More flexibility in proposal breakdown, please !
Premises:
- client posing job in FIXED PRICE
- client adds vague or unclear description of the job, requirements, expectations
- the job itself cannot be done in fixed price due to its own nature
- the client has already a budget set OR other bidders already submit their proposals (which don't necessary reflect realistic offers)
Situation:
The Seller is put in the situation where a fixed-price won't be possible to be offered, so the common-sense solution is to provide the client with hourly price. So, what can be done is to manually explain this in the job description field:
eg: Job Description /HOUR ---- £20
Of course, that makes the Seller look very unprofessional by offering a "fixed price" and at the same time having to explain "that's NOT the actual price I am going to do the job for you". And not only that is unprofessional, but causes losses to the seller and to the Peopleperhour (losing money, losing buyers, losing freelancers).
But there is the worse situation where either:
- the client has already set a budget
- other sellers placed their bids already
In the above situation won't be possible anymore to offer a price /HOUR because the form won't allow a lower price than the Buyer's budget. So, What the Seller has to do is to place a much higher price and to try to explain that price is based on several hours of work and it would represent eventually the price per hour... see how complicated it is? Do you expect the buyer to understand? I don't think so...
Now, what can happen:
- buyer can choose a much cheaper seller, which ultimately will cause money loss for you, the PPH
- buyer can choose someone who is gambling a fixed price, but the service will be poor and the client disappointed - means the buyer will go to competitor's platforms.
So, my point is: Please give more flexibility to the proposal breakdown, to give equal changes and right to the sellers too! Stop treating sellers like "slaves" or "tools"! The client IS NOT Always Right! When the client is WRONG, the Professional has the obligation to tell that to the client! So, if the price is wrong, the seller should be able to rectify that in a good manner.
Indeed, the Buyer is expressing the preference that he would like a fixed price, but most of the times, they just put a random budget that doesn't even reflect what they want... do you, PPH, insist that the seller should just take everything that the buyer is throwing at us???
Thank you
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Official comment
Hello Andrei,
I understand your point of view and I do apologize for the inconvenience that the proposal system appears to be causing you. I am a freelancer myself and I know that it is not always easy to calculate a final price for a project. But since the Buyer is posting the job it is understandable that he needs to have an idea of what he will pay in the end.
Having said that, I forwarded you email as it is to our Production Team, to evaluate the comments and take them in consideration. I will also urge you, if you have the time, to go to the feedback page, and put your suggestions there as well. The more reports the merrier:
Thank you for being patient. If you have any other inquiry please do not hesitate to contact me again.
Kind Regards,
Comment actions -
Either use Clarification Board to ask your questions, if no response don't look back,
Or If you want to gamble using one credit, you can apply, put the same AVG bid as others, and explain in your proposal what you would charge for X and Y
If it's a free invite, nothing to loose apply and mention you will update your bid later, by sending deposit requests.
So the amount you put in your proposal is not Final and not Fatal
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Mohammed, what can be, is that you (and others like you) to support a constructive idea that will bring to you and to others like you benefits, instead of adding useless comments to it, just to be against something...
Clients are clients, bad or good and they don't always know what is it they want.
The seller may decide that is the best to give a proposal with a hourly price, for example:
"Your job description is not clear enough, so let's discuss in more detail what is that you want and in the meantime I will be happy to offer you my hourly fee". Makes sense? - This way the client may accept to talk further with the seller and eventually to have an agreement.Or, the client may not be happy with any of the bids and one good job goes to waste... and the client goes to Upwork...
Ok, now imagine that you are forced to put at least £500 as "hourly fee" because this is the budget, or others have high bids and to explain it to the client that the 500 represent in fact the price of 22.72hours worked at the rate of £22/hour. It's just an example, please don't try to find flaws in it.
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I Agree, the client is free to use PPH or not, post vague or detailed job post.
And freelancer is free tto, to apply, put the same AVG price as other bidders , do low bid etc...
As there trillions of scenarios for a job post one cannot project the future of what is going to happen or how the Buyer is going to react, ex some may post the same job post simultaneously on other platforms.
So I don't see where is the issue here, if it can be resumed in one single phrase ?
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Yes: the issue is: Do not force the Seller to submit a FIXED PRICE proposal to a job that was created under fixed price by the Buyer.
To give the Seller the possibility to bid under a hourly fee, as a response to the client's choice.
Indeed, we see that the client "would rather prefer" a fixed price, but many times this is not applicable.
Currently It is possible do to it by cancelling your own bid and doing it again...so why not do it from the beginning? There is no reasonable argument to forbid that.
By the way, this was already explained in my feature request...you should just read it. -
Yes, was bothered with this very same issue.
Used to cancel bid , and put reason , then bid again and put the new amount, but now I always use the deposit request after discussing any task with the client wether it's hourly or fixed by item etc...
I am working with a buyer for more than a year here at PPH , using the one single Worksteam, each time I receive task details I respond with quote , if OK I send deposit request.
So for new jobs I just put the same AVG and explain that I will update my bid, once proposal is accepted one can send more deposit requests, if I am the first bidder I put whatever I see fits (hourly est or Fixed price)
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You finally understood the aspect.
The issue is that a request should be backed-up by more users, to gain weight...
You see, there are many aspects that should be improved on PPH and we could all benefit of them. But if people don't point them, or don't support them, we will only get fancy new looks and zero improvement in functionality.The reason why this feature request is here is because I sent it to PPH Support and they suggested that i should add it here too.
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You're welcome, I understood it from the beginning, but it's OK :)
I believe REAL hourly jobs should be introduced, not as it is now.
What is Available now is either fixed price or Hourly fixed price , why not time tracker , plus the choice for the freelancer to bid either Hourly or fixed on any job, while it's a proposal, freelancer should be free as the seller to put fixed or hourly bid and justify explain his offer. -reminds me oDesk jobs were clients put $5 as budget- sellers decline invite without reading...
What I said in my very first response, what matters for me the most is the Credits and the earnings...I personally don't explain to clients too much why I charge this or that because its business secrets...
I believe it's a bit different in PPH , you see for an example an Hourlie , Sellers put extra fee for fast delivery...
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