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Our main task as freelancers is to make things as easy as possible for our clients. That doesn’t just mean creating great work, it’s about making everything easier — the ordering process, customer relationships, and communications.The Fiverr marketplace achieves this through one simple concept — productizing services. Turning services into products is a win-win for everyone. Let's break this down.
Almost all freelancing work — design, writing, media production, marketing, and more is about providing a service to the client. It’s true they may have a digital (or even physical) product at the end, but it is that act of creation that defines what a freelancer does. The thing about providing services is...they’re messy. It’s not always clear how long something will take, scope and requirements change, and the amount of effort needed can vary. That introduces uncertainty and risk, for both the freelancer and the client. This risk manifests itself in several ways — taking longer to deliver, charging more, or creating substandard work. That’s not good for anyone. What buyers and sellers need, is certainty. Enter productization.
Productization is all about taking the “messy” services we provide as freelancers and turning them into neat, self-contained, clearly-defined pieces of work, known as “Gigs.” There’s a huge benefit to buyers and sellers to productizing services in this way. Let’s first start with the ways this benefits the buyer:
Fiverr is home to a vast range of freelancers with skills in hundreds of different areas. Productizing services lets buyers search for those skills so they can compare and complete a side-by-side comparison. They know exactly what they will get from the services, making it easier to choose a particular gig based on the freelancer’s experience and what they can offer.
One of the biggest uncertainties for buyers is now understanding how much something will cost before you buy it. That's a huge issue for budgeting and understanding how long work will take. Selling a service as a product completely removes that uncertainty. Buyers can choose how much they want to pay based on the freelancer, gig, and any extras they purchase.
Buyers are purchasing work that is a “known quantity.” The scope of work is clearly-defined, there’s no hourly billing, and buyers know what the deliverables will be. This visibility and transparency can’t be overestimated — buyers are often working to tight budgets, so an assurance of defined work, completed in a timely way, to the appropriate quality, and a pre-agreed price helps to keep everyone happy.
Fiverr have also optimized the ordering process. Sellers can easily create “Requirements” questions so they can easily gather all the information they need from buyers. This makes it easier for buyers too — they can review and check all their details to ensure sellers have exactly what they need to deliver the service.
Productization is great for sellers as well.
Because the scope of work is understood, sellers can be confident they know how long it will take to finish the work. This makes scheduling and planning much easier, optimizing workflows and ensuring they can deliver to the requested deadlines.
Because prices are known in advance, there’s not a lot of incentive for buyers to haggle. This saves time and anxiety for both the buyer and the seller, meaning that once the fee is paid, the seller can just get on with the work. This also increases the likelihood the seller will be fairly paid for their work.
Sellers can easily create requirements questions to gather all the necessary information to provide a high-quality deliverable. This means they spend less time chasing down details and more time working on their output.
Hourly pricing isn’t good for buyers or sellers. Charging per hour means buyers have the incentive to get sellers to complete the work as quickly as possible, while the seller’s incentive is to drag the work out. That creates innate conflict, and that’s not great for relationships. Fixed pricing for specific gigs completely removes the tension, providing a defined deliverable for an agreed price, no matter how long it takes.Productizing services through gigs means a simple, easy-to-use marketplace for buyers and sellers. Buyers can budget more easily, ensure they get value-for-money and reduce their risk. Sellers can gather the information they need, avoid charging by the hour, and stop haggling over prices.And that’s good for everyone.
Have questions about how we productize services? Ask us in the comments below!
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