Opening A Teacher Store Tips & Tutorials - Part 1

A few weeks back, I was asking how I go about opening a teacher's store. I had tons of questions, but struggled to find the answers! I had some really great advice from a few people {thank you - you guys are awesome!} but honestly not a whole lot of people were forthcoming with wanting to share information. I then had a lot of people requesting I do a follow up with what I found since they wanted to know too....so here it is. I have so much info to share that I'm having to split it up in parts. And I am by no means an EXPERT...this is just what I have found through asking around & trial and error. Please, please, please correct me if I'm wrong about anything!

Choosing A Site to Sell Your Products

First steps first, you have to decide which site to use. I looked into the two main teaching sites: Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers {There may be more but these are the two I am most familiar with} . Here is what I found, along with which one I ended up going with.

Teachers Notebook - You pay an up front fee of 19.95. After this you keep 100% of everything you sell {minus paypal fees} You don't have to pay listing fees or membership fees. Paypal has a few option plans that determine your rate, but I have found that it's around .30-.50 for each transaction. They accept the following file types: PDF, Excel, Powerpoint, Smartboard, Word and Zip {*Although you have to be careful with the terms of your clipart- I'll cover this more in part 2} It is highly recommended to use pdf or zip files for 1) easy & quick to download 2) not everyone has excel/ppt/word. One really great things is that the $ is in you paypal account {minus fees} immediately after someone purchases something. Here is their FAQ page.

Teachers Pay Teachers - To open an account with TpT is FREE for the basic acct, however there are fees that you will be accessed. The are 2 types of accounts - Basic which is free to sign up, but TpT keeps 40% of your sale + .30 fee for each sale. The premium account is 59.95 a year, but TpT only takes 15% and there are no other fees to pay. They give an example of a $5.00 transaction- Basic you  take home 2.70 and Premium 4.25. TpT offers a much wider range of file types including movies, music & photos. Once you upload your file, you have the option to upload a preview file {which is really nice} I have heard that uploading files is a little tricky {I don't know this first hand though, just what I've heard}. Also, their website makes it appear that you get your $ quarterly. Between the two, I feel that TpT has more of a driving force and is more widely known of the two. Here is their FAQ page.

What I chose:

I ended up going with Teachers Notebook. I was hesitant at first paying the 20$ up front, but after having my store for just a week, I've already made that back! I have found it super easy to upload files. While I can't upload a preview file, I can upload 4 images, which has been perfect! Even though TpT seems to be the more popular site, I'm not having that much trouble getting people to see my site. I highly suggest having multiple source outlets to advertise your files {twitter, pinterest, facebook, blog, etc} The only thing I wish was that TN had better categories, and that it allowed me to assign more to my files {but it does allow you to create your own categories} The paypal fees have ranged between .30 -.50...not bad except when you only sell 1$ item {but this is much more take home than going with the other site} To the right is a screen shot of the breakdown for what I've sold and what I get to take home after fees {hopefully will give you a better idea!} 

I hope this gives you an idea and helps you make a better decision for which one to go with. I tried to be as fair as I could...but like I said, I am pretty new to this and I'm only speaking on what I was able to find out. Now go check out my store....and let me know what you think! And watch out for part 2 of my tips & tricks of opening a store!