ABSTRACT
Throwing a sale in your store is an easy way to attract and retain customers. If you use TpT as your platform, the TpT website is set up for you to easily manage this through their built-in tools. There are three primary ways to have a sale in your store or give a discount:
TpT site-wide sales
TpT hosts site-sponsored sales a few times each year (e.g., Back to School), which provide a great opportunity for sellers to get on board. Once logged into your account, you’ll see a banner notifying you of the upcoming sale. It will say something like: Hello Teacher-Author! Our [name] sale is coming up on [date]. Ready your store.
When you click on “Ready your store” (or, alternatively, Home -> Dashboard -> Throw a Sale) you will have two options: TpT allows teacher-authors to set their own sale parameters, or they can also opt to simply place everything in their store at 20% off.
If you set your own sale info, your discount options are 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%, and you can choose whether you want it to be every item in your store or only certain products.116
Individual store sales
You also have the ability to throw sales (using the same process) any time you’d like, though TpT recommends no more than once per month. Throw a Sale is under the Promote area of your store's Dashboard (carrot by your store name.)
You can choose to promote these sales with messages to followers, or you can use them as “secret” sales where the only way buyers would know about them is by visiting your store during the sale. It depends how much time and work you want to put into it!
“Unofficial” sales
Unofficial sales are useful tools to engage with your followers. They are particularly handy if you have a new product or product line that you want to highlight. Let’s say a particular new product will sell for $3.00. You can message your followers something like this: “Hello, fellow Japanese teacher followers! I am excited about a new product in my store: Guide to Making Fun and Easy Sushi at Home. This item consists of handouts and a step-by-step video for students and families. The regular price is $3.00, but for a limited time only, it is just $1.00! This surprise sale is advertised only to my followers as a thank you for your business, and it lasts from ____ through ____. On ____, the price will go back up to $3.00, so get it while you can!”
Additionally, you can use unofficial sales as a reward for good customers or as a way to “play defense” with unhappy customers. In either situation, you can ask the customer (via the Comments or Q&A sections they used to communicate with you) to contact you on your TpT-linked email, and let them know that your store will be on sale for them for a specific period of time. I recommend doing this for no more than one to two hours at a time. TpT doesn’t allow you to set times—only dates—so to make this work you have to do it a semi-manually. Agree on a start time with the buyer, and go through the TpT-site steps of a one-day sale. At the end of the time you allowed your buyer, or after you see that buyer made their purchase, simply delete/end the sale manually.117 118
