Seeing the amount of offers a buyer has already received is vital for me. It’s all about the numbers game. If a buyer has received 100 offers, that’s only a 1/100 chance of being selected, as opposed to if a seller has only received a handful. Personally, I won’t submit on any offer with over 20 previous submissions.
   
   
2. In regards to information I would like to see added. The ability to see a buyer’s request history. i.e. “20 previous requests/15 selected”. If a buyer had a low ratio (like 20 requests and only 1 selection), I probably wouldn’t use my limited submission on them, as they don’t seem to convert.
   
   
   
   I’d love to hear the thoughts of everyone else. Please keep this thread related to improvements on the information displayed/available only - not in regards to improving the section as a whole (such as removing spam).
   
   
   

• Adam

[Guest greenorange]

i try to apply only to the requests with a small number of offers, i frequently refresh the window and i try to be the first to apply. some new sellers are posting their services in this section so my advice for new sellers would be to not apply to those requests and try not to waste the limited 10 offers.

[david388]

Adam -
I previously used to agree with your comment about the numbers game side of things, but now that I’ve posted a few requests myself, I’ve been blown away by the dozens of Seller responses I received from Sellers that were poorly-written (Hello Dear, you place order now thanks). As a result, despite having 20 or 30 offers, there were really only one or two that I even considered. So in your case (or the case of anyone reading this), I actually think the numbers of existing offers shouldn’t be as daunting as they seem.

David

[zahirahmed]

great advice

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @david388

Great feedback David. Would you say a ‘reject’ option from the buyer’s side could be beneficial?

So, say you receive 20 offers but 10 are not appropriate, you could reject those 10 and it either shows as only 10 offers received to the sellers, or 20 offers, 10 rejected (to give us a better indication of valid offers received)?

Adam

[emmybeks]

I think there is nothing wrong applying even if there are over 70 or 80 offers. Your package and the message you attached in your application matters. Despite the over 80 offers, yours could win the prize.

[renflowergrapx]

Hi, There is something not clear when a buyer does submit a request. I think there should be the way to leave the category-restriction.

I mean:
Sometimes i see a good request, about drawings, maybe something that i’m interested to. When i go to apply my proposal to make that work, i cant select a gig because maybe the buyer is asking for a design in music-video-fun or whatever that is not related to his/her request!
This make me feel like a spammer if i go to propos myself privately cause of this error of comunication!

What you all think about this?
You had the same experience?

[renflowergrapx]

• ALSO -

  3/7 of offers are sellers promoting themselves… It should be cool to make a second wall.

  One for who is looking for a work, and a wall to make visible short messages of sellers. Maybe with a limit of 3 announcements per day?

[renflowergrapx]

Reply to @twistedweb123: this could work, I think. Imagine to apply like a negative feedback everytime you are rejected. Maybe this could be a way to reduce spams, i talk of those members who just hit “offer” fishing in the deck!

[renflowergrapx]

Reply to @renflowergrapx: in brief, if a seller will receive tot time a “red allert” this one wouldn’t be able to offer for a little period, maybe.

[renflowergrapx]

Reply to @emmybeks: Good way to approach life. That’s the spirit. I do apply even if I see 700 preceding, if i’d really love to do that work! 😃 Is not only about money, it is to find the right project, where you can learn from the buyer and build a good partnership inside fiverr.

[pfpgogo]

Things that make me submit an offer:

• The request matches my gigs exactly.
• The request indicates ongoing work rather than a one-shot deal.

Things that make me not submit an offer:

• There have been too many already. I almost never get a response once there are already a few dozen offers posted. It's a waste. The only exception I make is if the request is for what I enjoy most and specialize in (like recoloring/fashion retouching). Then I'll submit regardless of the number of offers already shown.
• The buyer indicates having already dealt with multiple sellers unsuccessfully or otherwise sounds bitter (e.g. "Is there anyone on here who's ACTUALLY professional? I need this done and keep getting crap!!!!!!").
• The buyer states their pay in the request and I'm not interested in doing that much work for so little.

Things I’d like to see added:

• A separate budget field so they can indicate how much they're looking to spend.
• A separate turnaround field so they can indicate how quickly they want it done (e.g. due date).

Thanks!

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[julipalmer7]

Good points @pfpgogo!

[seofanatics]

Buyers’ Request feature is messed up completely and doesn’t yield results like before. Honestly Fiverr team seems to be comfortable with the way sellers are abusing the section, which could be the reason why they are closing threads that talk about the abuse. To me, nearly 60% of requests are now submitted by sellers, which is one of the major reasons why most submitted offers yielded nothing. The funniest part of it is that sellers who doesn’t have gigs are also submitting requests. I have seen a couple of new sellers who doesn’t set up gigs, yet spam “Buyers’ Request Section” with self promotion. This is really bad and makes things difficult if you’re trying to attract new buyers.

[theguestpost]

I only sent request to those which meets my gig requirements exactly as they are seeking. However, so far I have not received a single order from that section after sending about 30+ queries, as there is a competition among other sellers.

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @renflowergrapx:

I think this issue has now been addressed with the new released function on the buyer requestes: http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/70672/new-feature-now-you-can-send-custom-offers-in-buyer-requests

Regards,
Adam

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[twistedweb123]

Reply to @renflowergrapx: Personally, I wouldn’t give the seller a negative mark on their account for being rejected in this format. Being rejected is probably ‘punishment’ enough. You need to bear in mind, not all rejections are because the submission is spam, it just may be a gig that the seller believes isn’t the quality they want.

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @pfpgogo: Great feedback! Thank you

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @seofanatics

Hello seofanatics,

Please refer to my original thread:

“I’d love to hear the thoughts of everyone else. Please keep this thread related to improvements on the information displayed/available only - not in regards to improving the section as a whole (such as removing spam).”

Everyone, including Fiverr, is well aware of the issues/abuse within the current buyer requests section. If you would like to comment on that matter, please do so inside the appropriate open discussion: http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/68240/report-feature-for-misuse-of-buyer-requests-active-discussion/p1

The idea of this post is to collect feedback on other parts of the feature, things we haven’t already talked about.

In regards to “Fiverr team seems to be comfortable with the way sellers are abusing the section, which could be the reason why they are closing threads that talk about the abuse.” We (moderators who are sellers just like you) are closing all duplicate threads as already outlined within the forum do’s and dont’s. The active discussion is not closed and should be where all talk on the matter should be. If anything, as a group you would be far more effective getting your point across as a large collection within one thread as opposed to hundreds of threads with no replies.

[renflowergrapx]

Reply to @twistedweb123: I was more talking about some sellers that does reply and introducing theirself in a very rude way to some request. Ive been requesting on that dashboard too, so i wonder if sometimes there will come some idea to manage this as well! =) Thank you for sharing your opinions!
Ren

[waleed_malik677]

i try to apply only to the requests with a small number of offers, and the request which exactly match with my gigs.

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[iffatnafees]

hello i want tips that how i increase my buyers? i send offers to the buyer request which is exactly matches to my gig and some time i know the work. but still no best result i got.

[shadezyel]

I apply only on those requests that I find very attractive and feel that I am the right man for the job. If not, I will not click on it just for the sake of clicking on it.

Simply put, I don’t like working on projects that I don’t consider 100% to be for me. Challenges are always welcome, but when they come from the customer to me, not the opposite.

[emasonwrites]

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned above or is even really applicable to this discussion, but features I’d most like to see are:

A “report spam” feature (I know this has been suggested above)
A feature so that when a buyer messages you or buys your gig after you submit and offer, the original request and the offer you submitted show up either on the order page or in your messages thread.

[emasonwrites]

Reply to @iffatnafees: There are about 6,577 posts on this topic in the “Tips for Sellers” section of the forum. That’s probably your best bet for finding actionable tips for getting more sales.