I decided to quit freelancing copywriting translation dumping. Dumping in the freelance market

From a freelancer’s point of view, dumping is an integral part of the work process, since there will always be someone who agrees to work for a meager fee. To understand in detail the topic of dumping in freelancing, we can consider two real-life examples.

1. There are two companies A and B. Both companies hire people for the same position, but in company A, management is willing to pay 30,000 rubles, and in company B, management pays only 20,000.

For the employee, company A is preferable, but do not forget that company B will also find a worthy employee for the same position, but cutting it by a third wages. This problem in freelancing it is called “Work Seekers”.

According to the definition of freelancers, job seekers are individuals or companies, often intermediaries, who offer for labor several times less than the acceptable barrier. For the first time, the word labor seekers appeared in the community “No to dumping and slavery,” which existed on the website www.free-lance.ru for 6 months and during this time managed to recruit 2,000 people.

The community was blocked due to ‘Violation of site rules’. Massive underestimation of the “User Attitude” indicator, imposing one’s opinion on new site users, SPAM in personal messages. To be honest, the reason for the ban was the UNPREFITABILITY of the site administration, but more on that later.

2. If the first case was called slave-hunting, then case number 2 is dumping. In freelance jargon, dumping is an artificial reduction in prices on the part of workers. That is, to put it simply, workers agree to work “for food.” Let's look at the graph:

Newcomers are harmless people who previously appeared:

• office plankton


• schoolboy


• a student who needs money


• etc.

Newbie freelancers are:

• women on maternity leave


• schoolchildren on vacation


• pensioners (this is not a joke)


• young average creative person

The most dangerous newcomers are schoolchildren, students, people under 23 years of age. They deliberately lower prices for:

• Quick money


• Portfolio content


• Getting a rating

By grasping at every penny project, they are sure that they have hit the jackpot of their lives.

If they get in their way good project, then they deliberately lower the prices of previously unsubscribed freelancers.

According to my observations and stories from customers, about 15 percent of them fell for tempting offers from newcomers. As a result, money was paid to the freelancer, but the work received was of poor quality. Naturally, the freelancer refused to finish it. As a result, the customer spends more, but receives a lesson for the rest of his life that cheap is poor quality.

As a rule, you can write to such a freelancer that the prices for certain services are higher, or direct him to familiarize himself with the minimum price list (price list compiled by the administrator of the anti-dumping community (me) on the website www.free-lance.ru, which managed to make a splash and gather around you many grateful “listeners”).

After familiarization, the newcomer thanks and henceforth knows his worth and is guided by the price list.

In the worst case, a newcomer complains to site administrators that he is being spammed.

Dumping and site administrators www.free-lance.ru

6 months ago, in the vastness of freelancing, a thematic community was created, main goal which was the fight against dumping.

• Compiling a minimum price list for all types of freelance services


• Notifying newcomers that their price is lower than the real one


• Complete disregard for cheap projects


• The omission of “karma” - the reputation of job seekers and dumpers, as a result, in the “user relations” column one can observe a deep minus


• An invitation to the community of employers who were once job seekers.

In six months, a record number of people joined the community for such a period - more than 2,000.

Along with the increase in gratitude, the number of those who began to complain to administrators that their rights were being infringed also grew, and some left freelancing altogether, and consequently, administrators lost potential buyers paid services on the site, such as a paid account and others. Along with them, unscrupulous job seekers also left, again potential PAYING clients.

After many complaints from dumpers and job seekers about our community, the community was closed so as not to give the people a reason for discord and ignoring low-quality projects.

When the community administration wrote collective and not only letters to resource administrators asking them to tell “the whole world” about the price list, ban cheap projects, introduce paid registration, etc., the administrators shrugged and answered: “If you don’t like the project, walk past us, and don’t touch it, otherwise you blather and we’ll ban you.”

Conclusions: Freelancing is a struggle between good and evil; it is an area that is divided into.

More and more often I notice a growing number of people who are ready to do a project for very low prices. It would seem that IT is the fastest growing area with a large shortage of specialists, but at the same time, freelance exchanges are bursting with orders of up to 1000 rubles for 3-5 days of work. And there are freelancers who continue to reduce the price just to get this project.

Many will think that such a customer, after a crooked job, will realize that his greed is to blame and will draw conclusions. But I often encountered the opposite - the client made a conclusion about freelancing in general. And after that, in his circles he shared his sad experience of freelancing cooperation.

Reasons for dumping

There is a possibility that the trend towards dumping will only intensify, as there is a constant influx of new freelancers who will dump just to get the first reviews and projects. There will also be desperate freelancers who will support the new low prices, since they will not have the patience to look for a project with reasonable payment. In the end, the customers themselves, having seen a sufficient offer regarding low prices, will think that now this is the equilibrium price level. Many will say that this is normal, supply and demand determines prices, but why then do OPEC, consortia, trade unions and antimonopoly committees? Apparently, no sector of the economy can do without regulation.

How does dumping affect freelancing?

The saddest consequence of dumping is that it changes society's understanding of freelancing. Because for very low pay, not a single normal freelancer will properly try to improve their professional level. And this will significantly reduce the quality of services on freelance exchanges and will form the idea among employers of freelancing as a low-quality environment for workers.

What can you do about it?

The only way out of this situation is collective efforts. In the West, this approach has been successfully applied by various trade unions, although their methods - strike and walkout - are not entirely applicable to freelancing. A different approach is needed here - an association of freelancers, which will limit the reduction in prices, but will make it reasonable and attractive. How to achieve this? It is necessary to create a community in which every freelancer does not lower his prices, while demonstrating that he is part of a community that weeds out scammers, people without the necessary experience and level of professionalism. That is, the community is a self-regulatory organization that strives to maximize the quality of services. It’s easy to do this, because unlike employers, any experienced freelancer will be able to determine in 15 minutes of communication on Skype whether another freelancer has the necessary experience and knowledge or not. Also, this eliminates any long and meaningless tests, like on Odeska or Elance, which anyone can do using Google. The community will benefit from the increase general level services, knowledge and standards. In turn, the employer receives minimum guarantees of the quality of work, the reliability of the employee, and the fact that having common standards, the project can subsequently be completed/remade by another employee.

Advantages and disadvantages

All the advantages that studios have over individual freelancers can be realized by this community. But at the same time, maintain the main advantage of working as a freelancer - no one will tell anyone what project to work on, will not limit appetites (level of wages) or the search for orders. The only restriction that membership in this community will impose is not to dump or cut corners.

conclusions

I think that the separation of freelancing development paths is inevitable. Someone will prefer to work a little, but very efficiently, achieving enthusiasm in work, someone will prefer to work, like the Indians, a lot and somehow. But all that separates the first category from the second are the words that we declare about ourselves, and therefore this division does not always work as we would like. But this is easy to fix, it just takes time and collective effort.

Precisely collective ones, because the larger the collective, the more it will be taken into account.
In general, if someone is interested, I am ready to discuss and implement this idea.

Thank you for your time.

On freelance exchanges like Upwork, Fiverr and Freelancer.com you can order almost any service. Tasks are performed by people from the most different countries and often do it for pennies. The Atlantic journalist Alana Samuels wrote a column about the harm such platforms cause to the digital economy and how this problem can be solved.

Fiverr is one of the most popular platforms of its kind. You can find a wide variety of offers on it - someone is ready to write you a book “on any topic,” read a text in the voice of a famous politician, fill out a Tinder profile for you, or design a company logo. For such services, performers ask only $5.

It is obvious why customers are so attracted to freelance exchanges - they can find competent performers who are willing to work for a small fee. On the platforms, you can track the progress of a task, evaluate freelancers, and contact technical support in case of disagreement. Exchanges are also beneficial for freelancers themselves, especially for those who work outside the United States, because orders are paid in American dollars. Thanks to the rise of freelance exchanges, some have been able to quit low-paying jobs in their home countries, while students and people without work experience have the opportunity to sell their services, get reviews and grow their client base.

In total, more than 48 million people are registered on global freelance platforms. The digital economy can solve the problem of poverty in countries such as Malaysia and Nigeria, so there are special campaigns to train local residents to use freelance exchanges. It is planned that in 2020, 340 thousand Malaysians will earn their living by freelancing.

The number of digital workers continues to grow—nearly a quarter of a billion people started using the internet for the first time last year, and more than half the world's population has access to the internet. Estimated World Bank, in 2016 the global online freelancing market was worth $4.4 billion.

Race to the bottom

“There is an oversupply of workers [in the freelancing industry],” says Mark Graham, professor of internet geography at the Oxford Internet Institute. Graham and his colleagues conducted extensive research into the digital economy, surveying hundreds of freelancers and examining data from tens of thousands of projects. They found that most of the customers were in rich countries like the United States, and most of the contractors were in countries like India, Nigeria and the Philippines.

Freelance exchanges allow performers to choose customers who offer the highest wages, but more often than not, everything works differently - customers first of all look for people who are willing to work for next to nothing.

“The rates are low, but that’s how things work here,” says Elena, a freelancer from Serbia who works on the Fiverr platform. “Whoever offers the least gets the order.”

For just $5, Elena is ready to translate a text of a thousand words from Serbian to English, make a presentation, or write a “beautiful love letter.” Fiverr takes 20% of the proceeds, part of the money goes to PayPal commission and in the end Elena receives about $3 for each service.

The rules of different freelance platforms are slightly different. For example, on Fiverr, customers and performers correspond with each other anonymously and cannot exchange by email or by telephone - this rule was introduced so that people communicate only on the platform and that it does not miss out on profits. Anyone can sign up on Fiverr and start offering their services right away—no need to provide your real name, upload a photo, or verify your education level. Because of this, it is not always clear who exactly you are working with. I once commissioned a blog post from a freelancer named Deborah Hutton. In her profile there was a photo of a smiling girl with glasses sitting at a laptop, and it was indicated that Deborah was a journalist by training. But when I searched for this photo online, it turned out that it was a stock image, and Deborah Hutton was a journalist at Vogue who died in 2005.

Photo: /

The Internet empowers all workers equal rights- and the customer cannot find out who is actually performing his task. This appeals to some, such as illegal immigrants who make their living online while in another country, or older people who may be hiding their age.

But there are also disadvantages - everyone is paid the same and the place of residence of the freelancer is not taken into account, so Americans and residents of other developed countries It is difficult to compete with performers for whom low wages will be quite acceptable.

Monica Taylor lives in the USA and provides parapsychology services on Fiverr. She used to sell them for $65-$85 on Facebook and Pinterest, and then she discovered a freelance marketplace and thought it would be a way to expand her client base. However, other freelancers offered parapsychological services for as little as $5. Despite the low pay, Monica still decided not to refuse this opportunity (the girl planned to raise the cost of services later, when she had enough clients). Monica got new customers, but when she increased the price from $5 to $15, they stopped using her services. Now Monica has returned to other platforms. “If I made my living on Fiverr, I'd be living under a bridge,” she said.

Freelancers know that if they complain or ask for higher pay, clients will easily find a replacement from among the millions of willing ones. They perceive each other as competitors and try not to contact each other.

The bright side of freelancing

Of course, many people have had positive experiences in the online digital economy. Graham and his colleagues spoke with Professor Arvin from Manila, who went freelance due to low salaries at the university. Arvin began offering SEO services and soon began earning three times more than at his previous job - about $600 per month with 25-30 hours of work per week. Another Vietnamese freelancer earns $8 an hour, four times his salary. previous work in the bank. Thanks to his part-time job at a freelance exchange, he began traveling and buying expensive things.

Photo: /

24-year-old Janazib Malik from Pakistan was able to earn about $5,000 on Fiverr in two years by creating PowerPoint presentations for startups who need to pitch to investors. Malik answered various questions about the freelance marketplace on Quora and became a guru among local freelancers. He later launched a blog about the digital economy, NerdsHD.com, where he began selling services that he provided on Fiverr, but at a higher price. Thanks to his client base from the freelance exchange and his online fame, Malik was able to open his own business.

But not everyone is lucky

Orders can be so fickle that freelancing alone is not enough to earn a living. Freelancer Kim-Lu shared a story about how the client first reduced the price to $6, and then canceled the project altogether. When the girl found new job, for which they offered $4 an hour, she did not dare ask for more, in fear that she would be left without work again. A study of one European freelance exchange showed that the majority of its users had never received any part-time work.

Some freelancers are simply resigned to accepting the lowest rate possible to get any work. Some people have long believed that freelancing is just a part-time job and not a full-time job.

Professor Graham believes freelancing platforms could yet improve the current pay situation. He proposes the creation of a global union that will monitor compliance international standards labor.

But for now, the “cream” of the freelance community are in the most advantageous position. And it is quite possible that in the future the gig economy will be overtaken by the Matthew effect - that is, the most successful workers will live better and better, while for everyone else the situation will only get worse.

Given the development trends in freelancing and the emergence of many workers on the Internet who are starting to build their careers, dumping has begun to appear. Dumping is a significant reduction in price, thanks to which workers manage to attract the attention of employers.


Dumping in freelancing is a standard phenomenon that many remote workers face. By setting a minimum price for their services, remote workers receive many orders, which naturally causes problems for professionals.

Who is more likely to dump?

As a rule, these are novice financiers who are ready to work practically “for nothing” in order to receive orders. Naturally, low cost attracts employers, and due to dumping, newcomers remote earnings get a chance to develop their career.

Starting a freelance career can be quite difficult because... customers try to use the services of professionals, therefore, in order to complete their first orders, create a portfolio for themselves, accumulate positive reviews, and also gain some popularity, beginners use the available options.

Look, a copywriter who charges only 15 rubles for 1000 characters has 77 positive feedback, and the one who sells texts for 90 rubles per 1000 characters has only 19 reviews, and there are also 4 negative reviews.

To understand whose services among these copywriters are in greater demand, just go to the statistics:

As you can see, due to low prices, the second copywriter completed more than 2,000 more orders. Here is an example of dumping, which helps to get orders and collect positive reviews.

Even professionals sometimes reduce the prices of their services to attract attention. This great way promote yourself, and if someone likes working with you, increased prices will not become a barrier.

Most clients are confident that “If they do it well, it’s better to overpay.” Promote your accounts too, the concept of dumping is not new to you now.

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• With those for whom freelancing is the source of their livelihood and the meaning of life, dumping will not work. “Reliable, like the entire civilian fleet,” they have long known their worth - Test? And still unpaid? Fuck you! - Without prepayment? Fuck you again. They did not collect and polish multi-volume portfolios for you. And for years they have been earning authority on the exchanges, not for you. If you can afford it, then welcome.

• There are those who take to the wing. For them, this is their favorite hobby or part-time job. They no longer run after every bone. They gain experience. Collecting a portfolio. They lovingly collect reviews. They will only respond to interesting information. various reasons offer. Sometimes they take on something they don’t really know how to do yet. There's a good chance they'll learn. They love to learn, but have not yet decided on a niche for applying their talent. With them either for love or for money (although not the greatest). For them, intriguing against competitors is not self-respecting.
• The most numerous, of course, are dumpers. Your every whim at a wildly funny rate. The principle of operation is that it might burn out. They grab everything that is not nailed down. As a rule, these guys respond first. For all. Straightaway. The responses are standard to the point of disgrace. It is often used home preparation, suitable for any customer. Why waste time? They clicked and rushed on... The terms of reference are read (if read) after accepting the task. The attitude of such “clouters” corresponds to the cost. They worked as they paid. - Deadline? Did not hear. - Portfolio? In progress. - Reviews? We will organize or have already organized it through friends or spare accounts.

For the sake of fairness, it is worth noting: there are smart beginners among them. We completed some courses and went through a couple of master classes. But I have no experience. It is difficult for them to break through the close-knit ranks of freelancers. They are ready to sell for almost nothing, just take it. They see dumping as their chance to stand out and find their customer. Contact us when you are pressed for deadlines and have a strong desire to work together.

There is an option that such “specialists” will make something digestible. But you wanted some candy. And to the level of candy you will have to work it out manually or turn to completely different people. How many times have you come across such advertisements: “We need to improve the website, redo the design, rewrite the texts”? It's your right to step on a free rake.

The market seems oversaturated. But this is appearance. Finding adequate performers and not going beyond the allocated budget is not an easy task. There are no templates for exactly what to do.

There are several tips that will save nerves, time and ultimately money:

• think about the price/quality ratio;
• do not hold auctions;
• set a fair price that is adequate to the complexity of the task;
• Be prepared that you will have to invest not only money, but also time into the work of dumpers.

A stingy person at least pays twice.