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TpT Store Makeover

Teacher Hacks Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Ok Peeps.

Let's be honest here for a minute. I started my TpT journey about 2 years ago now. The things I put up there - some were great. Some - what the heck was I thinking!

Today was a day of literally taking off my 'hoarding goggles' and looking at my store with a critical eye.  Things had to go! I've literally been in front of my computer for about 20 hours. You may think that is an understatement, but excluding a few bathroom breaks and a snack in between.. I'm not even kidding you.

When starting my TpT journey, I had a mish mash of all kinds of products, all different looks, many types of covers etc.  Today, I updated 25 of my covers. Each one of these bad boys took close to an hour. That isn't even going in there with my microscope to see if that product needed a face lift, to be put on life support or if it was so dead and useless that it needed to be taken down all together. I took down about 10 items today. Things I just wasn't happy with any longer. I know i'm better than those products, and I know that I can make better things, and I don't want them dragging down my brand any longer.

This was my plan.

1.) Go over my products quickly to see which ones were toast. I didn't delete these products, because then my previous buyers wouldn't have access to them any longer and that isn't fair in my head. I simply made them inactive for future buyers to see.

2.) Make a list of my top sellers and my best products so that I can focus on those ones first.

3.) Create custom categories that I can tag each product into so that they are easily searchable, and customers have an idea of where they may want to look within the invisible walls of my online store.

Here are the categories I have created so far. I chose these ones because this is what my store has focused on so far. Once I need to add new categories, I shall do that! 4.) Design a simple and clean template plan for my store, and decide how I want it to look and feel when I (or others) click on it. Does it feel organized? Does it look cluttered? Does it look presentable to new buyers and visitors that are stopping by? Would I be proud to display these in a brick and mortar store?  Honestly? Some things - Oh hell yes. I work hard at this. Other things? I should have hid them in the pocket of my back pack a long time ago in hopes that no one would see them and share the secrets they held like in the days of my teenage years.

Now, down below is a picture of one of my pink forest animal classroom theme decor sets. Is it adorable. Yes. It is. Is it showcased to show how adorable it is? Nope. Not even a little bit. So, what do we do? We simplify, we make it complex, we dress it up and dress it down all at the same time. This my friends is what will make or break your store. Am I an expert? No. Not by any measure of the word. Am I working hard to learn? I sure am. Maybe, just maybe I can teach someone else a little bit about my mistakes on this journey too.
Now, here is the newly updated cover of my products. Let's compare, shall we? What do you notice about my newly updated covers?

1.) They are uniform
2.) They have bold fonts that stand out
3.) They display eye catching pieces of the product
4.) They all have my logo so that if they get pinned, referenced or happen to left in a printer at school, people know where they came from I'm still not done... not for at least 1 more full day (not including actually picking apart the product descriptions and updating those bad boys) however, I feel much more proud of my store. I feel like it is exciting for me to go and click on the links. I feel like potential buyers won't be so lost in the abyss that my store used to be. I feel like this is a nice fresh new start for Apple-y Ever After! :)

If you feel like you would like to begin your own teachers pay teachers journey, click here to get started! It's an amazing roller coaster of a ride! Posted by Holly at 4:38 AM
