Lack of projects to bid on?
I have been a full time freelancer on PPH for many years, but I've seen hardly any new projects to bid on in the last few weeks. Though there are some, there's certainly a lot fewer jobs available. Despite having a lot of project views, I haven't had a single buyer in a week, which is hugely unusual.
Is anyone else noticing the same thing? Why could this be?
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Yeah i notced that too Nancy!
Its scary but its only a matter of time before i hve a nothing month myself i think, i get a couple of adverts and book covers and thats it. Ive noticed i get a lot of timewasters for websites now too, like il try and grt them on the phone because im more confident i can close them and when i give my price or a 20% discounted one they always say they will get back to me and never do. It is very concerning -
Hi Lauren,
Yeah ive noticed that 2 years ago id get a sale or two in each weekday at only 3-6 profile views, now it "claims" im getting 20-35 a day but barely getting many enquirie in comparison. I can only assume for some reason or another the visitors are less likeley to buy than usual, wether that be the reasons adams listed or becuse the competition is just getting too high due to more competing freelancers, probably a mix of everything tbh. -
The freelancers are not on the site anymore (yes volume but not really good competition which we all need to make the site prosper). They left when they were not supported during Covid and when PPH really exploited the side hustle culture and let anyone join who soon left and added no value to the site.
Now we are left with cheap foreign crap that most buyers will not buy from and neither would they pay UK prices for people living in these areas. I see in my area of work complete chancers trying to charge ridiculous sums of money just because established freelancers in the UK quote it.
Now you see that scammers have taken an interest as they can get hits on all desperate people who let's be honest can barely grasp freelancing or English and will sell anything that they can create on Canva. Either PPH has to close the job board or hire a moderation team but as I said before they have 2 people running customer services (outsourced) so I can't see how it can feasibly continue.
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There are a lot of problems here and everyone is making valid points, but something has tipped it over the edge recently, possibly a change in the search mechanism or a reduction in advertising.
I noticed on another thread yesterday that someone said they paid to be a freelancer here. That is new to me, and it is a significant change, because if PPH can make money without buyers spending anything, they have no incentive to remove the scammers and time wasters from the project board. It helps them to make the site look busier than it really is. -
I know what you mean Adam, the amount of times I get people who have found me outside of the PPH and when i mention im also on PPH (mostly to show my portfolio or my 860 plus reviews) a lot of people have a similar opinion about PPH / Fivver now. Its always "Oh i tried that but the UK freelancer turned out to be foreign and took my money and the work was terrible" or one popular one that annoys me is "we had a bad experience when we used a guy on there claiming to be from ireland turned out to be indian and held the work to randsom until we gave him a 5 star review"
Im NOT saying all foreigners on the platform are the same but i hear so many people saying they dont like these types of platforms for the same reasons and thats generally the same thngs, ie poor quality of work, freelancer turned out to be foreign or outsourcing to foreign, forced us to leave a review before handing the work over.
Its a little unfair that a lot of these freelancer give these platforms a bad name, there should be stricter rules against basically blackmailing for a review for work, stricter rules about lying about your geo location. Some people live in much cheaper economies than us so have the luxury of charging cheaper than us and if the buyer doesnt mind the freelancer being from outside the UK then they have the right to do so, its not fair tricking them. -
@simon, i myself suspect its something to do with reduction in advertising or marketing. Either that or the same budget isnt getting them as much qualityleads anymore and because of the decline of the platform they dont hve tjhe funds to increase budget. It woluld explain the poor quality of jobs and far less serious buyers in the last 3 months or so.
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@simon I dont think there is a marketing or a digital budget. Yet alone a team (LinkedIn states there is a brand manager). There is no way that PPH can compete on a scale with Upwork and Fiverr and hence it has been run to the ground. Let all be honest I sit here banging my head continually about them promoting only design work and freelancers that have not been on the site for years. Realistically there is no marketing strategy and if you pay to promote your offer you should get the chance to be promoted on social media. To be fair you most probably don't want to currently.
@Liam I got scammed by a UK writer who farmed it out. I put a job on the job board a few weeks ago and was bombarded by Indians on WhatsApp contacting me about the need for the role. Reported them nothing done. T
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Something has drastically changed though but I have seen this before and so, I hope that things will pick up. When I say I have seen it before, I have noticed a slow down for a few weeks but then it picked back up, but each month, the sales are getting lower and lower and I reckon that after the summer, I could be down to my external clients at best.
The thing is, when you look at the number of sales that people were making and what they were turning over, there must have been a lot of money coming into the site. Let's not forget, it has been about since 2007 and during that time, they have made a lot of changes. The biggest for me was the change in the fees as they reduced them quite a lot.
As someone has also said, my profile views are up higher then ever. When I was busy, I was lucky if I would get 10 profile views but then I would have several messages a day. I would wake up to messages but now, I don't even get that. Basically, the increase in views are not translating into sales. It is a worry really but I am trying to stay positive. I am also trying to think of ways in which I can diversify but even that is proving challenging.
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I am in the same boat as you Craig and I do wonder how to diversify as I appreciate that the cost of marketing is astronomical for SMEs (I was quoted £1k for LinkedIn which would lead to little ROI). I use to have 10 orders on the go (currently 1) and a range of messages but like you nothing. Incidentally, when I do get orders they are always on the same day.
The commission was welcomed at the time but I would pay higher for a more quality site that generates leads and protects from fraud. It use to be payments that were the issue but this was outsourced to WorldPay I would assume for compliance regulations.
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Another thing I have noticed is that the number of jobs has dropped again. For the last few months in the writing category, it hovered around 190/200, now it has dropped to 170. I know this time of year can be a little different with the businesses and people on leave for the summer but it is interesting to see what it happening.
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I don't filter the jobs when I view them so I only see the total and that has been around 1800 for quite some time. It drops at the weekend and rises during the week. I've not kept a record of it but 1800/1900 has been common for months. Once we got past Christmas it rose a bit and got to 2200, if my memory is correct, and then it dropped again. I get the impression that more of the jobs are fake now, but it is difficult to put a figure on that.
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