Is it rude to request additional gig orders when they haven't requested enough?

[bjw929]

I have done a few data entry gigs for $5. which over exceeded the time I posted on my gig (2 hours per gig ordered), maybe its me and I don’t go as fast as others but when I gather specific information for an entire city for someone (took me 7 days), the other order I entered additional information on each line in several different files that totaled over 700 lines (took me almost 4 hours). Maybe I put to much effort to get all the information for them for the city request, but it ended up being reported for being seriously late. They even sent me a message saying how wonderful it was and how they want to find out how to pay more for it, but never heard any more about it.

Is it rude of us sellers to request the additional gig orders? how does one request it? or do we just eat the difference and keep giving more?

[freelancemm]

Well, I usually do a time estimate on a per client basis. If I feel that the work will exceed the normal time investment I inquire into extra ordering. If you feel when you first start an order it’s going to potentially exceed the time investment, try recommending an ordering of the extra before the order starts. I used to offer research work and most people are pretty picky on what they want to spend, by default I almost always made them order the extra as a lot of times the order exceeded the initial $5 time investment. You could consider doing that, as well as maybe offering unique requests via extras. For example a “simple research work” could be $20, and you could set a more complicated research work to $40 as an extra. Rather than setting it by time investment, setting it by task may be a good idea.

[mcbernard]

I’m new here (have been reading for hours…) and have a question I think relates to this post.



Trying to figure out what’s good and bad…



If I have a gig that I’ll do for $5 and the buyer contacts me and the job will take more time and they’re willing to pay a little more, do I understand correctly that I can ask them to select more gigs? For example: Have them buy another gig or select a higher quantity under the “basic gig quantity” drop-down?



I’ve seen a lot of sellers with initial services that just couldn’t be done for $5 and a lot of them request the buyer to contact them first. So it seems like there might be up-front negotiations sometimes. Maybe?



Thanks in advance for any feedback…

[catwriter]

Reply to @mcbernard: You have to offer something for $5, a basic product or service. If the buyer wants something that is more than your basic service, then yes, it’s fine to ask for more than $5.

[mcbernard]

So it’s of great importance to be extremely clear about the service - or - be sure to request the buyer contact you before engaging.