Department: Commerce

Class: BS Accounting & Finance (E)

Semester: 4th

Course: Electronics Commerce

Topic: Freelancing Platform

Subtitle: Report

Submitted By: Group 4

Members: BAFE-20-18 Muhammad Haider Saleem

BAFE-20-19 Muhammad Ismail Sadaqat

BAFE-20-28 Abdul Sami

BAFE-20-30 Asma Azhar

BAFE-20-42 Hafiz Muhammad Furqan Akram

BAFE-20-47 Fadak Zahra

Submitted To: Mr. Muhammad Mansha

Dated: March 07, 2022

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................4
Benefits..........................................................................................................4
Risks...............................................................................................................4
Websites.........................................................................................................5
 Fiverr.com................................................................................................................................5
 Upwork.com.............................................................................................................................5
 Guru.com..................................................................................................................................5
 99designs.com...........................................................................................................................5
 PeoplePerHour.com.................................................................................................................6
 Freelancer.com.........................................................................................................................6
 FlexJobs.com............................................................................................................................6

Paths to make money.....................................................................................6

 Working with clients directly..................................................................................................6
 Subcontracting.........................................................................................................................6
 Jobs websites............................................................................................................................6

Drawbacks.....................................................................................................7
 Round the Clock Coverage.....................................................................................................7
 Accountability..........................................................................................................................7
 Initial Cash Investment...........................................................................................................7
 Client development..................................................................................................................7
 Tax Consequences....................................................................................................................7
 Administrative responsibilities...............................................................................................7

Steps for creating a freelance website...........................................................8

Features of E-Commerce follow Freelance...................................................8
 Ubiquity....................................................................................................................................8
 Global Reach............................................................................................................................8
 Universal Standards................................................................................................................8
 Personalization & Customization...........................................................................................8
 Information Density.................................................................................................................8
 Interactivity..............................................................................................................................9

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  Richness....................................................................................................................................9

References....................................................................................................10

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Introduction:
Freelancing means to work as an independent company rather than be employed by
someone else. Freelancers are self-employed and often refer to as independent contractors.
Freelancing is also a form of entrepreneurship, which means the freelancer has total control
of their earning potential. For example, if I hired a photographer to take new headshots for
me, I could pay a freelancer for that session and that would be the end of it. They can earn
as much as they are able to bill to their clients. You are your own boss. Freelancers are hired
by other companies on a part time or short-term basis. But they do not receive the same
compensation as full-time employees or have the same level of commitment to any
particular company. With the rise of economy, people are talking about freelancing more
than ever before. According to the study, 53% of workers aged 18-22 are freelancing.
Freelancing platform are a meeting place where qualified and skilled freelancers from
anywhere in the world can find work and get payment. In this regard online freelance
platforms can be compared to e-Bay and Airbnb which have totally transformed the way we
shop and travel respectively. (Clouse, 2021) Freelance platforms are important for both
workers as well as employers. An Upwork report indicates that 80% of large corporation are
planning to increase their use of freelancers. In fact, there is a 30% demand increase in the
number of work projects accomplished through these types of platforms. (Jay, 2022)

Benefits:
 Freelancing provides a lot of flexibility and control to the individual. Most freelancers
choose their own hours, the work that they do, the clients they work with, and may
even be able to work remotely.
 Freelancing provides you a lot of variety in the type of work you can do. If you are
someone with a lot of interests and are drawn to trying new things, freelancing can
help you explore all kinds of projects.
 Freelancing is not something people typically do forever. They either hire other
freelancers or employees to build a full agency, they built their own products to
replace their freelance income, or they go back to working full time.

Risks:
Freelancing comes with both financial and some health risks. In the United States, one of
the biggest benefits to full time employment is access to healthcare and other financial
benefits outside of your typical salary. That may include retirement plan or company
provided health insurance. For freelancers, being hired as an independent contractor
generally means companies will not provide those same financial or health care benefits to
you. So, freelancers are on their own when it comes to planning for their financial futures
and enrolling in health insurance coverage. Not only are freelancers on their own to set
these benefits up for themselves, but they are also at a bit of a disadvantage. When a
company negotiates a health insurance policy with a broker, they are often able to get more
favorable rates since they are buying in bulk. But as a self-employed individual, you are
buying a policy for yourself and your family only. And unfortunately, that means your health
insurance may cost more. It is easy to set up your own retirement savings account.

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Freelancers are responsible for all income coming into the business. If you are unable or
unwilling to sell more projects and land more clients, your income will dry up. (Clouse, 2021)

You can do freelancing by home online as follows:

 Choose your skill to do work online.

 Build yourself as a brand.
 Create an awesome portfolio.
 Make solid contacts.
 Join the best freelancing websites (the lists of sites are given below).

Websites:
 Fiverr.com:
For beginners, Fiver is one of the best freelance sites. On this site a person can easily
find jobs in different niche and professions while working home-based. It is a
platform for management, finance, data entries, artists, graphic designers,
photographers, writers, and a lot more. It has a minimal fee charge. Fiver freelance is
such a website by which anyone can market his/her services and there is no need for
highly sophisticated skills for moving ahead. For hiring clients and for meeting the
requirements of the customer services, you only have to create your personal
account of Fiver.com

 Upwork.com:
Another best website for beginners about one and a half million freelance clients is
Upwork freelance. This site learns beginners to sell the services in an effective way as
soon as possible. On this website, you are offered a lot of jobs that may increase
from hourly to fixed projects. Nevertheless, you will be able to find any work of your
choice in a convenient way. It is the best route to find freelance jobs from home
easily. This website also permits freelancers to market their services. It is an effective
platform that connects seller with buyers and is also helpful in connecting with
legitimate employers.

 Guru.com:
A person can select a job out of many categories according to any specific field in
which he/she is interested. By guru.com a person can create his/her dashboard
powerful for communication with the right employer. Through this dashboard
he/she will be able to receive the tasks, files, documents, and any sort of updates
related to the job. This website also provides an automated method to make timely
and automated payments.

 99designs.com:
This site connects the designers of freelance with the employers or the
organizations. This website is a goldmine for good designers with amazing skills.
Plenty of resources is available for beginner designers and buyers. To enhance the
skills of the designers, this website also provides tutorials, toolkits, tips, and tricks.

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  PeoplePerHour.com:
For the people who are looking for freelance websites to work from home. It will
provide them the right job according to their qualification. Different pricing plans are
offered by PeoplePerHour e.g., one-time, monthly payment, and quote-based
payment methods.

 Freelancer.com:
Another platform where the freelancers and the clients cooperate with each other is
Freelancer.com. On this biggest freelance marketplace, about 12.6 million jobs are
posted. Firstly, you have to sign up for the account and bid for the projects through
this platform. In this account you will find a variety of projects like data entry,
freelance writing, writing the contents, designing the logos, designing and
developing the web, and many more.

 FlexJobs.com:
FlexJobs is another website that connects various freelancers with employers so that
they can work remotely and earn as much money as they want. Payment’s methods
are secure, and users don’t have to worry about any scam postings because the
website admin takes care of it. Freelancers can send jobs or market their services to
potential employers. However, the platform is not free. It comes with various plans
and packages that the user has to subscribe to for free access to jobs.

Paths to make money:

There are 3 main paths to making money as a freelancer: (Clouse, 2021)

 Working with clients directly:

Working clients direct refers to finding and communicating directly with clients
through your own means. That may be networking, existing relationships, or word-
of-mouth referrals. This is one of the hardest paths, but has the highest margins
since there is no middleman in the transaction. Freelancing client direct also creates
more resilient relationships if you plan to freelance for the long-term.

 Subcontracting:
Some freelancers don’t like the hassle of finding and communicating with individual
clients. For those freelancers, another option is acting as a subcontractor to another
company or agency. The model is pretty simple. Typically, an agency sells a large
project to a client, and then they break that contract into subcontracts to be
completed by other agencies or freelancers.

 Jobs websites:
Another popular method for finding client work is through a freelance marketplace
like Fiverr, Upwork, FlexJobs etc. We discussed these websites above. These
marketplaces serve as the middleman by aggregating freelance jobs on one side of
the marketplace and freelance talent on the other.

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Drawbacks:
 Round the Clock Coverage:
Today’s client expects 24/7 service. You may receive clients call at night, on
weekends and while you are on vacation. As a freelancer, you must ensure that you
can provide round-to-clock coverage, especially if you serve clients in other time
zones. As a new business owner, you may initially work more hours than you worked
in a traditional office setting. In addition to performing your core legal work, you will
need to handle other tasks such as marketing and billing.

 Accountability:
As an independent contractor, you are the bottom line, and the success and failure
of the business rests on your shoulders. You must be highly self-motivated and
disciplined to survive without a manager or other employees to keep you on track.
Working from home can pose many distractions from personal telephone calls to
children, family, and visitors to the lure of refrigerator, Television. You must be
focused, motivated and disciplined.

 Initial Cash Investment:

Most new businesses require an initial cash investment to purchase computer
software, office equipment, office supplies, insurance, and other business staples.
Marketing expenses, web expenses, and other start-up costs can require thousands
in upfront cash.

 Client development:
One of the most significant challenges of launching a new business is gaining clients.
You must constantly promote yourself and your business to keep and develop new
clients. Marketing your talents can represent another part-time in addition to your
legal work.

 Tax Consequences:
As an independent contractor, you are subject to an extra self-employment tax.
Since an independent contractor does not have taxes deducted from client checks,
you must pay estimated taxes on a quarterly basis if your tax liability for the year will
exceed $1000. You must also keep careful records of all your expenditures.

 Administrative responsibilities:
In addition to your legal work, you must also manage the duties of operating a
business. Marketing, client development, office administration, billing, and other
tasks can eat up significant time and finances. You need to become familiar with tax
regulations, business licensing requirements, accounting and bookkeeping, contract
law and office technology. As a virtual worker, you will need to build your library of
resources and forms for your practice areas. Some of these resources may require
costly purchases or subscriptions.

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Steps for creating a freelance website:
Here are 10 steps you will need to create a freelance website: (Cohen, 2021)

 Choose a freelance website template

 Create a domain
 Develop your brand
 Include relevant pages (homepage, products or services, projects, online stores,
about page, contact)
 Add sophisticated design elements
 Incorporate the right business tools
 Create the blog
 Optimize SEO (search engine optimization)
 Make it mobile-friendly
 Promote your site

Features of E-Commerce follow Freelance:

Following are the features of e-commerce following freelancing: (Solanki, 2021)

 Ubiquity:
E-commerce is widespread, that is, it is available everywhere always. It sets free
market from being restricted to a physical space and makes it possible to shop from
computer (such as desktop, laptop). The result is called a market space. For
consumers, ubiquity cuts transaction costs for exploring products in a market.

 Global Reach:
E-commerce technologies enable a business to easily reach across geographic
boundaries around the earth far more conveniently and effectively as compared to
traditional commerce. The potential market size for e-commerce merchants is
approximately equal to size of online population.

 Universal Standards:
Universal standards are standards shared by all the nations around world. These are
technical standards of internet for conducting e-commerce. It gives all the ability to
connect at the same level and it provides network externalities that will benefit
everyone. Universal technical standards lower entry cost and minimal search costs.

 Personalization & Customization:

Personalization means designing marketing messages according to particular
individuals by customizing it as per customer personal details like name, interest,
and past purchases record. Services can be modified or altered according to the
user’s choice or past buying record.

 Information Density:
Information density means total amount and quality of information available over
internet to all market buyers and sellers. Internet vastly increases information

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 density. Information density offers better quality information to consumer and
merchants. E-commerce technologies increase accuracy and timeliness of
information. Like freelancing platform provides large variety of services with prices.

 Interactivity:
Freelancing platform permits two-way communication between customer and seller
which makes it interactive. It proves as significant feature of e-commerce technology
over the commercial traditional technologies of the 20th century.

 Richness:
Richness refers to the complexity and content of a message. Richness means all
commercial activity and experience, conducted through a variety of messages. For
example, respond to client through SMS, Email etc.

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References
Clouse, J. (2021, March 21). What is freelancing & what does it mean to freelance? Retrieved from
https://freelancing.school/what-is-freelancing/#:~:text=You%20may%20be%20wondering
%2C%20%E2%80%9Cso,referred%20to%20as%20independent%20contractors

Cohen, T. (2021, May 13). Steps for creating a freelance website. Step-by-Step Guide: How to Create
a Successful Freelance Website? Retrieved from https://www.wix.com/blog/2018/04/how-
to-create-freelance-website-guide/

Jay, A. (2022). Freelance Platforms. What Are Freelance Platforms? Analysis of Features, Benefits and
Pricing. Retrieved from https://financesonline.com/freelance-platforms-analysis-features-
benefits-pricing/

Solanki, K. (2021, January 20). Features of e-commerce following freelancing. E-Commerce |

Definition, Types, Features, Advantages & Disadvantages. Retrieved from
https://www.toppers4u.com/2021/01/e-commerce-types-features-advantages.html?m=1

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