We all love a good sale! Since teachers spend so much money out of our own pockets on resources for our classrooms and students, shopping during sales is a must! Many of us know that TeachersPayTeachers, or TPT, hosts site-wide sales each quarter. During a TPT Sitewide sale, sellers are encouraged, not required, to put their stores on sale (often for 20% off) and TPT adds a code for an additional 5% off, making most resources up to 25% off! It’s a great way to stock up on great resources for your classroom at a discounted rate. It’s even better to invest in big bundles you’ve had your eye on during the quarterly sales due to the compounded savings!
But, did you know that there is actually another kind of sale that’s frequently on TPT? It’s called a hashtag sale!
What is a Hashtag Sale?
A Hashtag Sale is an informal sale on TPT! Groups of sellers work together to coordinate a sale for a few resources each. They select a catchy hashtag to put in their product titles to make them easier to find. If you search the hashtag on TPT, all of the included products will show up! These sales last a short amount of time and are very common around holidays, such as the Fourth of July, New Years, or Thanksgiving!
How is a Hashtag Sale different from a TPT Sitewide Sale?
A hashtag sale differs from a normal TPT sale in a few key ways.
- Hashtag sales are not organized by the TeachersPayTeachers team. Really, TPT has nothing to do with them! Groups of sellers big and small work together to organize sales with the goal of getting new followers, reviews, and obviously, sales!
- Most of the time, these sales have a general theme. For example, a group of middle school math sellers may create a sale with the hashtag #welovemath or #mathinthemiddle. If you teach elementary reading intervention, that sale probably won’t interest you much. Sometimes, the groups of sellers included are larger, resulting in thousands of products that are discounted. Chances are that you will be able to find some great deals on resources you will love at some point!
- They are harder to find! Keep in mind that the teacher-sellers who are organizing and participating in the sale are also responsible for all of the advertising, making them a little more difficult to find if you aren’t looking in the right places!
- Another big difference is that most hashtag sales reduce products to a certain dollar amount, such as $1 or $2, instead of a set percentage off, like during the TPT sales. That means that you can actually score better deals during a hashtag sale than during one of TPT’s quarterly sales! For example, if you score a $5 product for only $1, that’s 80% savings! It’s also common for hashtag sales to set prices to 50% off. Either way, it’s a better deal than the 25% off for the normal TPT sales!
How can I find out about Hashtag sales?
You can find out about hashtag sales in a few different ways! Many sellers who participate in the sales post advertisements on social media, so check Instagram and Facebook! Many will also send emails out to their email lists to let them know about the sale, so sign up for email lists from sellers you love! Another way you can find hashtag sales is to check using the search box on TPT. A lot of times, phrases will show up in the top suggestions with a hashtag in front of them – chances are, that’s a hashtag sale that’s worth checking out!
Click here to follow me on Instagram – I’ll post about hashtag sales I am a part of!
If I have a TPT store, can I join in?
That depends! Many times, the groups that organize the hashtag sale have certain rules for who can participate, what time you can put your items on sale, how to advertise for the sale, how many products can be included, and the price they need to be. During each sale, there are always people who jump on hashtag sales, lovingly called “Hashtag Jumpers”. While this seems like a harmless thing to do, it actually makes it more difficult for the original group of people to get their products seen! If you are a seller who wants to join in on some of these opportunities, I recommend finding some Facebook groups, like TPT Hashtag Sales or TPT Hashtag Deals, to learn about an upcoming sale to join! You may not want to join every single hashtag sale you come across, since you don’t want to train your followers to only buy from your store when your products are on sale!
Have you ever shopped from or joined a hashtag sale? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
