Fiverr Community Forum

Why cancellations should have zero effect on sellers

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#1

Just a friendly chat.

I personally think cancellation needs some tweaking. In the olden days, sellers could have their reviews removed in exchange for order cancellation. This was a bad method since unscrupulous buyers were blackmailing sellers and bad sellers were refunding to maintain a perfect 5 star rating.

This is no longer the case, so why does cancellation still affect sellers?

Scenerio 1: Technically, if an order is canceled prior to delivery - in most cases, it’s because either:

  • Buyer ordered by mistake
  • Buyer bought the wrong gig
  • Buyer didn’t pay enough
  • Buyer ordered multiple gigs - again by mistake

So, if an order is canceled prior to delivery, there should be ZERO effect on sellers.

Scenerio 2: If the order is canceled after delivery, there is something wrong, in most cases, it’s either:

  • Seller gave stolen/plagiarized/wrong/bad/unusable work
  • Buyer is trying to get away with free work by blackmailing seller

Customer Support should get involved to see if the problem is the buyer or seller. Whoever the scammer is should be banned.

Granted there are probably few cases where it doesn’t fall under the two scenerios but from what I’ve read on this forum, it appears most fall under one or the other.

Thoughts, opinions, agree or disagree. :thinking:

37 Likes
#2

fiverr do not want to loss their 20% commission on any sells…that’s why…they don’t want to cancel any job…

#3

Well said Gina.

The problem they are trying to correct is sellers who agree to cancel and give a refund rather than get a bad review. So these unscrupulous sellers have made it so that ANY cancellation is blamed on the seller.

One rotten tomato, in this case bad sellers, spoils the entire basket of tomatoes.

There were some sellers who always did bad work, knowingly, and gave refunds routinely, knowing that at least a few buyers wouldn’t bother to complain.

10 Likes
#4

That’s why I think no refund after delivery should be implemented. Once the delivery button is hit, the only way to cancel should be through C.S.

11 Likes
#5

I think that’s a perfect solution. :+1:

4 Likes
#6

Seconded!

Perhaps they’ve changed the policy, but I remember a year or two ago that buyers complained about not being able to withdraw refunded money (it was a “shopping credit” that they either had to spend again or not spend at all). Was that ever the case?

If so, refunds only caused the seller to lose money. Fiverr would get their 20% eventually.

7 Likes
#7

I totally agree with that. It’s really irritating that we have to pay for the scenario 1 cancellation on our own expense. Like why can’t we just contact the CS, inform them about the situation & they cancel the order, if it’s a convenient reason, without affecting our statics.That’s just a simple way that might fix the issue.

At least, I would really appreciate it if someone from the Fiverr team talks about this issue & why all cancellations, no matter what it’s reason, affect the seller & his business. It would be a great way to understand their own thinking regarding this topic while they’ll get the opportunity to also know about the issues sellers face on the platform.

It actually reminds me when Casey Neistat invited Robert Kyncl, the Chief Business Officer of YouTube, to his office for a video where Casey could ask any question to Robert regarding what has been happening to Youtube lately & how the creators were affected. Would love if Fiverr do the same.

14 Likes
#8

Right now we can cancel up to 10% of our orders. That’s not unfair. If you need to cancel more then you are either having a particularly difficult time or need to try to find some solution to this problem.

I’m not saying that in all cases having more than 10% cancellations is the seller’s fault. Just that there is a margin of acceptable cancellations we can have right now.

There should be two months allowance before a seller is demoted, not one month, for cancellations to allow for a particularly bad month.

3 Likes
#9

The point is cancellation is happening. Implementing the above won’t affect sales nor 5r’s 20%.

Yes. It still is the case.

I know several sellers who lost a level or came very close to the edge because of this. I don’t see how a seller should be held responsible for Scenario 1.

5 Likes
#10

Are we able to cancel 10% of our orders without our stats being affected? Is this what you mean? :thinking:

#11

It will show on your stats but you won’t be demoted unless you go over 10%.

3 Likes
#12

@gina_riley2 , you’re 500% right.

Clearly, Fiverr doesn’t want any orders cancelled however, just like @sydneymorgan pointed out - refund money stays WITHIN the buyers account and isn’t returned. So Fiverr actually still makes their 20% regardless of what happens. (And if the buyer does end up purchasing something)

7 Likes
#13

Oh yeah. Well my order cancellation rate right now is on 75% :grimacing: So probably 5 cancelled orders = 25% of my orders. 4 of them are cancelled by the scenario 1 situation Gena has provided. I really need to find ways to stop this from happening.

2 Likes
#14

I think it’s terrible that they judge us for our last 60 days every 30 days — so in some cases there’s no time to right the things that have gone wrong!

I wholeheartedly agree. Not going to rehash my entire situation that was discussed in the levels demotion thread, but I feel I was unfairly demoted and that I’ll lose another level in a few weeks because I’m not getting enough work to make back the bad month I had of cancellations last month. They NEED to do something about this but it doesn’t seem like they are listening (also a trend I’ve seen on the site over time). You may have heard what happened with Patreon - hurt your sellers, hurt your buyers, hurt your own profit, too.

They aren’t doing themselves any benefit by letting some of their biggest sellers crash and burn because of a CLEARLY flawed system everyone is VERY aware of. Many of us have already expressed our concerns and pain to CS many times over and they continue to cut and paste the rules of the new algorithms. The algorithms are the only things that matter.

5 Likes
#15

So sorry youssefkamel :worried:

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#16

The new system punish us twice for each cancellation.

2 Likes
#17

Your are right it will not affect our levels but will still harm our rating and gig position.

#18

The cancellation system punish heavily on sellers that have low quantity of completed Gigs, as it is a percentage value. It does not take into account other considerations, like time to complete or value. This happens specially on sellers with more elaborated/costly Gigs, that can’t fulfill a lot of orders per month.

Look at these numbers:

60 days - 10 orders competed - DEMOTION is at only 1 cancellation
60 days - 30 orders completed - DEMOTION is at only 3 cancellations
60 days - 60 orders completed - DEMOTION is at only 6 cancellations
…
…
…

So, the lower orders completed, the more exposed you are at orders by mistake or random problems that you can’t control (mainly buyers mistakes)

What encourages this system?

  • Sellers with high number of gigs completed, does not matter if all are at $5.
  • Fast food gigs are now more appealing than medium size gigs.
  • As every order takes a slot (and lower you on search), again short-fast gigs are encouraged.
  • To avoid random cancellations, you have to raise completed gigs number, so your business may not be suitable to new Fiverr system. The quick gigs are now encouraged, leaving out other kind of services.
  • Forget about holidays or being sick: less gigs completed in the 60 days time frame exposes you more to a buyer mistake cancellation.

For me DEMOTION is not an option. Working so hard and see that you can loose what you have accomplished is a no no. I am sorry but I come from a professional, business world, where you work to fulfill the goals of your team and company, not to leave your work under other people hands at random.

I must say that I am not making a defense of my business here. I hardly get 1 cancellation per month, and I go over 30 orders every month easily. But I just want to leave here my opinion: if something can be improved, it should be. And I think easily on an scenario where the cancellation system would demote me. Just two months with big gigs, medium size projects, and 3-4 buyers mistakes, and I am out. That’s just a business breaker.

SOLUTION:

It is common sense, easy. Cancellations due to buyer mistake/wrong use should not count in the new evaluation system. Very simple.

12 Likes
#19

So what is the solution to the bad orders that need to be cancelled? Most cases of cancellations are the buyers fault. Stop sticking up for Fiverr, please.

1 Like
#20

Agree. Cancellations made before an order is delivered is always the buyer’s doings alone, so not sure why that would count against the seller. :thinking: It’s not like a seller can affect it, if buyer ordered accidentally.

1 Like