What is Fiverr Doing About This? [ARCHIVED]

[seofanatics]

I do understand that Fiverr team is always working to make the platform the best, however, some issues might be of greater importance than cosmetics improvements. Fiverr has really helped me, and i must give kudos to them for making things easy for everyone.

I do not have much orders since few months, but i don’t think the fault is from Fiverr, because i have been busy with my offline business, which makes it hard for me to respond fast. However, i have noticed that many sellers are complaining about low sales despite all their promotional efforts.

Since everyone is complaining, and my sales is also reduced, i decided to get the overview of Fiverr’s traffic status and what i saw was not encouraging at all. The quality of traffic to the site is declining, and Indians seems to be dominating the site. I am not saying that the traffic from India is of bad quality, however, the website’s bounce rate clearly shows that the traffic quality is not like it used to be.

In the attachments, Fiverr’s global traffic rank has declined, and the most visitors come from India. The bounce rate has increased by 2%, and the daily pageviews has declined by 3.43%.

22.5% visitors are from India
12.7% from USA
8.1% from Pakistan
Combination of Canada and UK is 7.3%

Using my account as a case study , less than 3% of my clients are from Asia. If this is the same for everyone, it means that most of the visitors from the region are sellers.

THE EFFECTS

Many sellers from other regions might experience no sales because most sellers from Asian countries are willing to do more for less.

Fiverr’s revenue might also go down due to sellers offering more for less. For instance, a seller who desperately accept to design a complete website for $20 is not only spoiling business for other web developers, but reducing Fiverr’s profit.

MY TAKE

Fiverr should review their promotional methods and pay more attention to countries with more buyers.

[coolandcute]

You are making some very good points. The top countries for traffic used to be the USA and the UK. I am also concerned as India being the number one country for traffic to Fiverr as it is not a country I have ever made a sale to since being on here. I am a seller and buyer. But if there are more sellers that never buy gigs on here that would mean a lot less revenue for Fiverr and less potential sales for sellers.

[eoinfinnegan]

First off, I think you may be mistaken on some of your research and your assumptions based on the figures you got from a quick alexa search.

Secondly, your fear of an open capitalist market is odd considering you live in the “poster boy” country for capitalism. If someone can do what you do for less - then learn to do it better. Or change to something else.

Alexa traffic rank is by no means a surefire measure of traffic. It ranks based on a combination of visitors and pageviews, not purely on visitors. Theoretically, if Fiverr (or anyone) improves their site layout, search algorithm or something else to make it easier to use the site, then their alexa rank could go down as people find what they are looking for quicker.
You sell SEO related stuff, the chances of you being able to sell that to an Indian person in India is 0. If not less. Using your stats as a barometer of how much India contributes to Fiverr sales is a bit like judging the usefulness of the sun based on its effects on snowmen.
If everyone is the same as me, then India generates more sales on the site than Canada, Australia, 97% of Africa, France, the Middle East, Latin and South America bar Brazil, and the rest of Asia with the exception of South Korea. But then again, almost 20% of my sales have come from eastern Europe which doesn’t feature in Alexa’s top 5.
India is getting more and more online and it is showing in most sites globally, in case you didn’t know, there is quite a few people in India. If 1% of their population checks out a site in any given YEAR, it makes a hell of a difference to the site stats. Get over it. Asking what Fiverr is going to do to stop Indian people from selling cheaper than you is crazy. Why should you (or I) be protected in a worldwide market?
This is kinda like when everyone realized that in China, you can make stuff for really, really cheap, it was the end of the world - except it wasn’t. I may sound harsh on you but the reality is that what you have said here can be summarized roughly to this:
“I am not making sales because someone else is doing it cheaper. It may be better or worse, I can’t judge that - I just know it’s cheaper. Can the powers that be please change everything to ensure that I get my sales figures back up because I deserve to make sales more than those guys.”

[cyaxrex]

Nice bit of research! Having been freelancing for three years, I’ve noticed huge influxes of Indian sellers on a lot of freelancing platforms. Moreover, on biding based platforms, it often becomes useless bidding for projects due to the fact that India is always online and will do whatever anyone wants for less. In fact, this is why I found Fiverr so attractive in the beginning.

As for how things will pan out in the long term? People (buyers) are only going to use Fiverr for as long as they can get real quality service. The danger then, to both Fiverr and Fiverr sellers is that if there is ever an overall drop in the quality of service, Fiverr might start getting a bad reputation and that reputation might snowball.

Moreover, in this regard, as well as the Amazon fake reviews scandal that hit headlines around the world recently, I know of two freelancing platforms which don’t actually let people with IP addresses in certain countries register as sellers, the premise being that these platforms are simply not targeting their services at clients/buyers in those countries.

Now of course, this can be regarded as very un-PC. But if I’m a business which has had a bad experience trying to find a decent seller on Fiverr, platforms where I can be assured of more local, quality talent suddenly have my undivided attention.

Anyway, all we as sellers/freelancers can do is keep on delivering real quality services and diversify as much as possible outside Fiverr.

[emmaki]

---

These “Indian people are dreadful low-quality worker” posts are really quite boring, even when dressed up with anecdotal research (which is incomplete in any case–I see you didn’t pay for the upgrade! Not that I blame you…). There are bad workers in every country. Supply and demand fluctuates. Sink or swim. Other business blurb. What should Fiverr do about this? Boot off an entire subcontinent because some sellers found their sales declined in December?

I wouldn’t worry about the promotional aspect of Fiverr. They’ve got a crapload of metrics and data we don’t, and are in a good position to grow the business–and audience in 2016. After all, a major competitor just bit the dust (or merged, whatever). Add a healthy investment round from Nov 2015 and I expect to see some changes. Hopefully changes that we actually want…

But you can cling to your sample size of one, forum grumblings, and free Alexa graphs and say “something must be done about Johnny Foreigner! I’ll eat his curry, but he ought know his place!”

I have had some Indian and Pakistani buyers and haven’t had any issues with them. In fact, virtually all of my problem buyers come from the United States of Entitlement. I think we should kick the yanks off for being cheap! Bloody uppity colonials.

[wpfalcon]

(Just edited my reply)

LOL, I’m from India & what are you expecting from a country with 1.2 billion population. We’re everywhere 😉

Btw, Fiverr.com is not just for selected countries or groups. Here is the reason why most Indians cannot purchase a gig from Fiverr:

Fiverr is using Paypal as a payment gateway & If you’re Indian than paypal funds can’t be use to buy goods or services and must be transferred to our bank account in India within 7 days due to strict RBI policy (Reserve Bank of India)

We have to link or add a credit card to purchase anything from Fiverr. I know that everyone in america have a credit card, But most Indians don’t have a credit card we’re still using debit cards. Most Indian debit cards are not accepted by Paypal.

I think that’s why Indian buyers are less & sellers increasing day by day…

You’re right, We Indians are dominating all popular sites & even leading all big tech companies 😉

Some Companies:
Google CEO - Sunder Pichai
Microsoft CEO - Satya Nadella

[misscrystal]

So this is suggesting that fiverr ban India? As the above post states, India is the second most populous country in the world. Fiverr makes a lot of money from Indian sellers so obviously they are not going to ban them. I’m sure fiverr knows what it is doing well enough to not need to start banning countries. The guy in charge of this site seems pretty smart to me.

[seofanatics]

Your interpretation of the original message is different, and i think you got it wrong.
You said If someone can do what you do for less – then learn to do it better. Or change to something else. So if i was a web developer who lives in the USA, and someone from Mexico is spoiling the market by selling his/her service cheap, i should go learn graphics design, right? Or i should contact the buyers that the quality they are getting from the seller is low compared to mine? WRONG! there’s difference between selling something cheap and spoiling the market. I do not discriminate in my message, and i don’t expect anyone to.

Again, you said if Fiverr (or anyone) improves their site layout, search algorithm or something else to make it easier to use the site, then their alexa rank could go down as people find what they are looking for quicker. but i can tell you from experience that Fiverr today is more complex than it was in 2014. Now i expect people to spend more time on Fiverr than before. Here are my reasons:

1. Buying a gig now requires more steps than before. I think it requires 4 steps now, compared to a single click before.
2. When viewing a gig, fiverr automatically shows similar gigs in the bottom, which can encourage users to click more. However, it wasn’t like that in 2014.
3. Users have more features to interact with than before. For instance, news, community discussions, and the rest.
4. Creating gigs now take more time.

When you combine all these together people are supposed to spend more time on the site, not less.

You sell SEO related stuff, the chances of you being able to sell that to an Indian person in India is 0. you need to check my gigs once more.

Asking what Fiverr is going to do to stop Indian people from selling cheaper than you is crazy. Why should you (or I) be protected in a worldwide market? get it right at worst, i am not asking fiverr to do anything as regards what people charge, rather suggesting for them to channel their promotion towards buyers, maybe by advertising on professional sites.

I may sound harsh on you but the reality is that what you have said here can be summarized roughly to this: you’re not, because i understand how you reason.

“I am not making sales because someone else is doing it cheaper. It may be better or worse, I can’t judge that – I just know it’s cheaper. Can the powers that be please change everything to ensure that I get my sales figures back up because I deserve to make sales more than those guys.” hell no, i don’t reason that way. even if i don’t have too many orders, the little i get are worth more than having 100 of 5 dollars jobs.

I hope that clarifies the whole thing.

[seofanatics]

You got it wrong. So this is suggesting that fiverr ban India? That is the way you understand it. The suggestion is for Fiverr to target more buyers.

[seofanatics]

The real effects of being cheap is bad, if obviously you know you’re cheap but desperate to get sales. Buyers who exploit sellers do not come here to tell the whole truth, rather say sellers deliver poor services. Again, such buyer will not tell people outside of fiverr that “seller A” is bad, but Fiverr.

[cyaxrex]

I think it is my referring to some other platforms which only accept sellers from certain countries which has been interpreted as “so this is suggesting that Fiverr ban India?”

You are right in that Fiverr should be targeting more buyers. In this regard then, I might be wrong but I think Fiverr has a televised commercial or two in the U.S?

From a seller and previous business perspective though, all we as sellers can do to overcome any amount of competition is focus on quality and diversification. When I started freelancing in late 2012, I hated having slow days (or weeks) when it came to orders. Moreover, don’t get me wrong, they still happen but I suppose the trick for anyone is to simply never rely on one site to send you work, as when you do you are at the mercy of that site, whether it is Fiverr or anywhere.

[misscrystal]

What exactly are you suggesting that fiverr do that it is not doing now? Give suggestions of actions fiverr needs to take.

[cyaxrex]

Nothing. I’m not in a place to suggest what Fiverr should or shouldn’t do. My suggestion is that sellers of any service should simply focus on quality and diversification.

[misscrystal]

Hi, I was asking this person:
seofanatics
2nd Jan 2016 at 10:40 PM
"You got it wrong. So this is suggesting that fiverr ban India? That is the way you understand it. The suggestion is for Fiverr to target more buyers."

How exactly does he suggest fiverr do that?

[misscrystal]

This needs to be moved to the Rants section instead of the Tips for Buyers section.

[seofanatics]

When i joined Fiverr new sellers cannot have gig extras, and there was nothing like custom offer. During those period many people thought that they can’t get more from Fiver because $5 cannot deliver good quality. That mindset alone have deterred many people, and they still have the same thought till now. Unfortunately, I don’t know if there’s a way to change that belief. I have been on LinkedIn and some other professional sites for some time and i have not been seeing Fiverr’s ad on those sites (maybe i have not take notice of them). What do you think about that?

[eoinfinnegan]

Actually, your explanations say some very different things to the original post. I got the meaning right but I don’t think you like to be called out on it.

1. It is a free market, if someone does the same thing, ie same QUALITY of product - not just the same idea then it is up to you to adapt however you can.

2. Your original post only quotes Alexa stats from three months ago to now, why are you now talking about 2014 for?

3. 172 out of 199 of your reviews are for gigs with SEO or search engine optimized in the title…

4. The title of the post is "What is Fiverr doing about this?"
   Number one of the two effects that you mention is “Many sellers from other regions might experience no sales because most sellers from Asian countries are willing to do more for less.” If fact, the whole post is putting the entire blame for a lack of sales on cheap Indian labor. The last line saying Fiverr should target countries with more buyers ie. get away from India - How about they target the top earning 1% of India, and bring in 120 million buyers?

5. You clearly don’t.

6. I stick to what what I said there, your answer doesn’t address the point.

Your point was perfectly clear in the original post which is why I responded. You have said nothing that makes me think I picked it up wrong as you are inferring in your response.

I hope you actually understand my points now.

[emmaki]

I don’t disagree with you on this point, although $5 goes a lot further in developing countries. I saw a comment somewhere else on these forums from a Filipino who said that $5 could feed their family for 3 days, so clearly $5 isn’t as cheap as it feels to those of us living in developed economies. That said, if their work is good enough, then they can, in a global marketplace, get much better money.

As for awful buyers, they will always exist. They’re the loud minority. The problem here is that you can’t pre-vet. You mention elsewhere that Fiverr is getting more complex–an invariable result of a maturing platform–but in order to get those new awesome buyers in, you still need to make it easy. Vetting is a step that would put a lot of people off. As far as risk management goes, you’re better off letting everyone in and then rooting out the bad apples (on both sides).

One final point: i see plenty of sellers (from all over!) advocating advertising their gigs on social media. This is essentially advertising Fiverr and their competition. I warn against it for those reasons, but Fiverr doesn’t necessarily need to refocus its marketing strategy.

Personally, I think some of Fiverr’s processes should be reviewed in order to attract “better” sellers. Take the 20% cut, for example. At $5-$50, it’s OK, but if you have a $500 gig, does the cut need to be 20%? There could be a scaled %. e.g. orders over $100 are charged at 10%, orders over $1000 at 5%. The chunk is worth it in my view, since it’s a platform that gifts you with work without the tedious bidding process, but it does need refinement.

Plus, you know, Fiverr’s always going to sound cheap to the western ear. It’s literally the place people go to to get rock bottom prices on a variety of services. The thing that amazes me is the level of entitlement that some buyers come with.

[misscrystal]

Fiverr has gig packages now where sellers can set higher prices. Fiverr is responsive. Millions of people know they can find what they want including high quality on fiverr.

I thought we were talking about India and attracting more American buyers and less Indian sellers.

[seofanatics]

I love your response, however some sellers know that they are cheap, which is the reason why they rush to deliver poor services.

[seofanatics]

Final lines: Fiverr should review their promotional methods and pay more attention to countries with more buyers. this is not suggesting that they should ignore Asian countries whatsoever. The reason for promotion is to get more buyers and make more money. If they get more sellers and fewer buyers, the cost of maintaining the company will increase and the revenue will go down.

[emmaki]

In which case they will be rooted out as being foolish short-term thinkers or just plain scammers. $5 is a great price point for more moderate people to think “huh, well, I only lost $5, nbd”. There’s really not much Fiverr can do to moderate that, I don’t think. Maybe start “premium Fiverr” where sellers have to pay $10 a month (or whatever) to access premium features etc would help. Although that in itself means that the 20% fee would need some change. I can’t see anyone being thrilled about getting milked for a tenerr a month AND getting leeched of 20% on all sales!

[emmaki]

the ***** word was ten nerr. heh.

[emmaki]

Yeah, it really did read like that. I realize that might not have been OPs intention, but if everyone is reading it that way, then…

I still haven’t fiddled about with my gig packages! I did look once and just saw lots of empty boxes to fill in and couldn’t be bothered. One of these days, since I’m sure it’s great. Just… I’m lazy lol.

[seofanatics]

attracting more American buyers and less Indian sellers The reason why India is mentioned is based on sales stats. I don’t think Fiverr is advertising to get more sellers, but buyers. What i was saying is for them to be more focus on encouraging more buyers, not necessarily from America alone. I know for sure that translators and some other services will sell more if Fiverr can capture China.