What Products For My TPT Store Should I Make?

Do you want to start Teachers Pay Teachers, but you do not know what products to make for your TPT store? You are not alone! Often, many teachers start their store, but leave it because they do not know what to make. Here are a couple options on how to approach this dilemma.

Is This Going to Be A Hobby or a Business?

You can create products for TPT that you want or you can make products that buyers want. Your choice. When I started I wish this was stressed more. I wanted to make money but I chose to make products for my class. My classroom is a grade one room. Kindergarten and Grade 1 are saturated areas on Teachers Pay Teachers. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t make money. It means that if you want to make a lot of money, you are going to have to be creative or devote time to marketing your products!

Pick A Niche

A niche is a concentrated area, a focus. Start with a subject/grade that you can create 20-50 products for.

• You can use your current grade/subject that you are teaching (but reminder what I said above if you teach primary)
• Consider your favourite grade/subject
• Do you teach high school? It is a smaller niche area
• Are you a homeschool parent?
• Do you work with adults or preschoolers?

You can make products for the above niches, and more!

Your Products for TPT Should Meet A Need

Whether you are making products for your own class or for some serious selling, ask yourself WHY will someone want this product? I admit this is something I often skipped when making products.

• Are you saving the buyer time?
• Does this product alleviate any stress?
• Can the product be used multiple times?
• Will it meet the needs of the different learners in the classroom?
• Does this help the teacher during a specific holiday or season?
• Will the product meet a teacher need or student need?
• Will this product be a low prep, no prep, or a lot of prep for the teacher?
• Are you providing value for the buyer?

These are things to consider when creating products (there are probably more). If you want to read about seasonal or evergreen products, click the link.

For Yourself in Their Shoes

Finally, be your buyer. What are you looking for, right now? If you are a classroom teacher, look at your year overview and ask yourself, what would you need? Brainstorm a big list of ideas and then create an action plan to make those products!

One piece of advice, try to make seasonal products a couple months ahead of time so that you get the early buyers and for “traction”. Some products need time to be seen.

I will continue talking about this in the next post, Your TPT Avatar.

Until then,

Happy Creating!