My Journey with Teachers Pay Teachers
I recently changed jobs. During the down time between jobs, I turned my attention to the website Teachers Pay Teachers . I created an account called Always A Lesson a while back and placed some items up there that I had created and used in my own classroom. If someone bought one of these items, great. If not, no loss because I made them so that I could use them myself. Well, with time on my hands, I decided to create some materials I knew I would have used had I still been in the classroom. I placed a focus on trying to create one new product a day, and before I knew it my store grew from a few items to over 60! Now, I was ready to market myself and try to sell a few products to make some pocket change (or a paycheck if I got lucky!).
I sold a few products, but was not making very much on the item. TpT allows you to have a new account for free, but then they take a large chunk out of your profits. But, they do offer a Premium account where you pay $59 or so and then they take a smaller percentage out of your profit. (They take about 20% instead of 80%). At first, I didn’t want to upgrade my seller’s account because I wasn’t sure if I would even make the $50 back seeing as I only sold a few $1 items. But, I realized without risk there is no reward, so in August I bit the bullet for $59.
Come September, I had hit my first milestone! I had earned $100 in profit (meaning over $100 in sales and breaking even for any upfront cost I put into my store). I love seeing the profit graph grow daily, and even sometimes by the hour! Plus, I downloaded the app on my phone so I could manage my site while I was away. It also makes a “cha ching!” sound each time one of my products sells and that itself so rewarding and exciting! That motivates me to keep making more products!
In order to really make sure I am making relevant products and investing in my “company” so that sales will continue to increase, I had to do some research. So, I stumbled across two helpful resources on the TPT site that I hope you find helpful (if you have others, please share and I’ll update this post!):
1) Forums– This is an awesome place to introduce yourself, share your websites (blog, facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc), celebrate milestones, ask for feedback, etc. It’s an open communication location where teachers can chat with one another by posting their thoughts. I introduced myself and received many “Welcome’s;” asked for feedback and got excellent advice by other teacher sellers; and even shared my first milestone that got even more congratulatory remarks. The teachers that are on TpT are so honest and helpful. I cannot believe they are so willing to share their success secrets with other sellers (technically, they’re competitors). But luckily, we are all in this together and the forum is a place of positivity and encouragement. Go check it out!
2) Wiki– A document was set up to take in sellers info in efforts to continue to connect TpT sellers and bloggers! So I placed my information in the document and received lots of new “likes” on my Facebook page! I of course, followed them back!
The TpT community is HUGE…70,718 kind of huge to be exact! Although there are many other sellers out there who are doing this full-time or have been doing this for years, I still celebrate my tiny milestones, regardless how small it pales in comparison to theirs- its my journey and each seller started out somewhere.
So here’s to my milestone celebrations to date:
- $50 in sales
- $100 in sales
- 5o followers
- 100 followers
- 50 products
- 75 products
- Selling multiple products in a day
- Top 300 for the state
That’s not it though..my journey as not just a seller but a collaborator grew in titles from “first timer,” to “active collaborator”, and eventually “collaborator extraordinaire.” But by the end of September, I achieved the highest title as a TpT collaborator- “royal collaborator.” Alright! So proud to be helping others via the numerous forums!
There is still quite a lot to learn. The best advice I received was about the “product statistics” feature on my page. I am able to look up how often a product is viewed, downloaded, added to someone’s wish list, bought, etc. Many of my products had been viewed hundreds of times but never purchased. I realized I needed to look at price, visual appeal, and content. Once I started making some minor changes to those products they began to sell!
I have found three areas of improvement for my own products: making better cover pages, product descriptions and product titles. This lures the consumer to your page and encourages them to purchase your product. Let’s face it, there are numerous products featuring the same topic so you have to make yours look top notch! Here are a few websites to help you with this:
I’ve realized that updating my products has the biggest impact instead of cranking out new products. Some things I began to add to my old products are an instructions page, copyright at the bottom of the page in addition to my link, page numbers on my products, including “Other Products You May Like” page, and a preview of every larger item so that buyers know what they are purchasing. These changes have helped more products receive more views than ever before.I think I might want to even add a page to encourage a buyer to leave a comment and a rating. This way I build up my reputation. A lot of buyers do not go back to leave a rating.
Lastly, you can even organize your products by creating “custom categories” so that a buyer can go to your page and easily search for specific products (ie. literacy, classroom management, or professional development). The easier it is for a customer to find your product, the more likely they are to purchase it. No one wants to hunt down an item, especially if another store has the same item easily accessible (regardless if its better quality or not).
So that’s my journey in a nutshell.. its been an enjoyable ride full of lessons learned. That’s the purpose of life in my opinion- to learn. I am so glad I developed the habit of learning early on. I am excited to see what’s in store for all of this learning! 🙂
What lessons have you learned? Share any helpful resources or tips!
About the author, Gretchen
I am a teacher trainer and coach. Working elbow to elbow with teachers and teacher leaders to ensure instructional proficiency and student achievement soar lights me up. We have a real need in our nation for strong educators to remain in the field. My blog, book, podcast, courses and instructional materials are geared towards empowering teachers (and those that lead them) to receive the support needed to grow and thrive today, tomorrow and always.
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