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When freelancing competition becomes stupidity

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    When freelancing competition becomes stupidity

    Here, on Seoclerks, some niches rocked in the music industry: cheap prices (starting from $1) and lots of plays. Usually who offer most plays at cheapest price ($1) he get the most customers - it's called competition in marketing books.

    But when some sellers (especially one - I'll not give his name) are trying to offer more and more plays just thinking at the money they gets in next days or weeks (not after months), then it becomes stupidity. That's because at a moment the market will be destroyed by sellers with that kind of mentality, of earning even a few cents after discounts are offered for $1 services.

    Let's take the example of SoundCloud market: 450K plays for $1? Maybe after 2 months there will be 1 million plays for $1. Also for the artists it's a dangerous offer: how could a beginner artist (like most of them are) to get 450K plays or millions of plays plus thousands of likes, comments, etc? A similar situation is encoutered at DatPiff, YouTube, Mixcrate, Mixcloud, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.

    At some moments the markets will crash (it happened in the past, too), and then the stupidity if some sellers will generates effects like: forbidden services, legal actions, advanced bot detection algorithms to remove fake plays/views/followers/likes, etc.

    When freelancing competition becomes stupidity

    Same situation is encoutered for SEO services: tons of spammy backlinks sold to noob buyers or resellers for $1 to $20? Thousands of websites are destroyed every year. More and more potential buyers are avoiding microjob websites, especially when they had the experience of getting their online business removed from search engines results...

    Something have to happen and I'm afraid that many sellers will be crushed by a big hammer...

    #Freelance #Competition Freelance
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    TommyCarey

    TommyCarey

    I understand when a new seller will offer a good service for a really cheap price. They're trying to build their profile, likes, reviews, followers, etc. and I'm sure in time they'll increase the prices to the normal range. People have been doing this for a long time, it's a pretty common tactic. The only problem, like you said above, the market will crash if too many services are sold and the buyer does not increase their prices. I would love to get 1,000,000 views for $1 lol, but I know that's all fake and won't do jack in terms of conversions. The only benefit is when someone else comes to your profile, page, service, etc. and sees all the positive stats such as plays, like or followers and decides to sign up because they think it's a tried and tested product.

    I've purchased plenty of services that add fake followers, likes, views and so on in order to fake a popularity level that would take me at least a year to achieve. By boosting my image a bit at the start of my websites life I can increase my conversions because people think we've been around for a while offering a fantastic service because off all the people wanting updates When freelancing competition becomes stupidity

    There's also another side to the low priced services that offer so much. Maybe they are trying to get these websites, like soundcloud, to update their algorithm and settings in order to make the website more secure. I would never do this because that would be my career down the drain. I couldn't just offer people free SEO forever and expect something good for me to come out of it.

    Some people just want to see the world burn When freelancing competition becomes stupidity
    10 years ago
    1970-01-01T00:00:00+0000

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    hitmeasap

    hitmeasap

    That's competition. It's that simple. And the biggest reason for this kind of competition, the "price war" so to speak, is because you can find sellers from the whole world, on whatever marketplace you look at..

    People from India and Bangladesh for instance, have cheaper living expenses than we have in Sweden. And that basically means that I won't be able to provide the same kind of quantity as a seller from India or Bangladesh. It's just how it is. They can afford to offer dirt-cheap services and I can't do that.. It might feel unfair but the question is.. What can you do about it?

    You won't be able to provide the same services, that will lose you money in the end. So that won't happen. So what can you do?

    -You can offer something they don't offer. Add something else to the offer. Bring more to the table. Offer life-time support. Be fluent in English. Offer your clients extras for free. Offer your client a service for free of charge if they refer another client to you..

    What you have to do is to think outside the box.


    Best Regards,
    hitmeasap
    10 years ago
    1970-01-01T00:00:00+0000

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    EliteWriter

    EliteWriter

    I know that it is difficult to understand how some sellers decide to charge really low prices. It is not doable for most of us who have higher expenses, and also when a seller is established he ends up having to deal with more orders and thus a limited time, so it would not be feasible to charge a really low price. Low prices also reflect poorly on quality perceptions. Having said that you cannot say such sellers who charge low prices are stupid, as it is their choice. Try to compete using other methods such as additional services, quicker turnaround times etc.
    10 years ago
    1970-01-01T00:00:00+0000

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    cdrocks

    cdrocks

    Yes, I know what you are talking about. However reading most sites t.o.s. different websites have certain rules in place to protect their site from getting hijacked with this kind of problem I believe. People that usually engage in this kind of behavior are not very smart business people and will usually try to copy other people's service descriptions, steal their pictures, so on and so on causing their service or services to get deleted in the end. I've messaged many buyers in the past that were using my image trademark as well as my service descriptions and would ask them to take it down. Also, location doesn't always have to do with the people that drop the prices to the lowest denominator . I am reselling to a lady from Bangladesh that has the highest prices on here lol.
    10 years ago
    1970-01-01T00:00:00+0000

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    Lynne

    Lynne

    I hear you and I am sure it must be a royal pain to deal with when so many people are undercutting your prices.

    BUT I am a buyer and when I see really cheap prices I just see a cheap service and I am honestly turned off.

    I take some time to find buyers I really trust and that provide great work. It takes me some time to find them but when I do I stick with them.

    Offer a great service and like has been suggested offer something unique and give your buyers a bit of individual attention.

    Here's something that does my nut in for example, make sure you say Sir to a male!

    It might sound obvious but do you know how many times I have inboxed someone here or asked a question on their profile or service and they call me Sir... do I look like a Sir? LOL

    But things like that put me off big time and like like Andre said write properly and engage properly with buyers. It will make a big difference. And you look like you do, the cheapers sellers don't.

    Yes they might get a lot of orders from buyers that are looking for cheap, but there are plenty of buyers that don't just look at price.
    10 years ago
    1970-01-01T00:00:00+0000

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    Corzhens

    Corzhens

    I think that is called cut-throat competition that was discussed in college economics classes. Called such because the competitors are trying to outdo each other by lowering their prices that eventually would destroy both of them. My take on that stupidity is to ignore and endure the lack of business for a while as a bad effect but later on things will stabilize and prices will normalize.
    8 years ago
    1970-01-01T00:00:00+0000

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