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Thread: Elance

  1. #1
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    Elance

    Hi,

    I am having a hard time deciding whether or not to join Elance. They seem to have a decent amount of projects but the membership fee is so expensive. If anyone here is a member of Elance, please let me know if it is worth it.

    Thanks,
    Tim

  2. #2
    Modding with Class JabezStone's Avatar
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    Try looking here. for many, many comments on Elance.

  3. #3
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    Thanks for the reply but I was looking for something more recent. If anyone is a member of Elance I would appreciate your input.

  4. #4
    King of Cool wouter999's Avatar
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    I know Jamble has been considering ELance and has done some investigating into it - I'll ask him and get back to you.
    hello.

  5. #5
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    bump

  6. #6
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    e-lance

    boing ... and here he is

    I took the plunge and joined elance the other week. I signed up for the basic membership which was the cheapest because I didn't really think it was going to prove worthwhile, and it turned out I was totally right.

    e-lance is pretty crap really, sure there are hundreds of jobs but there are tens of thousands of people all willing to work for next to nothing so it's practically impossible to win projects for even what I would consider reasonable amounts of money.

    I never expected to be able to charge $25-35/hr for work off elance but I never expected to see the low low prices people are willing to work for. This is in part because many people use it to find occasional work and don't mind doing "portfolio job" (work for next to nothing to build a portfolio of work) but I think to be honest I'm going to keep pitching for work, simple templating or logos/graphics etc and sack it off once I've earnt my registration fee back.

    I cannot compete financially with "design agencies" based in India, China or Russia so I'm not going to bust my balls to find work on it to be honest. A result of the type of developer offering services there has given the people posting jobs a fairly unreallistic feel for the prices in the market and job budgets are miniscule for the amount of work often involved.

    If you're going to join, please consider building a library of templates and scripts that you can easily modify (and quickly to make it worth the effort) for any project.

    Normal projects include sites which are wanting the following (in php/asp/whatever):

    • * Shopping carts/paypal/online payment integration
      * Content Management
      * Mailing/contact scripts


    Here's an example of what I would consider a relatively generous budget/project that you could bid on if you're a member of the basic service:

    Company Name Here is the small company that have a good part in the niche of antiques trading.
    We have very popular antiques shop and we'd like to attract more customers all around the world by making an online version of this. We need a complete corporate package representing our business on internet, including possibilities of booking and ordering antiques online. We suggest ot use eBay or Paypal system for payment processing, but if you can offer more reliable and less expensive services - you are welcome.
    We need people experienced in developing similiar projects.
    Est. Start Time: Immediate (within 1-2 days)
    Est. Budget: Between $500 and $2,500
    For an idea of the bids that were placed on this project, the average bid was(is) $742.71 (£461.54) and the lowest bid was $500 (£310.71).

    //

    I'd say it might be worth your while paying the extra for the "select" membership service but be warned, either way, you're facing stiff competition from a massive number of people, many of whom are more than willing and able to undercut anything you can afford to work for and some of the portfolios and feedback for these people are highly respectable.

    Join up, bid for some stuff but don't really expect to make much money unless you're able to produce a lot of sites quickly and at little cost (refer to bit above about having templates and scripts ready to use!)

    Hope this helps, this is recent feedback as I signed up 2 weeks ago and have been putting bids in to test the water so to speak, I've only had one reply and that was a rejection of the initial design proposal which is a shame because it was the only job I pitched for which had a half decent budget!

    Cheers,

    Jammers.
    Company, Meet Creative
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    welcomebrand

  7. #7
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    I come from China and I have observed elance.com long time ,but I have not joined it ,because the fee is too expensive for myself,though I am in China,I think the prices of the projects that in elance.com are too low,even many programmers bid a e-commerce website just 500$
    I often stay on the "Boardroom"of FK,I wish I can find some clients ,I sent many Emails to anyone who posted information on here and said they needed a web designer or programmer etc ,but no one gave me a reply that told me they need me, I don't know why.
    compare with the elance ,I wish I can cooperate with some fixed clients,if clients can't supply me enough projects for my living,I shall return to the companies and get a fixed salary.
    lustudios,I don't know which contry you live in,if you live in the developed contries,I advise you to look for a fixed work,in the Elance,few designers can earn 1000$/month except those designers who have great skills or can complete a full website in 3 days.
    In fact ,there are few chinese designer in Elance,because not many Chinese designers can use English fluently,I found most of designers in Elance came from India,India is a English country,so they can communicate with clients
    MSN: dfeng123(at)163.com

  8. #8
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    Originally posted by WANG
    I come from China and I have observed elance.com long time ,but I have not joined it ,because the fee is too expensive for myself,though I am in China,I think the prices of the projects that in elance.com are too low,even many programmers bid a e-commerce website just 500$
    I often stay on the "Boardroom"of FK,I wish I can find some clients ,I sent many Emails to anyone who posted information on here and said they needed a web designer or programmer etc ,but no one gave me a reply that told me they need me, I don't know why.
    compare with the elance ,I wish I can cooperate with some fixed clients,if clients can't supply me enough projects for my living,I shall return to the companies and get a fixed salary.
    lustudios,I don't know which contry you live in,if you live in the developed contries,I advise you to look for a fixed work,in the Elance,few designers can earn 1000$/month except those designers who have great skills or can complete a full website in 3 days.
    In fact ,there are few chinese designer in Elance,because not many Chinese designers can use English fluently,I found most of designers in Elance came from India,India is a English country,so they can communicate with clients


    I'd sort of disagree about the India bit to be honest. While their English is vastly superior to my Indian, it's still amazing how badly typed up most of the pitches for work are.

    As such I can only conclude that the people who use elance to provide work care purely about the bottom line - price. I guess if someone can do the job then fair play to them and the portfolios of many of these companies are impressive in scale and in many cases the work is pretty decent too.

    Tough market, I wouldn't bother to be honest.
    Company, Meet Creative
    sign up, help spread the word and win a shuffle.
    ------------------------
    welcomebrand

  9. #9
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    I never said indian designers "bit to be honest". ,I just said their prices are competitive,In China ,few deisigners' monthly salary are higher than 1000$,but in USA,few designers' salary are lower than 1000$,that's it
    MSN: dfeng123(at)163.com

  10. #10
    Modding with Class JabezStone's Avatar
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    Originally posted by WANG
    I never said indian designers "bit to be honest".
    Haha! Classic! Sorry, WANG, but that's not what Jamble said, either... it was just English slang for saying, "I didn't agree with what you said about Indian designers!"

    Hey, Jamble... you "bit to be honest"!

  11. #11
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    hehe, sorry Wang, Jay is correct - I didn't mean anything about honesty per-se it is simply dialect I use sometimes
    Company, Meet Creative
    sign up, help spread the word and win a shuffle.
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  12. #12
    An Inconvenient Serving Size hurricaneone's Avatar
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    Originally posted by jamble7000
    ...it is simply dialect I use sometimes
    Slack Geordie English.

    Typical.

    Stand by for emergency synapse rerouting

  13. #13
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    Great,the main object that I am in FK is to make friends with designers from all over the world,the another object is to improve my English,ok,today I get a word"bit to be honest", if anyone tell me that my flash works is not good ,I shall tell him"I disagree about your opinion bit to be honest,I am a good designer"
    MSN: dfeng123(at)163.com

  14. #14
    Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk! Hey Moe... serpent star's Avatar
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    Originally posted by WANG
    Great,the main object... <omit> ...is to improve my English. I disagree about your opinion bit to be honest,I am a good designer"
    hehe... lemme give you a hand.

    but to be honest

    so it would read something like;

    I disagree with your opinion, but - to be honest - I am a good designer.

    I think that would be stylish.



    but = however

  15. #15
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    I understand it eventually,oh,my god,it is not"bit to be honest",it is just "but -to be honest",thank serpent star,thank God,I thought why English has so strange idiom , if it originally comes of an ancient story and so on,faint
    MSN: dfeng123(at)163.com

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