New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers
So now it seems I have to wait two hours before I can bid for a job. This is extremely unfair. Not only do experienced creatives/designers have to compete with an unfair playing field, ie people offered to do a job for £10 when it is clearly worth £100, we are now not allowed to bid for jobs as soon as they appear on PPH. What kind of system is this?!
Awful. Unfair. Unprofessional. Discriminatory.
Regards
C. Howe
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Paul has eloquently put the case that I subscribe to: better to go upmarket and avoid the (probably loss-making bottom feeding jobs).
@all pphers: it gets worse:
If the example of photolibraries is anything to go by, the only way for PPH to survive at the bottom is to raise its share of the revenue from 17.5% to much higher. Photolibraries used to split things 50/50 with their contributing photographers (a hangover from film, when costs were high). The best ones still do.
BUT: the bottom-feeders raised their cut continually as they couldn't make any money off selling pix for 50p/ $1. A contributing photographer is lucky to get 25-30% of a lower fee now.
I'm just sayin' but I think you all ought to take note of what happened in a similar industry. That's another reason to avoid the race to the bottom. The mid price photolibraries support their photographers because they recognise it's a beneficial partnership, and the others just treat them as a disposable commodity of little value. Ring any bells?
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There used to be a lower limit of £15 on fixed price jobs. I think it was a mistake to lower it to £6.
£6 is the PPH nod to the minimum wage. They conveniently ignore the fact that for low-end suppliers it actually equates to £4.80. One thing I hate about PPH is that it provides a back-door in the UK to engaging people below the minimum wage and without any of the protection and benefits they would otherwise get from an employment agency or direct employment.
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@Julian
I just cannot accept the one-track views, Julian. For some potential clients many of the photos/graphics on offer aren’t worth the bandwidth they consume and may never get sold at any price. Perhaps they should be auctioned off, but even then there has to be a buyer willing to spend anything for them – where there is no need or desire, it cannot just be created. If a photographer gets less than £1 for a shot, they are obviously doing something wrong and should consider other options, unless they have loads of outtakes and can earn extras that way. On the other hand, if they sell the same image 100 times, they are probably in the driving seat (or will be due to popularity). Sure, without the mass of material, such platforms will go down – that’s automatic culling and only the ones doing things right survive. I’m not saying PPH is doing things right (or wrong) but there aren’t only ‘bottom-feeder’ offers on the PPH platform.
@Paul:
PPH didn’t say you are getting £4.80 for an hours work. They said that buyers can set a budget for work no lower than £6. If I can do a job in 15 minutes, that £6 job becomes an hourly wage of £24. For routine work, I think that’s pretty fair. If it takes me longer, I won’t bid. It really depends on the work needed.
Fact is, I have a choice. I do not snub low-budget work if the parameters are reasonable. Just because a job comes in with a ‘willing to spend thousands’ tag does not necessarily make it a good job to bid on.
Just saying…
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If I can do a job in 15 minutes,
You'd be very lucky to do anything within 15 minutes. You have to consider the time it takes to make a proposal get agreement send the invoice - all that other stuff.
that £6 job becomes an hourly wage of £24.
It can NEVER become an hourly wage of £24.
First of all let's lop off that nasty commission that PPH takes - your £24 is now most likely £19.80.
So you had four £6 jobs, but along the way forgot to consider the other 15 minutes per job that was involved when you made the proposal, had to deliver the result, agree everything was OK and then make an invoice.
Lets halve that £19.80 to £9.90. Not bad.But now you have to consider your whole day. You need to fill your day with these £6 jobs. If as you say it takes you 15 minutes (highly optimistic), I said it takes at least the same again for the obvious overheads, so you need to find 16 of these jobs every single day and take no breaks in order to fill your day with £9.90 per hour revenue. I think that's a tough ask.
Now we need to consider your computer, photoshop licence, etc. and factor that into the equation.
So, far from this being a £24 an hour gig, I think you'd be very hard pressed indeed to make the minimum wage in actuality. At least in a supermarket you get paid more, don't supply your own equipment and get holiday and sickness pay and even overtime, perhaps.
Personally I can't think of any task I've ever done on PPH, or will do, that I would consider 15 minutes long enough to cover the time I spend on it.
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On the sub-topic of skill matching and how some new sellers can't make any proposals, I managed to get some response from PPH support and posted details here: http://support.peopleperhour.com/entries/78853533-Primary-skills-not-matching?page=1#post_25878253
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@ Roland I have simplified things slightly, but I see no reason to write an essay when the effects of the race to the bottom in the stock photo industry have been covered extensively elsewhere. Ask a photographer if you want more information. The effect was that prices for creative work were driven down overall from top to bottom.
Secondly, as Paul suggests in his penultimate paragraph, there are ancillary costs in any freelance work, including software, hardware, heating & electricity costs, non-paid time...for example pitching for jobs...which takes up time so in real terms the low paid jobs are not worth going for - FYI I heard a rule of thumb which says that you should up what you think you are worth by 2/5ths or 40% to cover the overheads. I think that's pretty accurate.
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@Paul
It can NEVER become an hourly wage of £24
If you calculate all the overheads into this singular equation you’re right. I don’t. I use all my software for other work and tasks, which is why I’m able to freelance at all. The licensing and maintenance don’t have to be paid for by the jobs I do on PPH. My point is still valid though: check your hourly rate (which should include your overheads, just by the way) and if the job fits, why not accept something smaller? Not all the projects I work on fill my day, and that’s where PPH serves me well (despite the quirks).
*But now you have to consider your whole day.
*
Yes, your breakdown and calculation may be accurate. However, I think that if you put all your eggs into the PPH-basket, well…Becoming a freelancer made me aware that I had to find work….myself. That task is probably the most expensive of all, closely followed by the administration involved. My day is often longer than it was when I was employed. However, I enjoy the freedom it provides and the ability to choose what and when I do it (mostly). At the end of the day, a freelancer needs to earn more to be on the same level as someone employed in terms of nett income and benefits.
*can't think of any task… that I would consider 15 minutes long enough
*
You may never have done a task inside of 15 minutes on PPH. I can say that I have (both on PPH and elsewhere). I have enough expertise and own work to enable me to offer quickly on certain tasks, and I do. I have some experience in quoting and can ascertain the time and effort quickly enough to know the limitations set by a potential buyer. If it takes longer than that to read through, decipher the needs and complete a proposal I have to get paid out of the work I’m bidding for, or I run a loss. Has every one of your proposals been accepted? Mine haven’t. So I’m actually spending instead of earning and I can’t just overbid on the next proposal and hold thumbs and hope to recuperate.Again: PPH just sets a minimum that a potential buyer has to be prepared to pay for any service. Probably this has less to do with minimum wage than with processing costs. Be that as it may, what good would a £15 limit do? You’d still need to find 4 or more jobs for it to work in your equation. I doubt that you’d find them.
What you and Julian would like is an elite marketplace that caters to high-profile jobs. Sometimes I would too, but as a freelancer I realise that there are other, smaller needs of the same clients that offer high-income work. They demand quality too, have the needs or wants and are prepared to outsource their work. PPH has never been that, and never will. For those freelancers that have been around PPH for a long time, the market has changed – there are many more freelancers (please don’t go into the qualifications and professionalism of some of them) than there were 3 or more years ago. Outsourcing is often questionable for companies and/or individuals and has become more so. Experience has shown that clients often test the water with small-fry….
@Julian:
We have all simplified things, even in our essays. I have contacts in the creative branch and can corroborate that prices have plummeted – but the general consensus is that this is partially due to the flood of offers in the market. The Supermarket is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean that the Cornershop has to go, just re-orientate itself, and if it does so properly it prospers alongside the Biguns.
To your second point please see my reply to Paul. What I wonder is why you are freelancing on PPH, and can only assume you are earning good money or, like me, also have other work sources.
If you can do enough work over the course of a year using that rule of thumb, go for it! It may be that you overestimate your worth (which is measured by what the client would pay elsewhere for the same quality). You won’t necessarily be compared to other freelancers, but to what it would cost to do in-house or at a competitive company offering your skillsets.
___________________Thanks for the discourse and thanks for the constructive discussion. I still believe this subject calls for a thread of its own and assume that no one else is interested in the topic (just Paul, Julian and me) as we are the only ones communicating on this topic here. As far as I can tell, posting on the original topic helped achieve a turn-around on the issue, and for that reason all the input from the PPH community was worth the effort.
Cheers!
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Hi Roland, it's an interesting discussion and I think you are quietly saying that relying on PPH as a single source of income - even if you get enough jobs, is unrealistic ( in the UK anyway ). I would kind of agree, and say that's why I think the small jobs need to go. I also think that many of them at the bottom levels are exploitative - taking advantage of people desperate for money or needing to build a reputation on PPH.
I like what PPH was and don't like what it's become or where it's going. When the friction level gets too much I'll stop using PPH. It doesn't mean I don't want PPH to do better though.
I have made several thousands of pounds through PPH and I hope I might make a few thousand more, but PPH makes that harder and harder to do - hardly a ringing endorsement on a company that should provide this facility with minimal friction.
Lifting single job rates above £6 elitist? I think that's quite wrong and unfair.
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Hi Paul, didn't want to, but feel I must!
relying on PPH as a single source of income
I didn’t mean to be so quiet about it – relying on any one source to find work is just wrong. Anywhere. Getting rid of the small jobs won’t automatically result in there being more substantial ones. I fear there’d be so few offers at all, the site would come to a halt. I despise exploitation of workers in the highest degree. Nonetheless, since PPH is international, I think it is up to the freelancer to make a proposal he can live by. If he can’t live by it, he won’t be here long. If the quality remains, it does not matter who is doing the work.
If prices for labour are too high, unemployment rates rise and markets are flooded with workers, at least initially (PPH is experiencing this right now). Production has become sloppy as more ROI is sought and low cost-of-living countries emit their ‘educated and skilled’ workforce into the worldwide job-hunting grounds. Will I leave them free reign? No. Can I trust the market to demand quality and pay the price for it? No.So I have to build a reputation that allows for the pricing structure I can live by. That means I have to wade through the shallow waters with all the ‘bottom-feeders’ and those job offers. I have to adapt and find the market that will sustain me and be sustainable. Most of all, it means that I have to be creative in my pursuit of income. For me, that means being local and global and accepting work that has the potential of follow-ups. Charging the right amount is key, and there are many job offers that I will not even consider even if I can do them easily, because they are unrealistically budgeted. If someone else does them, and delivers well and equally builds their reputation, good for them, but it won’t be long until they realise they have to have more than one-off ‘cheapos’ to have a sustainable income.
*Lifting single job rates above £6 elitist?
*
That in itself is not being elite. Calling for this status is, because you are assuming that only higher paid jobs are worth doing at all, meaning that they depict jobs for more capable workers, the elite. As a side-note, I did not label you elitist: the label was attributed to the marketplace, which is what it would be. My apologies if you are offended by this suggestion. I do not know you well enough to suggest any bias whatsoever and based my suggestion on what the posts contain.With the necessary expertise and skill set you can find a freelance activity that will pay a high rate, but you have to be really, really good at what you do. You won’t find them on PPH-type job-boards these days (or at least very rarely). Even if you do find one, you will need to secure your income from diverse sources.
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Roland, I make more money outside of PPH than I do inside of it - simply through recommendation. I have worked freelance for over twenty years, mostly full-time on-site for corporates.
The problem here is that the bottom feeders on PPH affect me by changing what clients expect for their money, and pushing away very respectable clients who are put off by proposals from people who promise the world but can't string a sentence together. Raising the quality of sellers on PPH is important and the low job values inhibit that.
Large job budgets don't mean a smooth ride, but if genuine, indicate a buyer interested in the quality of the result rather than the cost of the job.
Several of my non-PPH clients have talked about experiences using offshore developers and they often put a toe in the water and then vow never to do that again.
Anyway, it's a fun discussion but we aren't in any position to change anything.
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Great!
Yes, I have the same issues - 'look at this quote....it's much lower than yours....'**Raising the quality of sellers on PPH is important
**Yes. The question is how. Reputation is built over time and if buyers don't look, how will you make them? If they don't read the proposals but only look at the price, how do you force them to really look?
..**and the low job values inhibit that.
**As explained, I beg to differ.
**Anyway, it's a fun discussion but we aren't in any position to change anything.
**Absolutely! But in time, it will change. Question is, how do we cope till we get there (if we do)?
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I have had the same experience where a buyer/client was offered a service for 30% of what I normally charge and they chose to go with that and then 2 weeks down the line, they were knocking on my door and asking me to fix that for them! In fact I still get the same experience every now and then and to be honest I hate it. especially when I look at the messy and insecure code that some student in a third world country put together for a peanut.
I don't know how this would go down but only if i could find a place that was only for people from UK. I think i might i even develope one myself... :D
a site as clean as PPH would only take me a couple of weeks to develope..
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Actually I think its simple. There should be a floor on the minimum bid, at very least go back to £15, and I think that £25 or £50 even would gradually start to see a higher class of customer and the third world bidders would be the top ones, so everyone would benefit including those from low wage areas.
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Just to add to the comments here I am currently validating a scrape of information done by a low price bidder. I am being paid about 10 times more than they were and it is easily going to take me as long as it took them to clean up the mess made. Cheaper is not better, ultimately it costs the company more from having to hire someone who can fix the mess of data provided. Also, I have over 25 years experience in legal, type over 100 wpm, and have prepared pleadings in 17 different states--yet my skills are not qualified to help an attorney to type his pleadings in the correct format to file. By the way PPH I saw this same ad on another site and I made the bid (I am not blocked there), got the job, and seriously doubt if this client will ever use PPH again! You need to let the sellers and buyers determine who to hire, your system and those managing it are not qualified to do so!
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AND NOW the DeskDobkie ADS.
Just when the 2 hour ban was lifted, I thought that we freelancers were back to normal ... I see THIS at the top of pages ...
Need a photo retouch? Get it done in minutes on DeskDonkie!
So basically, PPH promotes that there are all these freelancers on PPH ready to bid on your job (Mr. or Mrs. Buyer). THEN they actively ADVERTISE their other site, where jobs a done at a fixed price. And ... unless you're an invited freelancer, you WON'T get these jobs.
So now I need to compete with other PPH freelancers AND this special site of invited freelancers. ,,, Great.
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@ Ashwini
You just need to click on the Edit Profile link and you can amend your skills there.
@Everyone
The topic and sub-topic comments of this thread have been interesting, witty and forceful. I'm glad that after over a month of trauma, that ridiculous 2 hour feature has been removed.
This from a a New Seller who was on Cert 1 and thankfully had just started working on a project when the 2 hour feature was introduced, so was bumped to Cert 2 on completion. I did not benefit from the feature at all and had no chance of getting any work with it still in place. However, everyone pulled together on this and eventually it was overturned.
We made a change and I applaud everyone.
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I have bid for only a few jobs, i did win one which i have completed very successfully, now i can not bid, the system i terrible and makes the site pretty worthless, if anybody can recommend another similar site i would be glad to know about it.
this has become a total waste of time, i might ask somebody to build a new website like the last version of PPH
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Gosh, there's nothing like tarring complete continents with the same brush, is there?
I have worked with many Indians and they have become my friends. They are bright talented people, well educated and articulate, so I will have no part in just writing off offshore developers. Major companies use offshore teams based in India and Russia, to great effect.
The problem is that these talented guys are not the ones plying their trade here on PPH for £6 or less an hour. Nor would they be in the business of creating ebay clones and the like for £50.
It's these guys that aren't talented, reliable or articulate that do ply their trade at rock-bottom prices that pollute the PPH market for us all. We can't expect all buyers ( most buyers on PPH are pretty clueless ) to know enough to reject ridiculous bids or have the patience to weed out the idiots from those that can do a great job.
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@Roozbeh, if you feel that way about third world coders, please never buy or sell shares through the London Stock Exchange (or Boston, or a good many others) as the critical code that handles your trades is written by third world coders. I know exactly who writes it because I worked for the company (now a subsidiary of the LSE) that does it.
The reason they turned to third world coders was because the woftware written for them by first world coders (from Microsoft and Accenture) was a dismal failure.
The problem is that a lot of people hire the cheapest possible third world coder. Even in a low cost country you need to pay someone with real skills a decent rate - what would you expect if you hired a coder in the UK at the minimum wage?
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The reason they turned to third world coders was because the software written for them by first world coders (from Microsoft and Accenture) was a dismal failure.
That's rubbish. Offshore development teams are considerably cheaper than their UK/US counterparts and that's the primary reason.
This comment is as ridiculous as the one that suggests all offshore developers are unreliable.
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@Paul, the quetion then becomes "how do you protect buyers from themselves". That is what PPH has been trying to do by restricting bidding, videos etc.
Actually videos are a good idea, but they have done it wrong. I would like to be able to upload video demos of my work (i.e. screen captures) rather than video of me. How does looking at me help a buyer assess my abilities?
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@Paul, the question then becomes "how do you protect buyers from themselves". That is what PPH has been trying to do by restricting bidding, videos etc.
Indeed, but PPH are getting it spectacularly wrong. We don't have agreement on the right solution, but we're all pretty much united that the ongoing skills debacle is harming PPH, buyers and sellers.
PPH had better not make videos compulsory, but I can see how they can be really advantageous for some.
As if PPH haven't complicated things enough, PPH is now competing against it's own freelancers via deskdonkie.
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@Paul here is an article on it: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1588339/london-stock-exchange-switches-linux
You can Google for more, and confirm this from mltiple sources.
The replacement platform is probably the fastest they could buy given that most high speed platforms are developed in-house by major exchanges. In this case the third world coders were the best (and, having worked with them, I can tell you that the key people there are very good indeed).
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I am not sure buyers going to Deskdonkie is such a bad thing - it may mostly move cheapskates out of PPH. The name alone tells people what to expect!
The nearest I can see to a solution is Julian's minimum bid idea, but that still does not prevent unreasonably low bids for larger jobs (i.e. a £50 minimum does not prevent somone bidding £50 for a £500 job).
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