Do You Bundle? (Why you should BUNDLE your TpT products)

In case you don’t know, “Bundles” are a group of related products that are posted together in one big product.  Say, for example that you have four products that are tutorials for how to walk dogs.  (Don’t ask me why you would have dog walking tutorials on TpT… let’s just go with it, why don’t we?)  Pretend that you’ve been getting some sales on all of the dog walking products, but no seller has purchased all four. 

BUT… if you bundle the four products together and create one “Mega-Dog-Walking-Tutorial” you will probably be able to make a LOT more money.  And here’s why…

People like to get a good deal.  Really, it’s that simple.  When I was younger I worked at a fast food restaurant.  I was trained to ask, “Do you want fries with that?” every time a person ordered a sandwich.  Many times the person would say no, and when that happened we wouldn’t get the sale of the fries.  But now, that same fast food restaurant “bundles” its meals (they’re called “Combos” in the restaurant industry) and people buy fries and drinks with their sandwiches.

We can do the same thing in our TpT stores.  We can bundle our products together into a “combo” that will encourage buyers to purchase more than they otherwise might have.  Combine those dog walking tutorials and price the “Mega-Dog-Walking-Tutorial” at a bit less than it would cost for a buyer to purchase each one individually.  This will give the buyers a nice discount and you’ll soon be raking in $15 or $20 dollars for a sale.  Win win!   

Check out one of my bundles to see an example of how this can look:

Science Kids Second Quarter Bundle

Make a TpT Store Banner

If you’ve looked at TpT stores, you have probably seen the horizontal banners that run just above the “featured products”.  Here’s a screen shot from my store for an example:

Some of the store banners look SO professional that you may be wondering how you could possibly make one yourself.  These directions will help you!

First, I’d strongly suggest looking at other TpT stores to see what style of banner you like.  Personally, I’m a fan of white space, so my banner has minimal details and color.  Some stores have very cute, colorful and sometimes even glittery banners.  Other sellers are going for a more sophisticated look with businesslike banners.  Your choice of banner style should be based on your personal preferences as well as the style of your store.  For example, if you sell P-K products you could go with something cutsie, but a store with high school products would probably need a more “grown up” style. 

After you’ve figured out what style of banner you want, you’re ready to begin making it.  Open up Power Point.  You’ll need to resize your slide to the following dimensions:  9.8 in x 1.25 in.  This will leave you with a very long and narrow slide. 

Go ahead and insert a background paper into your slide if you want. I chose to add a white box with a red border so that my text would be more visible. 

When choosing the font for your text, think about what will be readable when it is small.  You don’t want anything too fancy, but at the same time you don’t want anything boring.  A lot of people use more than one font on their banners to emphasize certain words.  For my example, I have chosen to use a single font for the main text, and I made it the same color as the frame border.

Add clipart graphics, if you want.  Text can also be added on the end of the banner or below your main text to feature specific products, announce a sale or tell more about your store. 

Now, save your slide as a PNG or JPEG file.

To add your saved file to your TpT store, open your TpT dashboard.  Scroll down to the section that is called “Marketing and Promotions”.  Click on “Customize Your Store”.  You will be taken to a page where you can upload the link to your banner file.  You have to link the banner to one of your products, which is easy to do on the same page. 

And here’s how my completed banner looks in my store:

(I won’t actually be using this banner until back to school time in August). 

Don’t forget to credit the people who made your background, font or graphics.  You can do this in your store profile. 

The background and font for my banner are from kevinandamanda.com.  The graphics are from whimsyclips.com

UPDATE- 7/2/14

Here's a banner I just created for my sale this weekend.  It took less than ten minutes to make!

Click to see my TpT store