If you are a shopper on Teachers Pay Teachers, you already know that products range in price from totally FREE to over $400! Here are a few tips I have learned over the years from being a seller on TpT that I want to pass on to you.
(Full disclosure: I have been a seller on TpT since 2014. But these hints are for you to use across the TeachersPayTeachers website, although if you particularly want to shop at my store, who am I to stop you?)
Save Your Money And Use Teachers Pay Teachers for Schools
Have you heard of TpT for Schools? Just as your school submits purchases orders for printers, textbooks, supplies, TpT for schools makes it easy for schools to order the resources teachers need to teach their students.
The system works slightly differently to how teachers are used to using TpT for their personal purchases. Teachers find what they want and submit them through the TpT for schools site to their administrator who either approves and purchases or says not today. Then the file is uploaded to the school and shared with the teacher or teachers depending on how many site licenses are purchased.
If you love the resources you find on Teachers Pay Teachers but want to save your hard earned pennies, then share this link with your school administrators. And in using this link you get a $25 bonus sign up gift certificate for your school!
Follow Your Favorite Teacher Authors on TpT
I know, right? Not one more email. But, if you are not following favorite teachers authors you are probably missing out. Many, but certainly not all, offer better than sale prices when they upload new resources. For instance, when I uploaded these products I discounted them at 50% for the first 24 hours.
Only my store followers knew about them because they received an email the morning after they were released. Sellers usually have something in the product description inviting you to follow their store and will list any benefits of doing so. To follow a store, you click the green ‘follow me’ star next to the store name. You can follow my store by clicking the link below.
Use Your Credits
Did you know that every time you leave feedback for paid downloads on TeachersPayTeachers, you are given credits that can be used toward future purchases? You get one credit for every dollar you spend if you have left feedback. Here’s how it works.
On your ‘My Account’ page (on the top right hand corner of the website) click on ‘My Purchases’. If you have made purchases but not left feedback, you will be prompted to do so.
There is strange A-F system that does not correspond to the 4* system that rates teachers (always thought this was weird), and then a space to write a response. You have to do both in order to get the credit, and just a heads up, TpT is thinking of changing the response box to only give credit for feedback is really helpful, not just an A+. Once someone left me all ‘A’s and the comment was “.”. What do you do with that?
Once you have finished, continue shopping as usual on the TpT site. When you are ready to check out, before you hit the green secure checkout button, scroll further down to the discounts box and click on ‘Use TpT Credits’. You need at least 20 credits to redeem, and 20 credits = $1 discount. You can see here that sadly I didn’t have enough. Sniff.
Wait for a Sale
We all love a sale! Teachers Pay Teachers has between 3 and 4 site-wide sales a year, and some teacher authors have additional sales. During a site-wide sale, TpT releases a code that buyers can use to take 5% off everything in the basket. In addition, many if not most, but not all stores put everything on sale for 20% off. If you remember to use the code, you can get items for a total of 25% off. Remembering the code is key!
How do I find out when a sale is on?
Good question. Traditionally TpT has a back to school sale, sometime in July/August, and then one in winter and one in spring/end of school year. The dates change every year, and the site is very tight lipped about when those dates will be – sellers only find a day or so in advance. Make sure you are getting TpT emails – that is how they are announced, and be sure to follow your favorite sellers on Social Media. You can follow me on Instagram here. Following sellers is a good way to see what they have on offer and also to catch the TpT codes that were mentioned above. In addition, some sellers including myself participate in other sales, like dollar discount days, where an item regularly priced at $4 or above is on sale for just $1. The only way to find out about these kinds of sales is to follow those teacher sellers on social media!
If you have credits and have items on your wishlist but are not needing to purchase immediately, I suggest holding on for a site-wide sale. If you remember to use your discount code, and then remember to apply your credits, you should be able to make a pretty hefty dent in that purchase total! Happy shopping!
