Ebuynee co-founder Eric Pannell understands the difficulties of building a strong business presence online. He comments, “I’ve been selling on Fiverr for over 5+ years and I’ve been forced to lower the prices of my service offerings to compete in their saturated market. A service that I would normally charge $50 I have to settle and charge for $5-$15 just to attract customers based solely on cost alone. Although there is one major player in the online gig space, it’s not a one size fits all solution. Ebuynee gives people of color an opportunity to spread their services even further with less competition.”
Ebuynee is a new online marketplace that seamlessly allows customers to find Black, Latinx, and women freelance services with transparent costs at the tip of your fingers. Launched by Eric Pannell and Foday Bangura, the platform strives to elevate the presence of diversity & inclusion in the gig economy, and help Black & brown professionals strive to gain more customers through the impacts of the pandemic. According to a study of two prominent online freelance marketplaces—TaskRabbit and Fiverr, it was found that there is also bias and discrimination on online freelancing marketplaces with respect to gender and race. Black and Latinx labor has been historically and systematically undervalued; however, online freelancing websites have provided job opportunities to workers who are disenfranchised by the rigidity of the traditional labor market.
According to the Freelancer’s Union, there are 57 million Americans in the Freelance industry, up from 53 million in 2014. It is projected that 50.9% of workers in the US will be freelancing by 2027. Additionally, close to 50% of millennials have already worked a freelancing gig as of 2017. Ebuynee aims to help Black and Latinx freelancers to expand and thrive in this nearly $1 trillion industry that contributes more to the US economy than industries such as construction and transportation and is on par with the information sector. Considering the effects of Covid-19 causing traditional brick and mortar businesses to close down, the freelance industry is expected to increase drastically, and many professionals may have to pivot and find innovative ways to gain more customers through the transition.
He continues, “We came up with the idea of Ebuynee with Black, Latinx and Women freelancers in mind as we went through the pandemic. They have been forced to do business in a different way that they may not be able to quickly react to. Pre-pandemic they could serve their customers how, when, and where they want locally. Now they are forced in more of a virtual environment which comes with a learning curve. They now have to worry about building a website, their online presence and marketing, which everyone is naturally good at. We’re solving the problem of giving them a place to list their services without having to worry about building a website, and we handle all the marketing by sharing their services to over 40 countries. Ebuynee gives them the peace of mind to just do what they are really good at and that’s providing exceptional service to their customers.
Co-founder Foday Bangura comments, “Ebuynee’s goal isn’t to compete with existing or new online marketplaces. We believe there is more than enough room for freelancers to share their services and thrive. We wanted to give as much creative control as possible to our sellers on the platform. You can list as many services as you want. If you have an extensive background in different professional fields, we encourage you to list them, and price point your services however you feel it is worth. On Ebuynee, freelancers no longer have to deal with working long and strenuous contracts with other organizations in order to get paid weeks or even months later. Our platform allows you to conduct quick and easy transactions with customers all over the world, and you get paid instantly as soon as the customer approves of your service, no delays whatsoever. This allows you to scale your business without any restrictions of a contract, which will ultimately increase your client base. We’ll do the heavy lifting marketing your services and bringing you more customers.”
The Ebuynee Marketplace gives customers the ability to access a diverse pool of freelance services from the Black and Latinx community and provides another avenue for professionals to pivot from the impacts of the pandemic to ultimately gain more customers. The platform has a special promotion when you refer a friend, you both can get up to $100 dollars.
To learn more regarding signing up as a customer or freelancer on Ebuynee, go to Ebuynee.com
To participate in the $100 dollar give away, go to www.ebuynee.com/referral_page
English (United States) 
