Buyers are the people who join freelance sites for the purpose of hiring other people on the internet. Buyers want their work to be done and for that they need to hire someone online using the freelance sites.

In most of freelance sites, buyers are called as Buyers but in some freelance sites, you may see some other name used for them. But basically these people are buyers, as they are the one who will pay job seekers [service providers] in freelance sites.

Buyers are the people who will be spending money at freelance sites. They will spend this money on buying different kinds of services. And these services are provided by the service providers.

Some FAQs:

Why buyers come to freelance sites, is there no other place where buyers can hire people online to do their work?

Actually there are many places where buyers can hire other people. But freelance sites are now recognized as the freelance market where buyers can hire people in seconds. The other places where buyers can hire people, are just sites where small [very few to zero] number of people work. Service providers who look for work at such sites or [buyers] who are looking for service providers at such sites, is quite close to wasting their valuable time.

Below are different types of sites where you [can say that] buyers can find service providers or service providers can find online jobs:

Forums:

There are many forums where there is a section [or the whole site is targeted to freelance work] where people can find service providers. But if we talk about the sites where people can actually hire someone: then the list of such forums narrows down to just few.

There is no arbitration at forums: so most of the work that one can find there, will end up in some kind of scam. Forums are not made for handling freelancers or freelance work, so people looking for work at forums are actually wasting their valuable time. And if they start to search for work [online jobs] at freelance sites, then they can find much more work in much less time.

Most of the people, who try to find work at forums or the people who try to hire service providers at forums, do not know about freelance sites. That is the reason why they try to find work [or someone to hire] at forums. So, if a person already knows about freelance sites, then there is no need to look for online jobs at any other place.

Some Small Sites:

You may see many different kinds of sites on the internet where there will be offers for online jobs. Many of such sites are scams and in case a site is legit; even then, it is not a good idea to look for work at such sites. The reason is that, not many people use such sites to outsource online jobs. So, you will most probably be wasting your time. Also these sites do not have much experienced staff and there is no proper management of business being done at such sites.

So, the obvious reason for buyers to use freelance sites for hiring people online is that freelance sites are basically made for this kind of business. There is a proper interface for buyers to deal with their projects. There is a proper staff that guide buyers and take care of all the business at freelance sites.

Most importantly, at freelance sites, buyers can hire experienced people. Hundreds of service providers may apply for projects that buyers open at freelance sites. So, buyers will have a huge list of people, from which they can choose one or more personals who will do work for them.

Why buyers hire people online instead of hiring them offline?

There are so many reasons why buyers prefer [nowadays] to hire people on the internet rather than hiring people offline. I will try to cover as many reasons as possible.

Buyer hire people online on contract bases. That is: buyer give a single job to the person and give a certain time period in which the job is needed to be completed. After this one job, the buyer is not bound to give more work to the person he hired.

This is called contract base business and it is beneficial for both the buyers and the services providers. No one is bound to work more.

Unlike the traditional hiring of people offline, buyers do not need to worry about things like: employees not doing proper work, employees not coming to office on time, employees asking for increase in pay or otherwise he or she will join another company where higher pay is offered, employees giving sick leave and many other problems which buyer do not have to face when hiring people on the internet.

Hiring new employees [offline] can be so problematic. Buyer may need to give ads in newspapers or use other sources to hire employees. This hiring process can take days or even weeks as people are not ready in line out side the office all the time. It takes time before people, who are interesting in the job, arrive for the interview.

On the other hand, at freelance sites buyers can hire people within few minutes. There is no so much waiting involved at freelance sites for hiring new people. Thousands of people are looking for online jobs at freelance site all the time. Buyers just need to open a new project and with in few minutes there will be many people applying for the job from all around the world.

There are so many benefits for the buyers to hire people at freelance sites. I will write more about this topic later.

Which option save money for the buyers: hiring people online or hiring people offline?

We already saw that there are many benefits for the buyer to hire people online instead of hiring them offline: but can buyers save money via hiring people online?

Well yes: one of the main reasons for buyers to hire people at freelance sites is the fact that buyers can save lot of money when they outsource work at freelance sites.

How buyers save money?

At freelance sites there is a bidding system which makes a competition environment at freelance sites. Let’s take an example of a competition in order to understand better:

A buyer opens a project at a freelance site [let’s name that project as Project A] [let the budget range for the project be between $30 to $250]:

Let’s assume that four service providers place their bids on Project A. Here are the names for the four service providers”

SP 1

SP 2

SP 3

SP 4

SP 1 is the first person to visit or see the newly opened Project A. He places a bid of $200 on Project A. SP 2 is the second person who see Project A. He places a bid of $180: if he want to win the project then his best bet is to bid for lower rates to attract the buyer towards his bid.

Then SP 3 come and places even lower bid and finally SP 4 arrives and bid for even more less money.

In real world, there are many service providers placing bids on projects [not just four].  So, you can see that service providers offer to work for low rates in order to win the project and thus win the competition among all the service providers.

From which country do buyers belong to?

Buyers at freelance sites come from all over the world. There is no restriction on the country from where a buyer can join freelance sites.