Ebay Blackthorne - The Official Guide PDF

eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide
Table Of Contents
eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide ..................................................... 1 Preparing for Migration .................................................................................................. 1 Deciding Whether to Transfer Data from SA to Blackthorne .................................... 1 How to Transfer Data from SA to Blackthorne .......................................................... 1 To run the database repair:...................................................................................... 1 To backup your SA database: ................................................................................. 2 To remove old data: ................................................................................................ 2 Downloading and Installing............................................................................................ 2 To download and install eB: ................................................................................... 2 Already have Blackthorne Installed? .......................................................................... 3 Importing SA Data and Setting Your Preferences.......................................................... 3 To start Blackthorne:............................................................................................... 3 Changes from Seller's Assistant...................................................................................... 3 More Features ............................................................................................................. 4 Modes.......................................................................................................................... 4 Field Presets ................................................................................................................ 4 Statuses ....................................................................................................................... 4 The Servant ................................................................................................................. 5 Ad Template Studio .................................................................................................... 5 Listing Your First Item ................................................................................................... 6 To List an Item:....................................................................................................... 6 Post Migration Recommendations................................................................................ 12 "Not Specified" Fields .............................................................................................. 12 Emails ....................................................................................................................... 12 To review your emails: ......................................................................................... 13 Picture Hosts ............................................................................................................. 13 Getting Help.................................................................................................................. 13 Thank You! ................................................................................................................... 14 eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide ............................................................................ 15 Introduction................................................................................................................... 15 Welcome to eBay Blackthorne! ................................................................................ 15 Overview............................................................................................................... 15 Thank You! ........................................................................................................... 16 System Requirements............................................................................................ 16 Conventions Used in this Guide ........................................................................... 16 Printing this Guide ................................................................................................ 17 Setting Up eBay Blackthorne........................................................................................ 18 Setting Up eBay Blackthorne.................................................................................... 18 Subscribing ........................................................................................................... 18 Downloading the Software ................................................................................... 18 Installing the Software .......................................................................................... 19 Launching the Software ........................................................................................ 19 Testing Your Connection to eBay......................................................................... 19 Using the Setup Assistant ......................................................................................... 21
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Using the Setup Assistant ..................................................................................... 21 Setting Options and Preferences ............................................................................... 26 Setting Options and Preferences ........................................................................... 26 Accounts ............................................................................................................... 28 Business Setup ...................................................................................................... 36 Presets ................................................................................................................... 38 Templates.............................................................................................................. 41 Connections........................................................................................................... 43 Getting Started .............................................................................................................. 46 Getting Started .......................................................................................................... 46 A Tour of the Main Window .................................................................................... 47 Importing Data .......................................................................................................... 48 Importing Data ...................................................................................................... 48 Quick Start - Listing Your First Item........................................................................ 52 To List Your First Item:........................................................................................ 52 Closing eBay Blackthorne ........................................................................................ 58 Overview of eBay Blackthorne..................................................................................... 59 Creating and Managing Items....................................................................................... 62 Creating and Managing Items................................................................................... 62 How do I keep all my items organized?................................................................ 63 Creating and Submitting Items ................................................................................. 65 Adding a New Item Record .................................................................................. 66 Entering Item Details ............................................................................................ 70 Previewing the Item Description ........................................................................ 105 Checking an Item for Fees and Errors ................................................................ 106 Submitting an Item.............................................................................................. 108 Fixing and Resubmitting Items with Submission Errors .................................... 110 Organizing Items..................................................................................................... 111 Organizing Items................................................................................................. 111 Using Folders to Organize Your Items ............................................................... 112 Using Lists to Organize Your Items ................................................................... 115 Using Filters to Organize Your Items................................................................. 118 Searching for a Record........................................................................................ 121 Archiving Items .................................................................................................. 123 Printing Items...................................................................................................... 124 Monitoring Listings .................................................................................................... 127 Monitoring Listings Overview................................................................................ 127 The Lifespan of a Listing........................................................................................ 128 Viewing Listings..................................................................................................... 132 Viewing Listings................................................................................................. 132 Modifying Listings.................................................................................................. 135 Modifying Listings.............................................................................................. 135 Resubmitting Listings ............................................................................................. 140 Resubmitting Listings ......................................................................................... 140 Printing Listings...................................................................................................... 145 Printing Listings.................................................................................................. 145
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Table Of Contents Viewing Related Pages on eBay ............................................................................. 148 Responding to Questions ........................................................................................ 150 Processing Sales and Shipping.................................................................................... 151 Processing Sales and Shipping Overview............................................................... 151 The Lifespan of a Sale ............................................................................................ 152 Viewing Sales ......................................................................................................... 156 Viewing Sales ..................................................................................................... 156 Requesting Payments and Invoicing....................................................................... 159 Requesting Payments and Invoicing................................................................... 159 Receiving Payments................................................................................................ 167 Receiving Payments............................................................................................ 167 Shipping Items ........................................................................................................ 172 Shipping Items .................................................................................................... 172 Completing Sales .................................................................................................... 176 Completing Sales ................................................................................................ 176 Reporting on Sales .................................................................................................. 181 Reporting on Sales .............................................................................................. 181 Printing Sales .......................................................................................................... 183 Print Grid Setup .................................................................................................. 183 Printing the Sales Grid ........................................................................................ 184 Managing Contact Information................................................................................... 186 Managing Buyers .................................................................................................... 186 Creating a New Buyer......................................................................................... 186 Viewing Buyer Filters......................................................................................... 187 Searching for a Buyer ......................................................................................... 187 Viewing the Buyers Feedback ............................................................................ 187 Copying Addresses to the Clipboard .................................................................. 187 Navigating Modes....................................................................................................... 188 Navigating Modes................................................................................................... 188 Previous View..................................................................................................... 188 View History....................................................................................................... 188 QuickLinks.......................................................................................................... 189 Customizing Ad Templates......................................................................................... 192 Customizing Ad Templates..................................................................................... 192 Editing an Ad Template ...................................................................................... 192 Viewing an Ad Template .................................................................................... 193 Formatting Text .................................................................................................. 194 Adding Item Field Tags ...................................................................................... 195 Adding Global AutoText .................................................................................... 198 Setting Ad Template Options.............................................................................. 200 Alternate Methods of Displaying Pictures .......................................................... 204 Using JavaScript in Ad Templates...................................................................... 206 Using Stylesheets in Ad Templates .................................................................... 206 Customizing Emails .................................................................................................... 207 Customizing Emails ................................................................................................ 207 Editing an Email Template ................................................................................. 207
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Viewing an Email Template ............................................................................... 208 Formatting Text .................................................................................................. 209 Adding Field Tags............................................................................................... 210 Adding Global AutoText .................................................................................... 211 Using Math Functions......................................................................................... 213 Building Combined Emails with Repeat Block .................................................. 214 Adding Combined Totals with RepeatTotal ....................................................... 215 Editing Pictures........................................................................................................... 216 Editing Pictures....................................................................................................... 216 Overview of the Picture Studio........................................................................... 216 Rotating............................................................................................................... 218 Cropping ............................................................................................................. 218 Zooming.............................................................................................................. 218 Scaling................................................................................................................. 219 Brightness and Contrast ...................................................................................... 219 Compression and Sizing ..................................................................................... 219 Undoing Changes................................................................................................ 221 Database Management ................................................................................................ 223 Database Management ............................................................................................ 223 Database Administration..................................................................................... 223 Repairing a Database .......................................................................................... 225 Creating a New Database.................................................................................... 226 Switching Databases ........................................................................................... 226 Spell Checking ............................................................................................................ 227 Spell Checking ........................................................................................................ 227 Correcting a Misspelled Word ............................................................................ 227 Adding to Your Custom Dictionary.................................................................... 228 Ignoring Words ................................................................................................... 229 Enabling and Disabling Spell Checking ............................................................. 229 Synchronizing Data with eBay ................................................................................... 231 Synchronizing Data with eBay ............................................................................... 231 Automatic Synchronization Using the Servant................................................... 231 Manually Refreshing and Updating .................................................................... 232 Synchronization with Selling Manager and my eBay......................................... 235 Troubleshooting .......................................................................................................... 237 Troubleshooting ...................................................................................................... 237 The Support Troubleshooter ............................................................................... 237 The Activity Log................................................................................................. 243 Appendices.................................................................................................................. 245 Getting Mail Settings From Outlook ...................................................................... 245 Supercharging the Listing Process - An Extended Example .................................. 247 Step 1: Research.................................................................................................. 247 Step 2: Plan of Attack ......................................................................................... 247 Step 3: Setting up Templates/Presets.................................................................. 248 Preparing for Photos ........................................................................................... 250 Format and Pricing.............................................................................................. 250
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Table Of Contents Custom Fields ..................................................................................................... 251 The Fun Part........................................................................................................ 251 Private Registry Files.............................................................................................. 255 Adding Pictures to Print Templates ........................................................................ 256 Pic1Loc Field ...................................................................................................... 256 ItemPicture Control............................................................................................. 256 txtPic1Loc Field.................................................................................................. 257 Print Template Script .......................................................................................... 258 Glossary .......................................................................................................................... 261 Index ............................................................................................................................... 267
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eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide

Welcome to eBay Blackthorne (eB)! If you are an existing Seller's Assistant (SA) user, this guide will walk you through the steps needed to get you listing with Blackthorne in no time. When you install Blackthorne, you will have the option to migrate your data from Sellers Assistant to Blackthorne. You do not need to uninstall Sellers Assistant, and can continue to use it while you learn Blackthorne. An online version of this document with working links is available at http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/eBay_Blackthorne_ -_Seller_s_Assistant_Migration_Guide.htm
Preparing for Migration

Deciding Whether to Transfer Data from SA to Blackthorne
Before migrating your data, the first question you must answer is if you want your Seller's Assistant data migrated to Blackthorne.
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If you sell thousands of items, or you sell the same items over and over, then you will probably want your inventory imported into eB. f you only sell unique items occasionally, then you may opt to just finish any existing listings with SA and start only new items in eB.
If you choose to import your database to Blackthorne, you should prepare your SA database before downloading, installing and importing it into Blackthorne. By preparing your database, you will be ensuring that any invalid or outdated data is removed. If you decide not to import your database, go to the Downloading and Installing section.
How to Transfer Data from SA to Blackthorne

Step 1: Run the SA Basic Database Repair Utility The database repair will clean and compact your SA data. To run the database repair: 1. Make sure you have exited from SA
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 2. Run Start|Programs|eBay|SA Basic Database Repair Utility. 3. Follow the prompts to complete the database repair. Step 2: Make a backup of your SA database By making a backup of your database you will always have a snapshot of your data that you can reference and return to if necessary. To backup your SA database: 1. 2. 3. 4. Start Seller's Assistant. Select File|Maintenance from the menu. On the Backup tab, select "Backup Now". When prompted, enter the path and name of the backup file. Be sure to give it a meaningful name like "sabasicPreMigration.mdb".
Step 3: Remove any old data that you no longer need By cleaning up unused data before importing it to Blackthorne, your import will be faster and more efficient. To remove old data: 1. 2. 3. 4. Start Seller's Assistant. From the Multiview tab, select any records that you no longer need to track. Choose File|Delete Listing(s) from the menu. Repeat for any other unused records.
Downloading and Installing

If you have not already done so, then you should now download and install the latest version of eBay Blackthorne. Both the Basic and the Pro versions use the same installation process. When you run Blackthorne, it will automatically show you the features that are available based on your subscription level To get the biggest benefit from the migration, do NOT uninstall SA first. eB will use settings and data from SA when running through the Setup Assistant. To download and install eB: 1. Go to http://www.blackthornesw.com/bthome/InstalleBayBlackthorne.exe. 2. When prompted, Save the file to your hard drive. This is recommended over running the installation directly from the server. 3. Save the file in a location where you can easily locate it later. 4. When the download finishes, use Windows Explorer to locate the folder that it was saved in. 2
eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide 5. Double-click the file to start the installation process. 6. Follow the on-screen instructions.
Already have Blackthorne Installed?

If you already have Blackthorne installed, check to make sure you have the latest updates. Select Help|Check for Updates and Messages then follow the instructions.
Importing SA Data and Setting Your Preferences

Once Blackthorne is installed, you are ready to import your data and set up your preferences. The easiest way to perform both tasks is by following the Setup Assistant. The Setup Assistant will run the first time you start Blackthorne. To start Blackthorne: 1. Double-click the eBay Blackthorne icon on the desktop or select Start|Program Files|eBay|Blackthorne Software|eBay Blackthorne from the Windows Start button. 2. Follow all prompts to import your existing data and set your preferences. A Help button is available for many of the preferences if you need further assistance. You can also refer to the following topics in the User's Guide if you have any difficulty. Using the Setup Assistant (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornebasic/Part_1/Using_the_Setup _Assistant.htm) Setting Options and Preferences (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornebasic/Setting_Options_and_Pr eferences.htm)
Changes from Seller's Assistant

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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Before you begin, there are some changes in the way eB works compared to SA. You should take a moment to familiarize yourself with these changes.
More Features
One of the first things that you will notice about eBay Blackthorne is that you will have many more features than you had in SA Basic. Virtually every aspect of the program is more robust and full featured. There are even some major new capabilities added. The following are just a sample of some of the new things eB has to offer.
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much more comprehensive post sale management including sending bulk emails and leaving feedback in bulk more email templates that are completely customizable the ability to quickly create items from templates the ability to organize and store items in folders the ability to change data right in the grid support for up to 12 pictures automatic backups ... and much more
The new program may seem overwhelming at first, but if you take it one step at a time you'll soon discover all the time saving features it offers.
Modes
In SA Basic, you worked primarily in a single screen. All items appeared on the same screen whether they had been just created, listed or sold. In eB, you will work primarily in 3 modes. The "Create Items" mode is designed to help you enter your item information quickly. It also lets you return to list an item as many times as you'd like. The "Monitor Listings" mode displays all the listing information. It contains a record for every scheduled, running or completed listing. You can watch your running listings from this mode. The "Finalize Sales" mode will contain all of your sales records and will be your primary workspace for sending emails and leaving feedback.
Field Presets
Data input has been made more efficient through the use of Field Presets. A Field Preset is a stored set of values for a group of input fields. For instance if you ship your glassware with different settings than your clothing, then you could set up two different shipping presets. One holds all the values for your glassware and one for clothing. When you list a new item, you simply choose your preset from a dropdown to set all your shipping fields.
Statuses
eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide In SA Basic, it was difficult to differentiate between records that were newly entered, listed or completed. There were only two statuses (current or archived) that you could use to organize your items. In eB, there are many statuses. You will see which items have been entered vs. which ones have already been listed. In Monitor Listings mode you will see what listings are scheduled, running, ended, and even which ones qualify for the relist credit. In Sales, you can see who you need to notify, who needs feedback, and who hasn't paid. All the records in any of these statuses can easily be viewed by clicking a filter in the Views sidebar on the left.
The Servant
In previous versions, Sellers Assistant was manually triggered to get or send information to eBay. In Blackthorne, we have implemented a background feature we call the Servant. The Servant automatically interacts with eBay for you. It can keep your categories, item specifics and all other information from eBay up to date. It also will refresh listings and sales automatically on a schedule. With the Servant running, your intervention should not be necessary any longer to keep your data up to date. However, you still have the ability to force updates at any time. Because of these new features, you might consider leaving Blackthorne running 24 hours a day. That way, whenever you want to work with the program, you will know that you are working with relatively current information.
Ad Template Studio
We have also made some major improvements to the Ad Template Studio. In previous versions, you would create a Listing Template. This template included the general appearance of your listing along with boilerplate text that went along with it. The problem was that if you wanted to change your boilerplate text, you had to change it in all your templates. In the new version, we have broken out the text and graphical parts of the template. You can now create Ad Templates that identify the text you want in the ad, and then apply a Theme which provides the graphical elements. Ad Templates are now much more powerful because you can edit them in a pseudo-WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) fashion. With an HTML editor, you can add highlighting, lists, font color and size changes, even tables. In addition, you have access to the fields in your Item record (including the new custom fields) for use in your listing. In other words, you can write one ad template, apply it to 100 items, and the text will automatically change for each item. You can also create standard text messages (called Global AutoText messages) and use them over and over in your Ad Templates. An obvious use would be to create one that contains your warranty and return policies. Finally, if you have some particular item that needs special treatment, you can bypass Themes and create a special Ad Template using all the power of HTML to create virtually any style of listing.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to import existing SA listing templates into eB. These new changes require you to recreate the listing templates you use. Although it will take a little effort up front, it will save you time in the long run by allowing you to make changes to all your listing templates at once.
Listing Your First Item

Now that you have imported your SA database, we recommend testing it out by listing one of your items. If you did not import a database, and want to start by listing a new item, please follow the Quick Start - Listing Your First Item. (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_1/Quick_Start__Listing_Your_First_Item.htm). To List an Item: 1. Make sure you have run the Setup Assistant and have created your Seller Account. 2. Click on the Create Items tab.
3. From the grid at the top of the page, select the item that you would like to list.
eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide 4. The details for the selected item will appear below the grid. Or, double-click the item in the grid to view the entire item. 5. In the Item Details group, you will see the Title and SubTitle. You can change them now if you wish.
When your data was imported, eB created Seller and Email Accounts for you. You should ensure that the Seller and Contact Email dropdowns are filled in. If you would like to change the name of the automatically generated accounts, select "Manage .... Accounts" from the dropdown and use the Rename button on the resulting window. 6. In the Categories group, you will see the category for the item. Use the Select button to choose a category from the Category Selector if you want to change it.
7. The Description group contains your items description. If you would like to give your listing a finished look, select a theme from the Theme dropdown. After choosing a Theme, you can use the Preview button to see what it looks like. You will notice that with the Simple Ad Template chosen, the only text in the listing will be the text in your Description box. If you choose the Enhanced Ad Template, some standard messages will appear. You can customize the standard messages and the rest of the Ad Template by clicking the Edit button next to the Ad Template dropdown. Ad Templates are very powerful and can be used to easily include blocks of text and formatting in your listings. To learn more about the power of Ad Templates, we recommend you read Customizing Ad Templates (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Customizing_Ad_ Templates.htm).
8. The Pictures group will contain the pictures for your item. If you would like to modify or add more pictures, enter them in the Pictures group. Simply click the Browse button or one of the Picture Wells to navigate to and select your images. To identify where your pictures are loaded, make sure a Picture Host is chosen. You can use eBay Picture Services , an eBay Picture Manager account or any other web space that you have available to you. If you host your own pictures, then you must set up a Picture Host account for it first. You may have done this during setup. If not, you can set one up now by choosing "Manage Picture Hosts" from the Picture Host dropdown.
9. Verify the Format and Pricing information.
The next few steps involve using Presets to enter data. A preset is a group of settings that you can define and use over and over. Presets speed up data entry and prevent errors. When your data was imported, eB could not create all of your presets. Instead, it assigned a Custom value to each preset. You can keep the custom value, or create your reusable presets now. When you are more comfortable with item creation, you can learn more about using presets in the Creating Items Faster with Field Presets topic. (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_2/Creating_ Items_Faster_with_Field_Presets.htm) 10. If you would like your listing to stand out, you may want to select one of the preset Listing Upgrades. Otherwise, leave it set to Custom. Listing Upgrades incur additional listing fees. If you would like to know more right now, see Listing Upgrades under Entering Item Details (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_2/Entering_Ite m_Details.htm).
11. If you are familiar with setting your shipping information on eBay, then you shouldn't have a problem setting it from the Shipping group. If you would like to change the shipping options, choose Custom from the shipping dropdown and it will open the Shipping Preset form. Enter your shipping options on that form. If you have difficulty, you should consult the topic Entering Item Details (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_2/Entering_Ite m_Details.htm).
12. From the Payments group, you can specify what type of payments you accept. Click Edit if you would like to make changes.
13. This completes the item entry. Next, you will check your item for errors, and then submit it. To check for errors, select Items Actions | Preview and Check Errors from the main menu. The Preview window will open, showing a summary of fees and errors. If there are no errors, click the Submit button to submit it to eBay. If there are errors, click Close to return to the main screen and select Tools | Activity Log. The errors are listed under the Listing History tab.
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14. This will bring up one final form, giving you choices for scheduling the auction start. Select Submit to eBay and start immediately then click OK. From this window, you can also choose to create multiple, identical listings and have the auction starts staggered so that they don't all start at the same time.
15. Once the item is submitted, the status of the item changes to Listing Created and a listing record is created. To view the listing record, click on the Monitor 11

Listings tab and select Listings by Status | Running filter from the Views sidebar
on the left. The listing will appear in the grid.
Congratulations! You've now listed your first item with eBay Blackthorne. Once the item is submitted, a listing record is created. To view the listing record, click on the Monitor Listings view and select Listings by Status | Running filter from the Views sidebar on the left. The listing will appear in the grid to the right. To understand the item creation process in greater detail, we recommend you continue by reading Creating and Managing Items (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_2/Creating_and_Man aging_Items.htm).
Post Migration Recommendations

Because we added new features to Blackthorne, you will need to review your newly imported data and to identify any missing information as a result of the differences in the two products.
"Not Specified" Fields

When creating your new Blackthorne database, Blackthorne will create and assign most presets based on your SA data, but some of the presets cannot be created because there isn't enough information in the SA database to accurately assign a preset. When a preset could not be assigned to an Item record, the dropdown will contain "Not Specified". This most often occurs in the Contact Email, Payment and Shipping presets. When you come across a field with "Not Specified", all you need to do is select a value from the dropdown, or create a new entry from the dropdown to complete the data record.
Emails
Haven't you always wanted to personalize the emails sent with SA Basic? In eB, not only do you have more email templates, but you can customize and save those templates with your own personal touches. Since the email templates that are shipped with eB are slightly different than the emails sent from SA Basic, you should review the email templates and add any customizations that you would like at this time.
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eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide To review your emails: 1. Select Tools|Options from the main menu. 2. In the Options sidebar, select Email Templates under Templates. 3. Click on each Email Template and click the Edit button to view and modify the email. You should consult the Customizing Emails (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornebasic/Customizing_Emails.ht m) topic in the User's Guide when you are ready to review your emails.
Picture Hosts
In eB, you can store multiple picture hosting locations. You can also use eBay Picture Services or eBay Picture Manager. You must create a picture host for each location you would like to upload images to, and then assign the Picture Host to each item.
Getting Help
You should now be well on your way to learning all the features that can help save you time. To learn more about how to use Blackthorne, you can view the following topics:
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Monitoring Listings (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_2/While_Your _Listing_is_Running.htm) Processing Sales and Shipping (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Part_2/Processing_ Sales_and_Shipping.htm) Navigating Modes (http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Navigating_Modes .htm)
In addition, there are several ways you can get help:

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Common Troubleshooting tips For common troubleshooting tips, view the Support Troubleshooter under Help|Support from the main Blackthorne menu. Its a good idea to check the common causes before submitting your issue to our support teams. Users Guide Review the User's Guide, an invaluable resource when you have questions about how the software works. Select Help|User's Guide from the main Blackthorne menu. If you are having problems with your connection to eBay or your FTP space, consult the Connections topic in the Knowledge Base in the Users Guide: http://www.blackthornesw.com/robo/projects/blackthornepro/Connection.htm. 13

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Discussion Boards Many of our most savvy users and Blackthorne Tech Support can be found at the Blackthorne Discussion Boards: http://www.blackthornesw.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi. The Discussion Boards are often the quickest way to get an answer to your problem. Contact Us To contact our support team select Help|Support|Contact Support from the main Blackthorne menu.
Thank You!
We thank you for your continued support and are committed to putting in as much effort into eBay Blackthorne as we have with Seller's Assistant so that we remain the premiere offline listing tool for eBay sellers.
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Introduction
Welcome to eBay Blackthorne!
eBay Blackthorne is the premier desktop tool for managing your eBay business. This guide will teach you all you need to know to get started down the path to increased sales and a more efficient business. Overview This guide has been designed to take advantage of online capabilities while still allowing you to print topics you'd like to read on paper. If you prefer to read a guide from front to back, then start at this topic and continue to click through all the topics. Hyperlinks in the document will take you to other sections that offer more detailed information, but you can always use the back button to return to your original topic. This guide is broken down into several major sections. In the "Introduction" section, we provide an overview of the document, discuss system requirements and publish the release notes. We also discuss how to use this document. In "Setting Up eBay Blackthorne", we discuss what you need to know to download and launch the software. We also cover differences and information on migrating from Seller's Assistant. Finally, we walk you through the Setup Assistant to help you set your preferences. In "Getting Started", we'll take a quick tour of the main window. We also include a Quick Start to help you list your first item as well as discussing important information you need to know when importing data. In "Creating and Managing Items", we cover all the tasks involved with adding and organizing your item information. "Monitoring Listings", will guide you through the basics of watching and modifying your listings while they are running. The "Processing Sales and Shipping" topic will discuss all post sale functions like invoicing and shipping.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide And finally, in Advanced Topics, we cover all the finer points of the program. A good understanding of these topics will make you much more efficient. Thank You! We at Blackthorne have been in the online auction management business longer than anyone else and we strive to provide you with the best auction management tool available. We hope your business reaches its full potential using eBay Blackthorne, and whether you are a new user, or have been part of our legacy, we want to thank you for being part of the Blackthorne community. System Requirements The following are minimum requirements. If your business is high-volume, we recommend you improve upon these minimum requirements.
! ! ! ! 1.5 GHz microprocessor (AMD, Intel) 512 MB RAM minimum (768 MB or more recommended) 50 MB free hard drive space Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (SP2)
Some convenient form of backup is also highly recommended, whether it be a tape drive, CD/DVD burner, or (simplest and quickest of all) an extra hard drive. If you have a fast internet connection, an online backup facility would be a viable alternative. Conventions Used in this Guide The following conventions are used throughout this guide. Many features are called from cascading menus. The simplest example is exiting the program from the File menu. In this guide, we will indicate cascading menu options separated by a vertical bar like this: File|Exit. Frequently, we reference different buttons, modes or input boxes. We will highlight those buttons like this: the New Item Action Button, the Seller Dropdown Menu, the Monitor Listings mode. All acronyms are explained in the glossary. In the print version of the guide, each acronym is also spelled out when it is used in a topic for the first time, like: "Upload the images using FTP (File Transfer Protocol)." In the online version of the manual, each acronym is also a "push-out" link that expands in place with an explanation of the acronym, like FTP. To remove the extra text, click the link again. Another type of link is a pop-up. When you click on the link, a small window will pop up with explanatory text or an image. To get rid of the pop-up, click anywhere on the pop-up or main window.
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Whenever a real life example is used, it looks like this.
Things that are really important and shouldn't be missed look like this
Tips are little tidbits of information to help you work faster or better. Tips are highlighted in yellow like this paragraph. Notes provide additional important information and are highlighted like this paragraph. Printing this Guide Although this guide is primarily written for electronic delivery, a printable version is available in PDF format. PDF files are viewable using Adobe Reader. You can download Adobe Reader from http://www.adobe.com. The Pro version of the documentation is available at http://www.blackthornesw.com/bthome/Pro/eBay_Blackthorne__The_Official_Guide.pdf, and the Basic version is available at http://www.blackthornesw.com/bthome/Basic/eBay_Blackthorne__The_Official_Guide.pdf. We HIGHLY RECOMMEND you use the electronic version whenever possible. Hyperlinks and other electronic conventions do not always translate well to the printed page. In addition, the documentation is changed on a very regular basis, and it will be outdated shortly after you print it. If that isn't enough to convince you, then you should only print the pages that you are interested in as the complete document is over 300 pages long.
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Setting Up eBay Blackthorne

Setting Up eBay Blackthorne
Before you can run eBay Blackthorne, you must subscribe, download it and install it on your computer. The first time you launch the program, you will be presented with the Setup Assistant. The Setup Assistant will help you migrate from Seller's Assistant if you are an existing user or import your listings from eBay if you are a new user. Subscribing eB is offered on a subscription basis. You subscribe to either the Basic or the Pro version on eBay. When you run eB, it checks your subscription level and shows you the version of the program that you have subscribed to.
To subscribe/unsubscribe to the software:
1. Go to the Blackthorne Basic or Blackthorne Pro home page on eBay. 2. Click the Subscribe Now button. 3. If you are not currently subscribed, you will be prompted to choose the subscription level and click Continue. If you are already subscribed, you will be given the option to unsubscribe instead of choosing a subscription level. 4. Read the terms and conditions and click the "I agree to these terms" if you agree. 5. Click the Subscribe button. Downloading the Software eBay Blackthorne is available for download from: http://www.blackthornesw.com/bthome/InstalleBayBlackthorne.exe
To download the software:
1. Click on the above link to start the download. 2. When prompted, click [Save] to save the file to your hard drive. This is recommended over running the installation directly from the server.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 3. Save the file in a location where you can locate it later.
If your internet connection is by dial-up modem, the 24 Megabyte (approx) download might take an hour or more. If your connection is broadband (cable, DSL, etc), it will take just a few minutes. Installing the Software When the download finishes, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the folder that it was saved in. Double-click on the file to start the installation process. Follow the on-screen instructions. Launching the Software
To launch eBay Blackthorne:
1. Double-click the eBay Blackthorne icon on the desktop. OR 1. Select Start | Program Files | eBay | Blackthorne Software | eBay Blackthorne from the Windows Start button. 2. When eBay Blackthorne starts for the first time, the Setup Assistant will step you through configuring the software for your business, and importing data from the previous version of the program. Testing Your Connection to eBay eB performs many interactions with eBay. Therefore, it must be able to communicate with the internet. If you are running a firewall or other security software, it may be blocking eB from reaching the internet by default. The first thing you should do after launching is to test eB to see if you can get to the internet.
To test your connection to eBay:
1. Select Help|Support from the main menu.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 2. Select the 2. Connection tab. 3. Click the Test Connection to eBay button. If the test is not successful, then verify you are online by opening your browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc. ) and making sure you can view web pages. If you can view web pages, but eB cannot connect, then the problem is most likely a firewall or some other program on your computer blocking access. The following topics should help you troubleshoot the problem. KCON001 - Common firewall settings KCON002 - DirecWay Satellite user connection problems KCON003 - Blackthorne Cannot Send or Receive Data to/from eBay
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Using the Setup Assistant

Using the Setup Assistant The Setup Assistant automatically runs when you first start eBay Blackthorne. It will walk you through getting the program configured correctly with your business and eBay account information. It helps you import data and set your important options. If you later need to add to or change any of your option preferences, you can do so by selecting Tools|Options from the main menu. Part of the setup procedure requires communicating with eBay, so make sure that you are currently connected to the Internet before proceeding. You can choose to skip some of the steps, but it is highly recommended that you enter as much information as you can, especially your eBay seller account(s) and the E-mail addresses that your business uses. Blackthorne cannot operate properly without this information, so it will close if you choose to not enter it. If a problem arises, and you wish to run the Setup Assistant again, close Blackthorne. Then use Windows Explorer to open the folder that the program is installed in (usually C:\Program Files\eBay\Blackthorne\bin) and delete the file System.pvt. When you restart Blackthorne, the Setup Assistant will run. The first screen to appear will be the Welcome screen. When it appears, click Next to continue.
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Importing Seller's Assistant (Pro and Basic) Data
eBay Seller's Assistant (SA) is the predecessor to eBay Blackthorne. The Setup Assistant automatically searches your computer for an existing SA (Pro or Basic) database. If it finds one, you are asked if you wish to import data from it. You can choose yes or no or you can guide the program to a specific SA database to import from. You can also choose to import data at a later date, see Importing Data. The SA database file is called sapro.mdb or sabasic.mdb. By default, it is installed in the C:\Program Files\eBay\Seller's Assistant Pro\sapro.mdb or C:\Program Files\eBay\Seller's Assistant Basic\sabasic.mdb. If it did not find one, it asks if you have one you would like to import from.
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If you select Yes, then you will be allowed to browse for your existing database. The following page will import your data and then you will move on to setting your preferences. For more information, see Migrating From Seller's Assistant to eBay Blackthorne and Importing Data. If you select No, then you will begin entering your preferences.
Setting Preferences
Next, the Setup Assistant asks you to set your preferences:
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We strongly advise that you take the time to set up your preferences now, with the help of the Setup Assistant. As you click Next, you will pass through the following input forms.
Seller Accounts
The first thing to set up is your seller account(s). (Only Blackthorne Pro supports multiple seller accounts.) If you imported an SA database, your seller account information may already be entered. See Accounts - Seller_Accounts for help creating your first account.
Picture Hosts
Next to be configured is Picture Hosts. If you always use eBay Picture Services to host your pictures, you can skip this step. If you use your own web space or Picture Manager to host your pictures, see Accounts - Picture_Hosts for help creating your picture hosts.
E-Mail
Next, you will be asked to set up your email accounts. See Accounts - Email_Accounts for assistance in creating email accounts.
Inventory Management
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide To specify how your business manages inventory, see Business Setup - Inventory
Tax Table
If you collect tax, see Business Setup - Tax_Table for information on specifying the states in which you collect tax.
Business Settings
By indicating whether or not you consign items or track suppliers, eB will customize the item entry process and the user interface to hide or show the appropriate features. See Business Setup - Settings for a description of these fields.
Importing Other Data
Finally, if you did not import an SA database, you are asked if you want to import any other data. If you choose to import from eBay, remember that eBay only keeps information about listings posted in the last 30 days.
And that's all there is to it. If you later need to make changes to your settings, click Tools|Options. If you want to import data at any time, click File|Import.
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Setting Options and Preferences

Setting Options and Preferences eBay Blackthorne is designed to be very flexible and efficient. We strive to adapt to the way you do business and to help you do it faster. As a result, we collect a lot of information about your business and allow you to predefine many settings and templates. We collect the following information on the Options window.
! ! ! ! ! !
To allow us to interact with other providers, we must collect information about your accounts at eBay, your mail provider and your picture host if applicable. We also need to know about your business and whether you track inventory, collect taxes, etc. To help you enter data more quickly, we allow you to create Presets which contain a collection of fields with values already filled in. You can also modify email templates, printing templates and ad templates. You can also specify connection information including whether you synchronize your time with eBay and whether you want to receive beta notices. Finally, you can modify the appearance of the user interface. If you ran through the Setup Assistant, many of these settings will be familiar, and possibly already filled in. The Setup Assistant walked through the important Options. This section covers all possible options and preferences.
To modify your options:
1. Select Tools|Options from the main menu. The Options window will appear. If you are running the Basic version, you will not see all the options shown below.
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2. The Options tree on the left contains the different groups of options you can change. Select a node on the left and the available options will appear on the right. A description of the options will appear at the top. 3. The Restore Defaults button will return all settings to their original default. This will not remove any accounts, templates or presets you have added. 4. Click on Done when you are finished.
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Accounts eBay Blackthorne works with other parties on a day to day basis. It must interact with eBay, your mail provider, and your picture host provider. Before eB can interact with the other providers, you must provide information about the different accounts you have at those providers.
Seller Accounts
To create a Seller Account:
1. From Tools|Options, select Seller Accounts under Accounts in the Options tree. 2. Click the New button. The New Seller Account window will appear.
3. Enter the eBay User ID. This is the id on eBay that you want to list to. 4. Enter your Subscribed User ID. To use eB, you must be subscribed to use it on eBay. With each eBay User ID that is subscribed, you can list with up to five eBay Seller Accounts that you own. Enter the eBay User ID that is paying for the subscription in this box. If it is the same as the eBay User ID, then leave the same as eBay User ID box checked. 5. Enter the name of your Business. This is the name that will appear on shipping labels and in reports. 6. Enter your Return Mailing Address. This also will appear on shipping labels and in reports.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 7. Click OK when you are finished. 8. eB does not store your eBay Password. In lieu of that, you must authorize eB to post listings to eBay on your behalf. The Blackthorne Authorization window will appear next.
9. After a few moments, your eBay User ID will appear. Enter the password for that eBay User ID and click Sign in Securely. You may have to scroll down to see this button. The Agree and Continue form will appear.
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10. Read the authorization form and then click the Agree and Continue button if you agree. The confirmation window will appear.
11. Click Close to complete.
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eBay Blackthorne allows you to work with only one seller account at a time, or with all accounts visible. See Managing Multiple Seller Accounts for more information.
Email Accounts
For each Email Account you want to send emails with, you must create an Email Account in eBay Blackthorne. You can also create different email accounts for the same email provider using different email addresses. This lets you easily associate different email address contacts with different listed items.
To create an Email Account:
1. From Tools|Options, select Email Accounts under Accounts in the Options tree. 2. Click the New button. The New Email Account window will appear.
3. If your existing mail program supports the MAPI interface, then eB can use your existing mail program to send email. By using your existing mail program, you will get a copy of all emails sent in your "Sent" folder. However, if using Microsoft Outlook, you will also be required to approve each email before it is sent. If your email provider supports SMTP and can provide you with the SMTP settings for sending emails, then you can set eB to send your emails. This is the faster method of sending emails, but you will have to include yourself in the CC field if you want a copy of any emails that you send. As a general rule, you should choose Use Blackthorne to send emails without the need of another program if your email provider has an SMTP server setting. Otherwise, use your existing mail program.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide If you choose the SMTP method, then enter the Outgoing Mail Server provided by your email provider and click the Test Mail Connection button to make sure it is valid. You can get this from other mail programs you use with the same Email account (here's how to get the information from Outlook, for example), or by asking your mail provider. A list of Email Account settings for different email providers is maintained on our Discussion Board. If you are having trouble with your settings, you may want to consult the Email and Picture Host Settings thread. Also, if you successfully enter your settings and they have not already been added to the thread, then we appreciate it if you could post those settings for other users. 4. Click the Addressing tab and fill in the requested fields as follows: ! From: The email address that you will use to send messages. ! Reply-To: The address that you want customers to reply to. This will usually be the same as the one you send from. ! CC (Carbon-Copy): An address that you want a copy of your messages sent to. This address will be visible to all recipients of the message. ! BCC (Blind Carbon-Copy): An address that you want a copy of your messages sent to. This address will be invisible to all other recipients of the message. 5. Click the Advanced tab. The settings on Advanced tab will be different depending upon whether you selected to use a MAPI or SMTP connection. Fill in the fields as follows: MAPI
!
Send HTML vs. Text Emails Only - MAPI does not support the ability to send HTML emails. When sending through MAPI, the text version of the email is sent, and the HTML version is sent as an attachment. If you do not want the attachment sent, then select Send Text-Only Emails, otherwise select Send HTML Emails.
SMTP
! ! !
Secure Password Authentication - If your mail server requires Secure Password Authentication, then enter your email user name and password provided by your email provider. Outgoing Mail Server Port Number - Most mail servers work on port 25. If your email provider uses a port other than 25, enter it here. Delay between emails - If you send a large number of emails simultaneously, your server may think they are spam and will block them. If that happens, try
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide setting the delay to five seconds, or ask your ISP what an acceptable figure would be (be sure to tell them you're running a legitimate business). 6. After you have correctly entered all the Email Account settings and clicked OK, the final form asks you to name the Email Account. Give it a descriptive name that describes what you will use it for. You may also want to include the email address associated with it in the name.
Picture Hosts
Pictures can be hosted by eBay using eBay Picture Services (ePS) or with a Picture Manager account. You can also host pictures on your own web space if you have it. If you use ePS, then you do not need to set up a picture host. If using Picture Manager and/or your own web space, you will need to set up a picture host for each location you upload pictures to. When creating an item, it is then very easy to identify where you would like the pictures for that item uploaded.
To create a Picture Host:
1. From Tools|Options, select Picture Hosts under Accounts in the Options tree. 2. Click the New button. The New Picture Host window will appear.
3. Start by selecting whether you will Create new FTP Picture Host, or a Create new Picture Manager Host. To create a Picture Manager Host, one of your Seller Accounts must have a Picture Manager subscription on eBay. If not, this Picture Manager option will be disabled. Depending upon the option selected, the rest of the process will be different.
Creating a New FTP Picture Host
1. Fill in the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) settings as follows (your web space provider can help with any settings you don't know):
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! !
! !
Username/Password - The user name and password you use to access your picture hosting server. Host Address - The FTP (File Transfer Protocol) address of the server you use to host your pictures. This is usually something like ftp.myserver.com or www.myserver.com. Test Connection - Click this button to verify that your username, password and host address settings are correct. Host Subdirectory - The subdirectory (sub-folder) that you upload the pictures to. The most reliable way to set this option is to use the "Browse" button to connect to your FTP site and select the subdirectory. This will help accurately set the Host Subdirectory and the Path is relative box. Path is relative - This option is checked by default. If the Host Subdirectory path you entered is relative to the default directory you log in to, then keep this box checked. If you entered an absolute path from the root of your FTP site, then uncheck this box. If you use the "Browse" button to select your subdirectory, this box will be correctly set for you. Pictures Web Address -This is the HTTP (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol) version of the host address, with the relevant subdirectory tacked on the end. It is the URL that points to files that have been uploaded to your FTP space. Your ISP can help you with the first part, but if you organize your space on the server by creating your own subdirectories, you might have to supply the last part of the address yourself. In short, it is the internet URL path to your images minus the image name itself.
A list of Picture Host settings for different web space providers is maintained on our Discussion Board. If you are having trouble with your settings, you may want to consult the Email and Picture Host Settings thread. Also, if you successfully enter your settings and they have not already been added to the thread, then we appreciate it if you could post those settings for other users. 2. Click the Advanced tab and enter the settings as follows:
! !
FTP Port - Most ftp servers work on port 25. If your web space provider uses a port other than 21, enter it here. Use a passive data connection - Most ftp servers use a passive connection. Leave this box checked unless your web space provider tells you otherwise. Also, if you are having trouble uploading through a firewall, try unchecking this box to see if it solves your problem. Automatically Upload/Do not Upload - When submitting listings, eB will ensure your images are uploaded. If you upload your images manually and do not want eB to upload your images automatically, check the Do not upload... option.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 3. Click OK to save your settings and enter a name for your Picture Host in the window that appears.
Creating a New eBay Picture Manager Host
1. From the dropdown, select the eBay Userid that has the Picture Manager subscription you want to use. 2. Enter the Folder Name of the folder the pictures should be uploaded to. You can use the Browse button to view your folders on Picture Manager and choose from the available list. 3. Click OK to save your settings and enter a name for your Picture Host in the window that appears. Carol uses Picture Manager to host her pictures. Some of her items are always listed. She doesn't want to accidentally delete those pictures, so she created a folder called Permanent for those pictures. All the others she puts in a folder called Scratch. She then created two Picture Manager Picture Hosts. One points to her Permanent folder and one to the Scratch folder. She can now easily assign the location of her uploaded images when creating an item.
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Business Setup If you are running a business on eBay, you will have to provide information on the taxes you collect.
Tax Table
Depending upon the laws in your state/country, you may be required to collect taxes. Much of the tax collection process is handled by eBay's Checkout process. In the cases where Checkout is used, eB will store the tax that was calculated at eBay. If Checkout is not used, tax is calculated based on the information entered into the Tax Table.
To fill in your tax table:
1. From Tools|Options, select Tax Table under Business Setup in the Options tree. The following settings will appear.
2. Fill in the table columns as follows:

!
! ! !
Sales Tax Authority Type - There are different taxing authorities that you may have to collect taxes for. Select the State, City, Zip or Country that you must collect taxes for. When a sale is recorded, if the State, City, Zip or Country field in the buyers information is exactly the same as the value provided here, the tax will get calculated. Sales Tax Authority State - Enter the state, city, country or zip that you charge tax for. This must match exactly the value in the buyer record for the tax to be calculated. Tax Percent - Enter the tax percent to collect to the nearest thousandths. Include tax on shipping? - Depending upon the laws in your state (taxing authority) you may or may not be required to collect tax on the shipping portion of the sale. Please consult local codes.
Much of our tax implementation is collected in anticipation of future tax requirements and eBay features. Currently, eBay supports charging taxes in multiple states, but not by city or country. If they implement this in the future, then it will already be in eB. Also, the Simplified Sales Tax plan being considered in many states will require sellers to charge tax based on the zip code of the buyer. When/if this is implemented, you may be required to store the taxes that are charged by zip code. At that time, eB will support the ability
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide to do that.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Presets Presets allow you to predefine sets of values that are used later in the program. Upgrade Presets, Payment Presets, Shipping Presets, and Destination Presets are all used to make the entry of items faster. Positive Feedback Messages are used to quickly send feedbacks without typing them in each time.
Item Entry Presets
Upgrade Presets, Payment Presets, Shipping Presets, and Destination Presets are all item entry presets. They are used to make the item entry process faster. Each preset corresponds to a set of values that must be sent to eBay when submitting a listing. The details of what each preset value is used for can be more aptly described from the eBay Sell Your Item form. Please consult the SYI form for any item entry preset values you are unfamiliar with. All item entry presets can be created, duplicated, deleted, edited and renamed in the same manner. For more information on using presets to create an item, see Creating Items Faster with Field Presets.
Creating an Item Entry Preset
You can create any number of new presets.

To create an item entry preset:
1. From Tools|Options choose Presets|(Upgrades Presets/Payments Presets/Shipping Presets/Destination Presets). 2. Click the New button. The Preset entry form for you type of preset will appear. 3. Enter the values for your preset. See Shipping, Listing Upgrades, Payment and Shipping To/From for information on the specific fields in a preset. 4. An input form will open asking you for a name. Provide a short, detailed name for your preset and click OK.
Duplicating an Item Entry Preset
You can create a item entry preset using an existing preset as a baseline also.
To duplicate an item entry preset:
1. From Tools|Options choose Presets|(Upgrades Presets/Payments Presets/Shipping Presets/Destination Presets). 2. Select the preset you would like to duplicate from the list and click the Duplicate button. 3. An input form will open asking you for a name. Provide a short, detailed name for your preset and click OK. 4. The new preset will now be in your Presets list. Click on the preset and click the Edit button to edit the new preset. 5. Modify the values for your preset accordingly. See Shipping, Listing Upgrades, Payment and Shipping To/From for information on the specific fields in a preset.
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Deleting an Item Entry Preset
When you no longer need a preset, you can delete it. Deleting a preset will revert each item using the preset to being a <Custom> preset. It will not harm your data to delete a preset.
To delete an item entry preset:
1. From Tools|Options choose Presets|(Upgrades Presets/Payments Presets/Shipping Presets/Destination Presets). 2. Select the preset you would like to delete from the list and click the Delete button.
Renaming an Item Entry Preset
You can also rename a preset at any time.

To rename an item entry preset:
1. From Tools|Options choose Presets|(Upgrades Presets/Payments Presets/Shipping Presets/Destination Presets). 2. Select the preset you would like to rename from the list and click the Rename button. 3. An input form will open asking you for the new name. Provide a short, detailed name for your preset and click OK.
Editing an Item Entry Preset
To edit an item entry preset:
1. From Tools|Options choose Presets|(Upgrades Presets/Payments Presets/Shipping Presets/Destination Presets). 2. Select the preset you would like to edit from the list and click the Edit button.
Positive Feedback Messages
If you have several different feedback messages you tend to leave, you can enter them only once and then be used over and over again. Every feedback message created will appear in the list of feedback messages that can be left from the Finalize Sales mode. See Completing Sales - Leaving_Feedback for information on leaving feedbacks. When leaving Random Feedbacks, all feedback messages in the list will be used in random order. Since leaving negative and neutral feedbacks should not be taken lightly, you cannot leave them in bulk. You can also not store negative or neutral feedback messages for use later. You must manual write the negative/neutral feedback when leaving it.
To manage feedback messages:
1. From Tools|Options choose Presets|Positive Feedback Messages. The Positive Feedback Messages list will appear.
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2. Click the New button to create a new feedback message. When the prompt appears, enter the text of your message and click OK. You could also create a new message using the Duplicate button. 3. If you want to modify one of your messages, choose it from the list and click the Edit button. Make your modifications and click OK to save. 4. To delete a feedback message, choose it from the list and click the Delete button. 5. If you would like, you can make leaving feedbacks automatically change the status of the sale. To set a status change, enter a status in the When Submitting to eBay Change the Sale Status dropdown. If leaving feedback is the last step in your process, it is a good idea to have feedbacks set the sale status to Successful. This will help you identify which sales have had feedback left for them.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Templates Templates include pre-formatted layouts for your emails. Templates let you customize the look of your emails. The Email Studio is a custom interfaces used to edit email templates. Templates can be edited and renamed, but not created or deleted in the Basic version.
Working with Templates
To view your templates, select Tools|Options from the main menu and then select Email Templates under the Templates header in the Options tree on the left. You will see a list of your templates.
Renaming a Template
You can also rename a template at any time.

To rename a template:
1. From Tools|Options choose Templates|Email Templates. 2. Select the template you would like to rename from the list and click the Rename button. 3. An input form will open asking you for the new name. Provide a short, detailed name for your template and click OK. 41
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Connections Connections lets you specify parameters to different connections that eB makes.
Updates
At any given time, there is a finalized version of eB and a beta version of eB available. Finalized versions have completed testing and have been released to the general public. Beta versions are versions that have newer fixes and enhancements that are still being tested. You can choose which type of update notifications you will get. Beta versions are likely to contain bugs and may not work as you expect. Only experienced users or users who have been specifically instructed by support should get beta versions. A good beta tester understands that things will go wrong and will have adequate database backups.
Network Role
If you have multiple computers sharing data on a network, then you can assign the role of each computer. Each computer on a network will be either the server or a client. The server is the computer that hosts the database for the clients and will also perform other automatic background tasks like scheduling listings and downloading the latest categories. The clients will get the data from the server and can optionally assist with the automated tasks. By setting the role of each computer on your network, you can optimize your network performance.
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For each computer on your network, set the network role as follows.
!
This computer is the Server Each network must have a server. The server is the computer that will host the database. The server also will perform synchronizations with eBay. This computer is an Intelligent Client A client is any other computer on the network that is not the server. The client will access the database from the server. The server will interact with eBay to perform actions like submitting scheduled listings and refresh categories. An Intelligent Client can also help the server with the automated tasks. Updates on the server will be performed faster since the data doesn't have to be accessed across the network. If you have a server that is being used for other tasks, or doesn't have a lot of RAM, you can use Intelligent Clients to help with the automatic updates. This computer is a Dumb Client A Dumb Client will access the data from the server, but will not perform any automated tasks. If your server is powerful enough to handle the autmoted tasks on its own, or if it is a computer dedicated to eB, you will get better performance by using Dumb Clients. This is a standalone computer If you do not run on a network at all use this option.
For more information about configuring your network, please see HOWTO: Optimal Network Configurations.
Endicia
Postage can be automatically printed using Endicia's Dazzle. When printing postage for different shipping methods, Dazzle allows you to specify different label layouts. Please consult the Dazzle documentation for more information on label layouts and how you can customize your own postage. Because eB automatically loads and prints postage, it must know what label layout to use for each type of postage. Use this screen to enter all the layout files that you would like associated with each shipping method. You can specify defaults for both Domestic and International labels.
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Getting Started
Getting Started
If you are reading this, you've probably just downloaded eBay Blackthorne and are eager to get started. We hope that you will take the time later to read about all the time-saving features we have to offer, but for now let's get you up and running. In this section, we will give you a tour of the interface, and then walk you through a Quick Start so you can create your first item and list it on eBay. When your auction ends, you will also need our Quick Finish to help you through your first sale.
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A Tour of the Main Window

Let's take a look at the different areas of the main window. Click on each labelled area to see a short explanation of its function. Take the Tour
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Importing Data
Importing Data The fastest way to get up and running is to import your existing auction data. You can import from Seller's Assistant Basic or Pro, Turbo Lister or directly from eBay. You probably imported your data when you first ran the Setup Assistant. If you did not, you can import it now from File|Import on the main menu. Different programs will contain different amounts of useful data for eB. Depending upon how you imported your data, you may need to perform some more tasks to get your database in shape.
Importing from Seller's Assistant Basic
In order to extract as much information as possible from Seller's Assistant Basic, it must still be installed. Seller's Assistant Basic stores a lot of information in the Windows System Registry, and that information is removed when the program is uninstalled. To import from Seller's Assistant Basic, choose File|Import|Import from SA Basic. It can also be imported as part of the Setup Assistant which is run the first time you run eB. If you have already uninstalled Seller's Assistant Basic, then simply reinstalling SA will not restore the lost information. The data would have to be re-entered into SA just as it was originally. Instead, it would be better to enter the data directly into eBay Blackthorne.
! ! ! ! !
E-mail Templates: You could not create custom email templates in SA Basic, so no email templates are imported. Ad Templates: Not imported. Ad Template is set to "Simple." Themes: eBay themes are correctly imported. Categories: Are imported correctly. Inventory: Since there is no inventory in SA Basic, inventory info is not imported. For inventory to be tracked for specific items in eB, it needs to be turned on individually for each one. Part Number: Does not exist in SA Basic so it is not imported. Picture Host: Set to EPS. You will need to create your Picture Hosts and use Bulk Change to add it to your items. Cost: Not imported.
! ! !
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Items, listings and sales records are created. The status of each item is set as best can be determined (if there is a currently-running auction, for example, the status will be set to "First Run," even though the item may have been run before).
Importing from Seller's Assistant Pro
Seller's Assistant Pro does not need to be currently installed in order for data to be imported from it. To import from Seller's Assistant Pro, choose File|Import|Import from SA Pro 2.X. It can also be imported as part of the Setup Assistant which is run the first time you run eB.
! ! ! !
E-mail Templates: Not imported. You must create new email templates in eB. Packing Lists: Not imported. You must modify the stock packing list if you want it customized. Labels: Not imported. Ad Templates: Not imported. Ad Template is set to "Simple." You will need to create new Ad Templates and use Bulk Change to assign the templates to your items. Theme ID: Is imported correctly. Categories: Are imported correctly. Feedback: Only positive feedback messages are imported. Because negative and neutral feedback is rare, and will not be done in bulk, you must enter negative and neutral feedbacks manually. Status: Is imported correctly, with the exception of "Ready to List" and "Pending" statuses, which have no equivalent in Blackthorne.
! ! !
Importing from Turbo Lister
Turbo Lister doesn't export its entire database all at once. Instead, it exports one folder at a time. The best way to import from Turbo Lister is to create same-named folders, one at a time, importing data into each of them separately. To import from Turbo Lister, select File|Import|Import Turbo Lister CSV File.
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Images: Images are lost, except for images that reside on the local hard drive with the same letter and folder (e.g.: "C:\Images") as that used by Turbo Lister. States (Status): Turbo Lister doesn't use the concept of states (or status) of items, so when Blackthorne imports, it tries to estimate and assign a rough status (if the item has a currently-running auction, for example).
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Inventory/Part Numbers: Turbo Lister also doesn't handle inventory, so when items are imported into Blackthorne, the inventory section is set to: "Don't track inventory for this item." The Part Number field is not set. Seller/E-Mail Contact: The E-mail contact field is not available. Neither is the Seller field, so Blackthorne assigns the current seller . Shipping: International shipping details are not importable from Turbo Lister. Item Specifics: Item Specifics are imported correctly. Templates: E-mail and Ad templates are lost. Ad template is set to "Simple." Picture Host: Is set to EPS by default.
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Importing from eBay
In the very best-case scenario, if the listing was created using Blackthorne, just about every piece of information, including information that is completely independent of eBay (e.g.: part numbers) will be imported. To import from eBay, choose File|Import|Import from eBay. When importing eBay listings that were created with other programs, more information will be lost:
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Images: Not imported. Inventory: Not imported. When the listing is created, inventory is turned off by default and needs to be turned on individually for each item. Part Number: If the listing was created by Selling Manager or Blackthorne, part numbers are imported, otherwise they are not. Dispute Status and ID: These are both imported. Templates: Not imported.
Archiving While Importing
Archiving reduces clutter and speeds up operation of the program, while keeping all information still available if needed. With this in mind, the import program automatically archives data, subject to the following criteria:
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! ! ! !
Sales older than 6 months are archived. Listings that ended more than 6 months ago are archived. Items that were last used to create listings more than 6 months ago are archived. Store listings that haven't been used in more than 6 months are archived.
In addition to the six-month boundary, incomplete items (no listings ever created from them; missing user information and option settings) are also archived.
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Quick Start - Listing Your First Item

eBay Blackthorne is a very powerful application. This tutorial is designed to get your first auction up and running as quickly as possible. It just tells you what to do without taking any time to explain what you are doing or why. All of the functions are described in much more detail later in the documentation. To List Your First Item: 1. Before beginning this tutorial, you should have completed the Setup Assistant with as much information as possible. 2. Click on the Create Items Mode tab to switch the program into Create Items Mode.
3. Make sure you are viewing only the grid by clicking the Grid Only button on the Layouts toolbar.
4. To create an empty item record, select (Untitled) from the New Item dropdown. When asked how many items to create, enter "1" and click OK.
A new item record will appear in the item entry window. 5. In the Item Details group, highlight (Untitled) and replace it with your title.
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Also, from the dropdowns, enter a Seller and Contact Email from the accounts you created during the Setup Assistant. 6. From the Categories group, use the Select button to choose a category from the Category Selector.
7. From the Description group, enter your description. If you would like to give your listing a finished look, select a theme from the Theme dropdown. After choosing a Theme, you can use the Preview button to see what it looks like. Ad Templates will help you minimize duplicated text in all your descriptions, but we will save that for another day. For now, leave it set to Simple.
8. If you have pictures on your computer that you would like in your listing, enter them in the Pictures group. Simply click the Browse button or one of the Picture Wells to navigate to and select your images. For this tutorial, we will use the easiest picture hosting, so leave the Picture Host dropdown set to eBay Picture Services.
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9. Enter the Format and Pricing information.
The next few steps involve using Presets to enter data. A preset is a group of settings that you can define and use over and over. They speed up data entry considerably, and reduce errors. For this demonstration, just enter the data directly, without creating any presets. When you are more comfortable with item creation, you can learn more about using presets in the Creating Items Faster with Field Presets topic. 10. If you would like your listing to stand out, you may want to select one of the preset Listing Upgrades. Otherwise, leave it set to None. Listing Upgrades incur additional listing fees. If you would like to know more right now, see Listing Upgrades under Entering Item Details.
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11. If you are familiar with setting your shipping information on eBay, then you shouldn't have a problem setting it from the Shipping group. Choose Custom from the shipping dropdown and it will open the Shipping Preset form. Enter your shipping options on that form. If you have difficulty, you should consult the topic Entering Item Details.
12. From the Payments group, specify what type of payments you accept. Choose Custom from the payment dropdown and it will open the Payment Preset form. Also leave Payment as unspecified, or take a few minutes to read up on Payment.
13. This completes the item entry. Check your item for errors, and then submit it. To check for errors, select Items Actions | Preview and Check Errors from the main menu. The Preview window will open, showing a summary of fees and errors. If there are no errors, click the Submit button to submit it to eBay. If
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide there are errors, click Close to return to the main screen and select Tools | Activity Log. The errors are listed under the Listing History tab.
14. This will bring up one final form, giving you choices for scheduling the auction start. Select Submit to eBay and start immediately then click OK. From this window, you can also choose to create multiple, identical listings and have the auction starts staggered so that they don't all start at the same time.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 15. Once the item is submitted, the status of the item changes to Listing Created and a listing record is created. To view the listing record, click on the Monitor Listings tab and select Listings by Status | Running filter from the Views sidebar. The listing will appear in the grid.
Congratulations! You've now listed your first item with eBay Blackthorne. When your auction has ended, you will need to close out your sale. To understand the item creation process in greater detail, we recommend you continue by reading Creating and Managing Items.
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Closing eBay Blackthorne

When you are finished, you can close eBay Blackthorne using File | Exit from the Main menu. You can also use Alt-F4 or click the Windows close window button in the upper right hand corner of the eBay Blackthorne window.
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Overview of eBay Blackthorne

eBay Blackthorne is an automation tool for eBay Sellers. It helps automate all steps in the sales process from a single application with an easy to use interface. There are 3 major stages in the lifespan of an eBay sale. You will Create Items, Monitor Listings and Finalize Sales. Those three stages are managed by the 3 primary mode tabs on the main window.
The following diagram illustrates these stages.
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You will start the process by creating an item record in the Create Items mode. The item record contains all the information about an item to be listed on eBay. You will enter 60
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide your description, pictures and all the auction settings in the item record. You can even enter the number you have and track inventory from your item record. Once you have an item created, you can quickly and easily submit a listing to eBay. If you have more than one copy of the item, you can use the same item record to create another listing as many times as you'd like. In the topic Creating and Managing Items you will find all you need to know to create items quickly and keep them organized. While a listing is running you monitor it from the Monitor Listings mode. In Monitor Listings, you can keep track of the current bid price and the high bidder. You can also add to your description, end a listing early, submit second chance offers and relist closed listings. The topic Monitoring Listings describes all the ways you can keep track of your listings while they are running. Once your listing sells, it generates a sale. The sale will be saved and finalized along with the buyer information from the Finalize Sales mode. In Finalize Sales, you will perform all of the tasks that occur after the sale is completed including, emailing buyers, receiving payments, leaving feedback, etc. The Processing Sales and Shipping topic contains all the information on what to do after the sale. There are many more functions of eBay Blackthorne, but once you have an understanding of these three primary stages, the rest will fall into place. Mastering the content in the three topics described here is the best place to start.
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Creating and Managing Items

Creating and Managing Items
Before you can create an eBay listing, you must first create an Item in your inventory. Your Items will be displayed on the Create Items mode. Your item will pass through different statuses as you fill in all the information for your item, check the item for errors, submit it, and organize the item so it is easy to get to later. Statuses help you keep track of what stage your items are at in the creation and submission process. You can easily see all the items in a particular status from the Filters Tree in the Views sidebar.
The following diagram shows the actions that you will perform over the lifespan of an item in the light blue boxes. It identifies the status of the item as it progresses through the process in the purple boxes.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide The first step in the process is to create an item record. A brand new item record has a status of In Process. The item record contains all the information about the item you want to list. You will enter...
! !
the information that you need to send to eBay (Title, Description, Starting Price, Shipping Options, etc.) any pictures that you have taken of the item
If your pictures are hosted on your own web space, then you may want to upload your pictures during the creation process so you don't have to wait for them to upload at submission time. After entering your data, you will move your items into the Entry Completed status. Once entry is completed, you may want to preview your formatted description, check your listing for any errors or review the fees for submitting your listing. The Entry Completed status is most useful when there are different users who create and submit items. By moving items into the Entry Completed status, the data entry person is signalling to the submitter that the items are ready. If the same person creates and lists the items, then you do not need to move items into the Entry Completed status. You can simply review them while they are In Process. When you have reviewed your item, you are ready to submit your listing. If you item failed submission for any reason, it will be moved into the Submission Errors status. You will need to fix it and resubmit it. If your item submission was successful, then your item will be placed in the Listed status and a Listing record will be created. See the Monitoring Listings topic for details on tracking a listing through its process. If you have more than one of each item, you now have an efficient way to enter item information and submit it all from one screen. If you are a commodity seller (someone who has many copies of an item to sell), you can use this same item record to submit the item over and over again while it remains in the Listed status. After you have sold the last copy of your item, and you have been paid for it, you will archive your item. This will make it easier for you to navigate through your items and it will make the program run faster. How do I keep all my items organized? As you list more and more items on eBay, it will become important for you to organize these items so that you can easily find them and list them again in the future. Folders, and filters are different methods for you to easily view and manage your items. The most common way to organize your items is to create and name folders to place your items in. In addition, there are predefined filters that will show you groups of items based on something they have in common.
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For instance, if you sell electronics, you may want to create folders for DVD players, and VCR's. You could then create a list that includes some DVD players and some VCR's to be submitted next Sunday. The items would still exist in their original folder, but they would also be referenced by the list. A filter called "New and Unlisted" could also be used to show you all the items you have created, but have not listed yet.
If all else fails, you can use the good ol' Search function to find the items you are looking for.
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Creating and Submitting Items
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Adding a New Item Record

Adding a New Item Record
Before listing an item, you have to create an item record that contains all the needed information for the item. Entering information about an item tends to be one of the most time consuming tasks that eBay sellers are faced with. This is why we have spent a lot of time streamlining the item entry process. If most of the fields are already entered when you create a new item record, it will save you a lot of time. There are three different ways you can create new item records. If you are creating your first item, or an item that isn't like any other you've listed before, you can create a blank item. If you have a similar item already in your database, you can create a new item from an existing item. Finally, you can also create an item from an item template. An item template is a special type of item record that you can create and fill out in advance. Later, you can generate new item records from that template. The topic "Creating Items Faster with Item Templates" later in this section describes this in more detail.
Creating an Item from Scratch
If you don't have any items yet, or you don't have any items that are similar to the new item you are going to list, you may want to create an item from scratch. To create an item from scratch: 1. From the Create Items tab, Select Items Actions|New Item| (Untitled) from the main menu.
You can also use the New Item button on the Actions toolbar to create an (Untitled) item.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Depending upon the current layout, the new item record will display in the details pane, or in a popup window. Proceed to "Entering Item Details" for information on filling in the new item record. Carlos is a brand new user of eB and has never created an item before. He uses Items Actions|New Item|(Untitled) to get his first item record.
Creating an Item from an Existing Item
If you have a similiar item record already created, you can create a new one by duplicating the first. To create a new item from an existing item: 1. From the Create Items mode, select the item you would like to duplicate from the Grid and click the Duplicate Action Button.
A new record will appear in the Grid and the Details Panel if it is shown. Also, depending upon your set preferences, the new Item may instead appear in a popup window. 2. Modify the new record to make any changes for the new item. Camille sells football jerseys. She just created an item for a Philadelphia Eagles jersey and now wants to create a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey. She selects the Eagles jersey and clicks on Duplicate. It gives her another Eagles jersey. She clicks on the new item and modifies the description to say "Pittsburgh Steelers" everywhere it said "Philadelphia Eagles". She now has an item record for each.
Creating an Item from an Item Template
If you find yourself creating the same types of items over and over, you can simply create an Item Template for the item. You can then easily create items just like it from the Item Templates folder. The topic "Creating Items Faster with Item Templates" later in this section describes this in more detail. To create an item from an item template: 1. From the Create Items mode, click the dropdown menu arrow on the New Item Action button and select the desired item template from the dropdown menu.
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You can also create an Item from an Item Template by choosing File|Items Actions|New Item and choose the desired item template from the dropdown menu.
A new record will appear in the Grid and the Details Panel (depending on your display settings). Also, depending upon your set preferences, the new Item may instead appear in a popup window. 2. Modify the new record to make any changes for the new item. After a while Camille realizes that she will be selling a lot of jerseys over the next several months so she should make an Item Template. She selects an existing jersey, right clicks it and chooses "Save as Item Template". She then changes the title of the Item Template to "Jersey". Later she goes to the New button and chooses "Jersey" to get a new item record. An astute user will notice that all three of these methods are really just different ways of duplicating an existing item record. When you are creating an item from scratch, you are simply duplicating an empty item record that was provided. When using an Item Template, you are simply duplicating a special
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide type of item record.
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Entering Item Details

Entering Item Details
There are many pieces of information that must be entered when creating an item. This topic assumes a good understanding of the eBay listing process and listing features. If you don't understand what a field is for, please consult the eBay online documentation for the Sell Your Item page. Item information can be entered directly in the Grid, or in the Details Pane of the Create Items mode. Item information is entered on two different tabs in the Details Pane or the New Item pop-up. The Item tab contains all the fields that are necessary for listing an item on eBay. The Inventory tab contains all other information about the item. If you would prefer to scroll rather than tab within the Details Pane, you can make the Details Pane one long scrollable entry panel from Tools|Options|Appearance|Entering Data.
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Item Details
The Item Details group contains general information about the item.
Enter the Title and optionally, the Subtitle. You can also assign an Email Account under the Contact Email dropdown menu. By assigning an Email Account to your item, you can identify which email address will be used for any contacts relating to this item. Basic subscribers will not see the Seller dropdown or the Part Number field. The Title and SubTitle fields are spell checked in real time. See "Spell Checking" for information on using the spell checker.
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Description
The Description group allows you to enter your description and select how it will appear in the listing.
Enter all text of your description in the Description box. You can enter plain text or HTML in the description box. When using HTML however, you must ensure it adheres to eBay guidelines for HTML and Javascript. If you would like to edit your Description in a larger window, click the Edit button to open the full screen Description Editor. The Description Editor contains a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor to allow you to add custom formatting such as bold or highlighting. To learn more about the Description Editor, please see "Using_the_Description_Editor". The Description field is spell checked in real time. See "Spell Checking" for information on using the spell checker. Next, enter the Theme you want to use for your description. The Theme is a graphical layout for your item that can make it more attractive. There are literally hundreds to choose from, with more being added all the time. Themes are the equivalent of eBay's Listing Designer templates. To help you select a theme, there is a Preview button to see what your listing will look like. Simply choose a Theme and then click the Preview button to view a formatted version of your listing. Themes are free when you are listing using the same eBay userid that is subscribed to eB. When using another userid, using themes will incur the Listing Designer fee on your auctions. There are different themes for the regular site versus the eBay Motors site. Use the themes marked with a checkered flag on the eBay Motors site and any other theme when listing on the non-Motors eBay site.
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Finally, select an Ad Template. Whereas the Theme assigned the graphical appearance for your listing, an Ad Template can assign default text for your description. Initially, there are two Ad Templates. The Simple template provides no additional text. Only the text entered in your description box is included in your listing. The Enhanced template will add standard messages for shipping, tax, payment etc., but requires you to edit the template before you can use it. Ad Templates are very powerful. Using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, you can enter text once in an Ad Template, and have it included in all your listings. To find out more, see "Customizing Ad Templates". Ad Templates allow you to include the text from your description using an Item Fields variable. However, it doesn't allow you to change the font style or color within the description itself. It also doesn't allow you to enter other HTML formatting like tables and lists into the description. If you want more control over the appearance of the description itself, then click the Edit button to open the Description Editor. The topic "Description - Using_the_Description_Editor" discusses this in more depth. By using the Description and Ad Templates properly, you can greatly reduce the amount of text you must enter. Whenever possible, the Description field should just contain information that makes a particular item different from other items. Any text that is repeated in multiple listings should be in an Ad Template. For example, if you are selling a Fenton Vase, then you should include information about this particular vase in the Description. This includes color, style, scratches, chips, etc. Information that appears in all your glassware listings like shipping messages, payment messages, how you grade glassware, and the history of your company should be part of an Ad Template called "Glassware". This allows you to use the "Glassware" template anytime you list a piece of glass, leaving you to simply enter the specifics of that piece of glass.
Using the Description Editor
If you have a simple Description, then you can simply enter it in the Description box on the Item Details form. When used with an Ad Template, the Description you enter in the Description box will be included in your listing when it is created. The Description box allows you to include simple text or you can enter HTML if you desire. If you are unfamiliar with HTML, yet you still want more advanced formatting in your Description, then you can use the Description Editor. The Description Editor is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that allows you to easily create formatted text. When included in your Ad Template all the formatting created in the Description Editor will appear along with the other elements from the Ad Template. By using the Description and Ad Templates properly, you can greatly reduce the amount of text you must enter. Whenever possible, the Description field should just contain information that makes a particular item different from other items. Any text that is repeated in multiple listings should be in an Ad Template. For example, if you are selling a Fenton Vase, then you should include information about this particular vase in the
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Description. This includes color, style, scratches, chips, etc. Information that appears in all your glassware listings like shipping messages, payment messages, how you grade glassware, and the history of your company should be part of an Ad Template called "Glassware". This allows you to use the "Glassware" template anytime you list a piece of glass, leaving you to simply enter the specifics of that piece of glass. To open the Description Editor, simply click on the "Edit" button in the Description group, or double-click the Description input box.
Enter the text of your description in the main Description input box. You can enter plain text or HTML in the description box. When using HTML however, you must ensure it adheres to eBay guidelines for HTML and Javascript. You can also enter any of the Item Fields available in the Ad Template Studio, however you must manually enter the names of the Item Field tags. You can use the Design View and HTML View tabs to swap back and forth between seeing the formatted appearance and the source HTML. Spell checking is not enabled in the Design View since the Design View is supposed to show exactly what will be displayed and the red wavy lines violate that rule. However, you can spell check in the HTML View. HTML tags will be ignored by the spell checker. See "Spell Checking" for information on using the spell checker. You can add formatting by placing your cursor or selecting text and then clicking on one of the format buttons on the toolbar. The buttons perform the following formatting:
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Icon Description Cut the selected text Copy the selected text Paste the selected text Undo the last action Redo the last action Make the selected text bold Italicize the selected text Underscore the selected text Set the font Remove all formatting from the selected text Set the color of the selected text Increase the size of the selected text Decrease the size of the selected text Left align the selected text Center the selected text Right align the selected text Indent Outdent Start/Stop an numbered list Start/Stop a bulleted list Insert a horizontal line Insert a table Insert a hyperlink Perform a search and replace
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Categories
Categories
The Category group allows you to enter one or two categories to list your item under. If you have a store, it will also allow you to enter the store categories. There are three ways to enter a category: ! Type the category number directly into the category number box. If the category number is valid, the category description will automatically fill in. ! If available, you can choose a favorite category from the category dropdown menu. ! Click the Select button to bring up the Category Selector. Some categories have Item Specifics or may be selected from a catalog. By specifying the Item Specifics information or choosing the item from a catalog, the item is more accurately identified for your buyers. If the chosen category has Item Specifics or Catalog information available, the Edit Item Specifics window will appear after the selection of the category. Follow the instructions in "Entering_Item_Specifics_and_Catalog_Info" to complete this information. Once specified, the Item Specifics/Catalog information is displayed below the category selection. You can use the Edit button to change Item Specifics or Catalog information in the future. If you have a store, you can also enter one or two Store Categories that you want your item listed under. If you have more than one Seller Account, the store category dropdowns will only appear when a seller account with a store is selected in the "Seller" dropdown in the sidebar.
If you recently modified your categories on eBay, or if you don't see the store category dropdown in the Category group, then select Refresh|eBay Store Categories from the main menu. This will refresh your list of store categories.
The Category Selector
Items are listed on eBay by category. There are over 100,000 categories on eBay. Placing your item in the proper category is important because it helps buyers more easily find your items. If desired, you can even list your item in two different categories. The Category Selector helps you quickly find and select categories using: ! a hierarchical category tree ! a list of your favorite categories ! by searching through category names.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide To open the Category Selector, simply click the "Select" button next to the category input fields.
The Category Selector will appear. By choosing the Category 1 or Category 2 radio button at the top, you can specify which category you are entering. Use the "Clear" buttons to remove any categories you don't want to list in anymore.
Choosing a Category from the Tree
From the Browse tab, you can select your category from a hierarchical tree. Simply choose the highest level category in the input box on the left, and lower levels will appear on the right. Continue to drill down until you reach the leaf category you wish to list in. Some categories may have associated Item Specifics. Item Specifics are additional pieces of information to further categorize your item. For instance, the Women's Shoes category may have color and size as Item Specifics. Additionally, you may be able to fill in some of the Item Specifics for a category using Pre-Filled Item Information. PreFilled Item Information is Item Specific information that can be automatically entered for you from a catalog. For instance, eBay maintains a catalog of information on DVD's and
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide can automatically fill in a description of the DVD for you. Any categories that contain Item Specifics or Pre-Filled Item Information will be marked with small icons as described in the lower left corner of the Category Selector. If you would like to view the category on eBay to see what other types of items are in that category, then click the "View on eBay" button. If you would like to add this category to your favorites list, then click on "Add to Favorites". All categories in your favorites list will be available from the Category Name dropdown on the Item Details page and will save you from having to load the Category Selector the next time you want to use this category.
Choosing a Category from Your Favorites
The Favorites tab contains a list of all categories that you have added to your Favorites list.
The easiest way to select a favorite is from the Category Name dropdown on the Item Details. That dropdown contains the same list as shown here. You can also select the category simply by clicking it here. If you would like to remove a category from your favorites list, then simply select it and click the "Remove" button. 78

Choosing a Category from the Category Search
The Search tab allows you to search for categories that have a particular word in the name.
Simply enter your search word(s) into the search field and click the "Search" button. A list of possible categories will appear. Simply click the category you desire. To add the found category to your favorites list, click the "Add to Favorites" button. Single clicking a category on any tab will enter it into the category field at the top. Double-clicking a category will enter it as the category and exit the Category Selector.
Entering Item Specifics and Catalog Information
Some categories may have associated Item Specifics. Item Specifics are additional pieces of information to further categorize your item. For instance, the Women's Shoes category may have color and size as Item Specifics. Additionally, you may be able to fill in some of the Item Specifics for a category using Pre-Filled Item Information. PreFilled Item Information is Item Specific information that can be automatically entered for you from a catalog. For instance, eBay maintains a catalog of information on DVD's and can automatically fill in a description of the DVD for you.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide When selecting a category from the Category Selector, any categories with Item Specifics and/or Pre-Filled Item Information will automatically display an input form for you to fill in more data. The fields that appear on that form will be different depending upon the category selected. Item Specifics can be entered for both categories, but catalog information can only be entered for the first category. Entering Item Specifics The Item Specifics input form will look something like this form for the Women's Shoes category.
Simply fill in as much data as you can and click the "OK" button. A summary of the information you entered will appear under the Category input fields.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Entering Pre-Filled Catalog Information When a category also has Pre-Filled Item Information, it will give you the option of entering the Item Specifics yourself or using the catalog information.
If you want to just enter the Item Specifics yourself, choose "Manually enter Item Specifics" at the top of the screen. You will then see a typical Item Specifics screen and can enter the values manually. To search for information within a catalog, select "Search for pre-filled catalog information" at the top, and then enter values under the "Product Search" header to help locate the catalog information. Click the "Search" button when you have entered your search criteria, and a list of matching catalog entries will appear at the right. To see the details of any of the matches, click the "Show Details" link. The link will show you all the catalog information for that entry to ensure you have selected the correct entry. When you have found the entry that matches your item, click it to select it. This will show you the Item Specifics input form with much of the data already filled in. You should continue to fill in any other data that you have available.
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Select "Include Stock Photo in this Listing" if you would like the photo from the catalog to be used in your listing. Select "Include Additional Information" if you would like the description from the catalog added to your description. You may even decide to include this information in lieu of your own description. This saves you time by not having to add your own description. Select "Use Stock Image as Gallery Image" if you would like the photo from the catalog to be used as your gallery image (if you have chosen to list with a gallery image).
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide If you would like to use all three stock photo settings specified as your default for future catalog listings, click the Set as Default button. When finished, click "OK". A summary of your catalog information and a thumbnail will appear under the Category input fields.
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Pictures
Pictures
The Pictures group allows you to enter up to 12 pictures for your item.
These pictures are included in your formatted listing based on the Layout chosen in your Ad Template. You can enter images in any of the following ways:
! ! ! ! !
drag and drop images from any open Windows folder directly onto an image well . Dragging multiple images is allowed. The images will be added in the order they were selected. drag and drop images from any open Windows folder directly onto the picture path text fields. Dragging multiple images is allowed. The images will be added in the order they were selected. click an image well to navigate to your image folder and select one or more images. The order of the images when placed in the image wells cannot be guaranteed. use the browse button (the button with the three dots on it) to navigate to your image folder and select one or more images. The order of the images when placed in the image wells cannot be guaranteed. manually enter the path to the image directly into the picture path fields. You can include pictures that are on your hard drive, or you can use pictures on the internet by entering the URL in the picture path text field.
You can either use eBay Picture Services to host your pictures, or you can host your pictures on your own web space. Choose your hosting preference from the Picture Host dropdown menu. 84
If you have chosen to list with eBay Picture Services, you can also choose additional picture options from the EPS Picture Options dropdown menu. Your listings will load into your potential buyer's browser much faster if they are properly compressed and formatted. The Picture Studio allows you to compress, crop, scale and rotate your images so they are more efficient. You can access the Picture Studio by clicking the Edit button in the Pictures Group, or by clicking Items Actions|Edit Pictures... from the main menu. You can learn more about the Picture Studio in the topic "Editing Pictures".
Uploading Your Pictures
One of the best ways to ensure a better price for your items is to list them with pictures. Earlier, you learned how to identify which pictures were associated with your item. For your pictures to appear in your listing, however, they must be uploaded and available on the web. There are basically three ways you can host images on the Web: eBay Picture Services, eBay Picture Manager or you can use your own Web space. Uploading pictures to eBay Picture Services is fast and easy, however you will incur a fee after the first picture on each item. Using eBay Picture Manager will allow you to use eBay's image hosting feature to store your images. Picture Manager provides you will a specified amount of web space for a set fee, and you manage what images are available at any given time. If you have your own web space on your ISP or through another provider, you can use that to host your images also. When using eBay Picture Manager, or your own web host, you will need to first set up a Picture Host account. Uploading Pictures to eBay Picture Services (ePS) The simplest way to include pictures is to use eBay Picture Services (ePS). eBay currently charges a fee for every picture after the first one, but if you are not comfortable with managing images on your own web space, it could be well worth the cost. To use ePS, all you have to do is select eBay Picture Services from the Picture Host dropdown menu in the Pictures group.
If you choose ePS, you can also select other eBay features such as Picture Show, Super Size and Picture Pack from the EPS Picture Options dropdown menu in the Pictures group. 85
When you submit your item, Blackthorne sends your pictures to eBay along with your listing. You don't need to do anything else. Uploading Pictures to Picture Manager or Your Own Web Space Picture Manager and hosting on your own web space are very similar. Both provide you with space that allow you to upload images. Both must have a Picture Host account set up to use, and both will have images uploaded the same way. The main difference is in the setup. When using Picture Manager, you simply have to identify the eBay Userid that is subscribed to Picture Manager. When hosting your own images, you will need to set up your FTP settings with information provided by your web space provider. To use your own web host or Picture Manager for any given listing, simply select the Picture Host account you want to use in the Picture Host dropdown on the Item Details Pane. If you host pictures on your own web space or use Picture Manager, then you need to make sure your images have been uploaded to your web space before your listing starts. By default, Blackthorne will upload any missing pictures for you, or you can do this manually if you prefer. You don't have to remember so much if you let Blackthorne upload the images when it submits the item, but the time it takes to check for missing pictures and then upload them could greatly increase the time it will take to submit items. If you want your items to be submitted quickly, then you may want to upload your pictures manually in advance. Deleting images from Picture Manager is not currently supported by the eBay API Interface. You will need to delete images from Picture Manager on eBay. Uploading Pictures Manually To upload pictures manually: 1. From the Create Items Grid, select the item(s) to have the pictures uploaded. (How to select multiple items.) 2. Select Items Actions - Manually Upload Pictures from the menu or click the Upload Pictures Action Button. 3. You can view the status of pictures as they are uploaded in the status bar. If you use your own FTP tool to upload your images, and you do not want eBay Blackthorne to do anything with your images, you can set it to not upload your pictures during submission from the Advanced tab of your Picture Host account setup.
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Format and Pricing
The Format and Pricing group contains various fields that eBay requires for your listing.
Enter the Listing Format, Duration, Starting Price, Reserve Price, Buy It Now Price, Fixed Price, whether the listing is Private or allows Best Offer, Quantity and the Lot Size. If the Listing Format is Auction, the Buy It Now Price is listed. If the Listing Format is Fixed Price or Store, the Fixed Price displays instead of the Buy It Now Price. These prices are saved separately. If however, one of the prices is set to 0, it will default to the other price. For example, if you enter a Buy It Now Price of $9.99 and have never entered a Fixed Price, then if you change the Listing Format of the listing to Store, the Fixed Price will be $9.99 also. If you then change the Fixed Price to $14.99, and switch the Listing Format back to Auction, the Buy It Now price will still be $9.99. The Quantity is the number of items you can sell to different bidders. If the quantity is greater than 1, the auction is a Dutch Auction. Lot size is the number of items that are all being sold together to the same buyer. Joe purchased 10 identical pairs of wooden shoes at an auction. He listed all 10 in a single auction with a quantity of 10. Eight different people bid on and won 8 of the pairs of shoes. This is a Dutch Auction that used the Quantity field. Sarah bought a collection of 300 Mercury dimes, and wants to sell them all at once to a single bidder. She started an auction with a quantity of 1, and a lot size of 300. They were all won by the single high bidder. Marilyn bought out a video stores remaining stock when they went out of business. The video store had 11 sets of Apollo Mission DVD's. Each set had 6 DVD's in it. She listed a Dutch auction as "Apollo Mission DVD's" with a quantity of 11 and a lot size of 6. Each of the Dutch winners received 6 DVD's.
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Listing Upgrades
The Listing Upgrade group allows you to choose the upgrades you would like for your listing.
Upgrades make your listing more noticeable and incur additional fees at eBay. You can choose one of the Preset groups of listing upgrades, or use the Edit button to select custom upgrades for this listing. See "Creating Items Faster with Field Presets" for more information on using Field Presets. The Edit button displays the Edit Listing Upgrades window. Simply check any upgrades you would like to use for your listing. To set the Listing Upgrades for this item only, leave the radio button set to "Change this item only". If you want to modify a preset or create a new preset, please consult "Creating Items Faster with Field Presets" for more information.
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Payment
The Payment group allows you to choose the payment information you would like for your listing.
If any payment Presets are defined, you can choose one from the dropdown menu, or you can use the Edit button to bring up the Edit Payment form. See "Creating Items Faster with Field Presets" for more information on creating and using Field Presets. The Edit button opens the Edit Payment Preset window.
Navigate the form using the various tabs to enter your Payment Methods, Payment Instructions, whether you accept Returns, whether you offer any Finance Offers, and if you accept eBay Motors Deposits items.
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Shipping
The Shipping group allows you to choose the shipping charges and weights.
Shipping Preset
If any shipping presets are defined, you can choose one from the dropdown menu, or you can use the Edit button to bring up the Edit Shipping form. See "Creating Items Faster with Field Presets" for more information on using Field Presets. The Edit button next to the Shipping dropdown displays the Edit Shipping Preset window.
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You can choose from three different types of shipping for your listing. Calculated, Flat, or Self Managed. Calculated Rate Shipping
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When using calculated shipping, tell eBay what shipping services you provide for domestic and/or international shipments. Also specify any packaging and handling fees you may charge and the Package Size. When your auction is complete, eBay will use this information along with the buyer's location to automatically calculate the shipping costs. Changing the Package Size will change the list of available Shipping Services. If you have previously chosen a Shipping Service that isn't valid for the Package Size you choose, you will have to re-enter the Shipping Service. You can also specify your Domestic Handling Time and whether or not you offer Get it Fast. Get it Fast is an eBay option that lets your users know that you ship quickly. In order to use get it fast, you must offer a domestic expedited shipping service and a 1 day handling time. It also only applies to Fixed Price and Buy it Now auctions. If you have checked the "Apply a shipping discount when buyer purchases multiple items" box, then eBay will use your shipping discount settings in My eBay to calculate the discount. Entering international shipping is similar to domestic shipping except you must also specify what destinations you ship to for each shipping service.
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Flat Rate Shipping
When using Flat Rate shipping, specify a specific rate that you charge for up to 3 shipping services. Also specify the shipping cost for each additional item purchased. When your auction is complete, eBay will use this information to calculate the shipping costs for the buyer.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide You can also specify a Package Size. Package Size is optional with Flat Rate shipping. It is not sent to eBay and is only used if you are used to send to 3rd party postage programs. Changing the Package Size will change the list of available Shipping Services. If you have previously chosen a Shipping Service that isn't valid for the Package Size you choose, you will have to re-enter the Shipping Service. You can also specify your Domestic Handling Time and whether or not you offer Get it Fast. Get it Fast is an eBay option that lets your users know that you ship quickly. In order to use get it fast, you must offer a domestic expedited shipping service and a 1 day handling time. It also only applies to Fixed Price and Buy it Now auctions. Self-Managed Shipping With Self-Managed shipping, the input fields look just like Flat Rate Shipping, except no information is sent to eBay. The seller will include any shipping information in the listings itself. It is left to the seller and the buyer to decide upon the shipping amount at the end of the auction. By entering shipping information in this Preset, you can later use variables in your Ad Templates to have the shipping charges automatically included in your listings. Please see "Using Ad Templates" for more information.
Weight and Dimensions
You can also enter the weight and dimensions of your item.
When using calculated shipping, eBay will use the supplied weights and dimensions to calculate the shipping weight. If you are using any shipping type, the weight and dimensions are not used, they are merely for your reference when shipping later.
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Shipping To/From
The Shipping group also allows you to choose the destinations and origin.
Ship to/from is a separate group with its own customizable presets. If you have defined any Ship to/from Presets , you can choose one from the dropdown menu.
Clicking the Edit button next to the Ship to/from dropdown menu allows you to provide your location(s) and the locations you ship to.
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Enter the locations that you ship to, and the Ship from Location. The Location field is the field that shows on your eBay listing as the location.
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Creating Items Faster with Field Presets
Entering information about your item can be one of the most time consuming tasks faced by eBay sellers. By using field presets, you can make the job of entering items much faster. When you list a lot of items, many of your settings tend to be the same. For instance, the types of payments you receive are often the same no matter what type of item you are listing. While some settings are almost always the same, some other settings may change depending upon the type of item you are listing. You may have several different common settings you use. Your baseball cards may offer one set of shipping options, while your more valuable signed photographs have another set of shipping options. Field presets allow you to store these common settings for frequent use. There are field presets for Listing Upgrades, Payment, Shipping Charges and Shipping Locations. We will use Listing Upgrades as an example, but all field presets work the same.
You can select existing presets, use a custom preset, create new presets, modify existing presets, or manage all your presets.
Selecting Existing Field Presets
The Listing Upgrades, Payment, and Shipping groups have dropdown menus for selecting a field preset. To use an existing preset, simply choose one from the dropdown menu. All the values saved in that preset will be sent to eBay when the item is submitted.
Creating a New Field Preset
If you have a set of input values that you enter frequently, you should create a field preset so they are easily selectable. To create a field preset: 1. Click the "Edit" button next to the preset dropdown. 2. When the preset values appear, set your desired values. 3. Ensure the "Create New ... Preset" option is selected in the lower left of the preset window.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 4. Click "OK" to exit. You will be asked for a name. Specify a name that helps you remember what you will use that preset for. 5. Click "OK", and your new preset will be created and available to be used on any future item.
Karen doesn't usually use any listing upgrades, but on expensive glassware, she likes to use Gallery and Bold. She uses the predefined None Listing Upgrade preset for everything but the expensive glassware. She then created a Listing Upgrade field preset called "Expensive Glassware" with Bold and Gallery turned on. Whenever she lists expensive glassware, she quickly chooses this preset.
Customizing a Preset
If you have a preset that is close to the settings you want, but isn't exactly what you want AND you will only be using this setting once, so there is no need to save it, you can use a custom preset. A custom preset is simply a set of preset values that you won't be saving for future use. To specify a custom preset: 1. Select an existing preset. 2. Click the "Edit" button next to the preset. 3. When the preset values appear, make any desired changes. 4. Ensure the "Change this item only" option is selected in the lower left of the preset window. 5. Click "OK" to exit. Your preset dropdown will say <Custom> and the summary of your selections will appear under the dropdown.
James normally lists all of his paper ephemera (postcards, baseball cards, etc.) with Bold and Border. He has a signed baseball card that he would like to also add Highlight to, but he doesn't expect to do this very often. He selected his Paper Ephemera listing upgrade, edited it and added Highlight. He specified that he would Change this item only, and exited. This one listing will use Bold, Border and Highlight when listed.
Modifying an Existing Field Preset
If desired, you can change an existing Field Preset at any time.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Changing a Field Preset will in effect change all items that use the Field Preset. You should be sure this is what you want to do before changing a Field Preset. If you really only want to modify it for the current item, then you should simply use a custom preset. To modify an existing preset: 1. Select the preset to be modified. 2. Click the "Edit" button next to the preset. 3. When the preset values appear, make any desired changes. 4. Ensure the "Update ... Preset" option is selected in the lower left of the preset window.
5. Click "OK" to exit. You will be required to confirm that you are replacing the existing preset. Click "OK" again and your preset will be updated. Harold accepts Visa and Mastercard, which is what his "My Payments" Payment preset is set up for. He now will also accept Discover. He wants this to affect all future items he lists. He does this by updating his "My Payments" preset to also accept Discover. Any item that uses this preset will now accept Discover also.
Managing Field Presets
Editing and adding Field Presets as well as duplicating, deleting and renaming them can also be done from the Presets feature of the Options panel. To open the Presets Options, select Tools|Options|Presets.
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Select the preset type that you would like to work with from tree on the left. Then select the preset from the preset list and choose New..., Duplicate..., Delete..., Edit..., or Rename... to perform the desired action. If you delete a preset, all records that used that preset will be set to <Custom>, and the values from the preset will be maintained. It won't harm your data to delete a preset.
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Creating Items Faster with Item Templates
As discussed before, entering information about your item can be one of the most time consuming tasks faced by eBay sellers. Item Templates are another way you can reduce time when creating items. Field Presets allow you to group several item record fields together to save repetitive entry. Item Templates carry that concept one level higher and allow you to store an entire item record to be used for creating item records.
Creating and Managing Item Templates
To use Item Templates, create a separate template for the different types of items you sell. Generally, you only need to create different Item Templates if a significant number of fields are different from other templates. Item Templates are just a special type of item record. They look just like an item record, but they are only visible in the Item Templates folder. The Title field of any Item Template that is created will also show up in the list of templates you can use to create a new item record from an Item Template. Thomas sells mugs and glow in the dark lightsticks. Mugs are sold one at a time at auction, and lightsticks are sold by bulk in his eBay Store. In addition, the shipping costs and methods are different for mugs vs. lightsticks. Thomas created two Item Templates. One called "Mug" and one called "Lightstick". The "Mug" template has a listing format of "auction", a starting price of $3.99 and the shipping costs for a mug entered in the Shipping Preset. The "Lightstick" template has the listing type set to "store", the quantity set to 10, and the starting price set to $99. He also sets the lightstick shipping costs in the Shipping Preset. Now, whenever Thomas wants to create a new item record for a mug, he clicks the New Item dropdown menu and selects "Mug". He would select "Lightstick" to create a new lightstick item. To create an Item Template: 1. From the Create Items Grid, you simply select an existing item record that you want to use as a starting point. 2. Right-click the item record and select Save as Item Template. The new item template is created. 3. If you want to view or modify the template, you can find it by selecting the Item Templates folder in the Views Sidebar.
Customizing the <Untitled> Item
By default, eBay Blackthorne ships with an Item Template called "<Untitled>" . You can use this whenever you want to create a new item record that has no default values filled in yet. This is probably only useful for the first item record you create. No matter what type of item you are going to create, there will most likely be some fields that will always be the same for you. For instance, you may only ship within the US, or you always accept PayPal, etc. It makes sense for you to modify the "<Untitled>" template
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide to include any values that are always the same for you. When you come across an item in the future that you don't have an Item Template for you can at least use your modified "<Untitled>" template to get some of the information filled in. To customize the Untitled template: 1. From the Create Items mode, select the Item Templates folder in the Views Sidebar. 2. Your Item Templates will appear in the Grid. Select the <Untitled> template. It will then appear in the Details Pane. If the Details Pane is hidden, then doubleclick the <Untitled> template row to open the template in the full screen editor. 3. Modify any settings that are the same for all your items. 4. If using the full screen editor, click Ok to exit. Your template is now updated and ready to be used. You can even change the value in the Title field if you want to rename <Untitled> to something else like "My Blank Item".
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Previewing the Item Description Before submitting an item, you may wish to preview the description to make sure the text is correct, your images are uploaded, and that you have used the proper Theme and Ad Template.
To preview item descriptions:
1. From the Create Items Grid, select the item(s) to preview. 2. Select Items Actions - Preview Listing from the menu or click the Preview Action Button. The Preview Listing window will appear:
3. Use the Navigation Arrows in the upper right corner to move between all selected items. 4. If you have uploaded your pictures and want to ensure that they will display correctly, then choose "Preview using images from the Internet" in the lower left. If you haven't uploaded your images yet, or you want the previews to load faster than choose "Preview using images from the Hard Drive". 5. Click Close when finished.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Checking an Item for Fees and Errors Once your items have been created, you are ready to submit them. You can either submit them immediately, or you can check them for any errors and get an idea of what the fees will be first.
To check an item for fees and errors:
1. From the Create Items Grid, select the item(s) to be checked. 2. Select Items Actions - Preview and Check Errors from the menu. The Preview and Check for Errors and Fees window will appear.
3. When it is first loaded, the window will send your items to eBay to have them checked for any errors and to retrieve the fees. It will take a little while to check all your listings, and you will see the grid at the top fill in with information as each item is checked. When complete you will see a grid that contains a row for each item record you are checking. The ItemID and the Title identify each item. If there were any errors in any of the items, they will be indicated by an error icon in the Status column. The description of the error will appear in the Errors column. If there were no errors, then the Total Fees column will contain the fees for each listing and will be totalled at the bottom of the grid. A
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide breakdown of each fee is also on each row, and can be viewed by scrolling the column to the right. 4. You can now preview and check each item by clicking on its row or by using the navigation arrows in the upper right corner of the window. If you have uploaded your pictures and want to ensure that they will display correctly, then choose "Preview using images from the Internet" in the lower left. If you haven't uploaded your images yet, or you want the previews to load faster than choose "Preview using images from the Hard Drive". 5. If any of your items have errors, then you can fix the error without having to exit the preview. Simply click the icon, and the item will appear in a popup window.
6. The Error Description will appear at the top to assist you in fixing the error. In this case, the user forgot to add a Starting Price. The error is fixed by adding the Starting Price and clicking OK. When exiting, the item will be sent to eBay once again, and you will be returned to the Preview and Check for Errors and Fees window. If your fix was successful, then the status icon will change and you will see the fees for the listing. If another error exists, then you may need to repeat the process. 7. Continue through all items until all errors have been fixed. If you'd like, you can submit your items after you preview each one using the Submit button, or you can wait until you have previewed all the items and use the Submit All button to submit them all at the same time. If you want to save the changes you made, but do not want to submit the items at this time, then click the Close button.
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Submitting an Item After you've entered all the data for your item, you are finally ready to submit it to eBay. Submitting an item is a simple process. In fact, once the item record is created, you can return to it and submit another listing from it in just a few seconds. When you submit a listing you can either submit it to start running immediately, or you can schedule it to run later. Scheduled listings have been built into the eBay process for a while now. You can submit an item to eBay and tell eBay when you want it to start. This method has a small fee, but it is very reliable and worry-free. Another advantage to scheduling submissions is that you can specify an interval between listings. This is useful if you have a lot of repeat buyers. Each time an item is submitted, a listing record is created in the Monitor Listings mode. You can track the progress of your listings from the Monitor Listings mode. For more information on what can to do while your listing is running, start with the topic "Monitoring Listings". Abigail sells baseball cards. Every Monday, she submits 200 auctions. She tends to have a lot of repeat buyers, and her buyers like to watch her listings as they close and bid at the last second (in other words, they like to snipe). When she submits her listings, she schedules them. She sets them to start at 7:00PM and places a one minute interval between them. At 7:00PM, eBaystarts submitting her items 1 minute apart and is finished 3 hours and 20 minutes later.
To submit items:
1. From the Create Items Grid, select the item(s) to be submitted. They will be submitted in the same order they are sorted in the grid. 2. Select Items Actions|Submit Listing from the menu or click the Submit Action Button. The Submit Listings window will appear.
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3. Select the number of copies of each item you would like submitted. If you submit multiple copies and combine that with a scheduled interval, you can have eBay Blackthorne submit an item multiple times in the future. For instance, to submit a T-Shirt once a day for the next week, you submit it with 7 copies and an interval of 1 day. 4. Next choose the submission method as described above. If you chose the scheduled method, then set a Start time and an Interval between listings. You can manually type a date and time, or you can use the dropdown menu and time selector to set the date and time. You can also move your cursor to any area of the Start time and Interval input boxes and use the arrows to change the values. The interval allows you to space your listings out up to 99 days 23 hours and 59 minutes apart. Set the Listings per interval to the number of listings that should be submitted for each interval. On Fridays, Abigail receives new shipments of baseball cards. She receives about 1000 unique cards. She would like all of them listed between 6:00PM and 8:00PM Friday night. At one minute apiece, that would take 1000 minutes or about 16 hours and 40 minutes. If she sets the start time to 6:00PM, the interval to 1 minute, and the listings per interval to 10, it will list 10 cards per minute and only take her about 100 minutes (1 hour and 40 minutes) to list. 5. Click OK to submit your listings. A status window will inform you about the progress of your submissions. If you had errors, a message box will appear telling you how many submissions failed. Proceed to Fixing and Resubmitting Items with Submission Errors to learn how to fix them.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Fixing and Resubmitting Items with Submission Errors
When you attempt to Submit items, or perform a Preview and Check for Errors on an item that has incomplete or incorrect information, then the listing may fail. If the listing fails, then the item will have an error description associated with it. eBay Blackthorne makes it easy to find the items that failed, fix them and then resubmit them.
To fix and resubmit items with submission errors:
1. First, locate the items that you would like to resubmit. If you know where they are, you can select them from the Items grid. You can also load the Submission failed filter under the New and Unlisted filter to see all items that have failed submission. 2. As you select each item, the description of the error will appear in a yellow box at the top of the Item Details pane. Make the appropriate changes to the item and then submit the item again.
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Organizing Items
Organizing Items If you list hundreds of items on eBay, then you know how important it is to keep track of those items and to be able to quickly find an item again when you need it. Blackthorne understands how important it is to keep your items organized, so we provide many different methods to allow you to organize your information. You can create a folder structure to organize your items much like you would organize files on your computer. In addition to folders , eBay Blackthorne provides filters to show you items that match a predetermined criteria such as items that are low on inventory. Finally, if all else fails, we offer a sophisticated Search tool to help you locate your items.
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Using Folders to Organize Your Items You can use folders to organize your items in much the same way that Windows Folders can be used to organize files. Folders can contain items, and they can also contain other folders (sub-folders). If organized and named with a little care, the folder structure can exactly mirror the way that your items are organized. If you are already familiar with Windows Folders, you should be quite at home here. You should still read this section because there are a few significant differences. Please also note that Blackthorne does not use actual Windows Folders to organize items - all items are kept in a single, large database file. Folders are shown at the top of the sidebar on the Create Items mode. Each folder can contain items and/or other folders. All folders display a count of the items in the folder in parenthesis after the folder name. The folder count will include all items in the folder plus all items in all subfolders. In the example below, the Media folder count is 20 because the two subfolders under Media each contain 10 items. Ultimately, at the top of the tree is the All Items folder which contains everything. Folders work a lot like eBay Categories, helping you drill down to find an item based on how they are hierarchically stored. There is a special folder called Item Templates. Item Templates does not contain actual item records, but instead contains templates to be used to create item records easily. See Creating Items Faster with Item Templates for more information.
The All Items Folder
The All Items folder can be thought of as the root of the folder tree. All other folders are sub-folders of it. It has several unique characteristics: ! It can not be deleted. ! It can not be renamed. ! Items cannot be explicitly moved into it. ! When you delete a folder that contains items, the items themselves are not deleted but are instead moved to the All Items folder. There are many features that help you manage your folders. You can view the contents of a folder, insert items into a folder, move items between folders, create new folders, delete existing folders, rename folders and move folders.
Viewing the Contents of a Folder
To view the contents of a folder, click once on the name or the folder icon. All items in the folder are displayed in the Items grid. The number in parentheses to the right of the folder name is the number of items contained in the folder and all subfolders. This allows you to view information in a hierarchical grouping. For instance, you may have a
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide folder called Jewelry that has 3 subfolders called Watches, Pins and Rings. You can see all your Watches, Pins and Rings individually, or you can click Jewelry to see all of your jewelry (watches, pins and rings) together. If the folder being viewed has a "+" sign to its left, it contains hidden sub-folders. To display them, click once on the "+" sign to open the folder and display the sub-folders. A click on the "-" sign will close the folder.
Inserting New Items in Folders
When a new item is created, it is automatically inserted into the current folder. If the current view is a List or a Filter, then the new item will be created in the All Items folder. When an item is duplicated, the copy is inserted into the same folder as the original item.
Moving Items Between Folders
To move items to a folder, select the items to be moved and drag them over the name of the folder they are to be moved to. When you release the mouse, the items will be moved into the folder and the folder counts should change accordingly.
Creating Folders
To create a new folder, simply right-click the folder you want to be the parent of the new folder and select Create New Folder. A new folder will be created as a child of the selected folder. It will be called My Folder[X] where X is a unique number. You can then rename the folder to anything you'd like.
Deleting Folders
To delete a folder, right-click the folder and select Delete Folder. All child folders of the folder will also be deleted. A popup will ask you what you want to do with the items in the folder and its subfolders. You can delete them also or move them to the All Items folder.
Renaming Folders
To rename a folder, right-click on the folder and select Rename Folder. The name will change into an editable format allowing you to make the desired changes.
Moving Folders
To move a folder, you can simply drag and drop it to the new location. When moving between folders that are open, a horizontal bar between folders will indicate where the folder is being moved to. To move a folder into another folder, place the cursor directly over the folder until no horizontal bar is showing. Folders, Lists and Filters are all considered Views. Views can be customized, allowing you to choose which columns are showing, or whether a Total row
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide should appear at the top. See Customize View for more information. Back to Top
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Using Lists to Organize Your Items If folders are best thought of as a way to group related items together, lists are perhaps best thought of as a way to group otherwise unrelated items together because of a single characteristic that they have in common. Lists can be found in the sidebar on the left side in Create Items mode directly under folders.
Items reside in folders, and are referenced in lists. You would use folders to organize and catalog your individual items, and you would use lists to group them together for any other purpose. A typical use of a list would be to make a record of all the items that are going to be submitted on a particular day. The number to the right of the list name is the count of items in the list. Items can exist in more than one list. Cassandra sells jewelry. She has created a folder structure to help her organize her jewelry. She has a Jewelry folder, and under it she has a Watches folder, a Pins/Brooches folder and a Rings folder. In the Pins/Brooches folder she has a Butterfly Pin. Cassandra finds that jewelry sells best when it is listed on Sundays, so she created a list called Sunday. She places the Butterfly Pin and other jewelry in this list. Each Sunday, she clicks on the Sunday list to display all the items in the list. She then uses Ctrl-A to select all the items in the list and submits them. Cassandra also wants to be prepared for free listing days when they occur so she created a list called Free Listing Day. She adds the Butterfly Pin and any other items that she always has on hand to the the Free Listing Day list. The Butterfly Pin is now in two different lists, but still resides in the Pins/Brooches folder. There are many features that help you manage lists. You can view a list, create a new list, add items to a list, remove items from a list, duplicate a list, delete a list, rename a list or move a list.
Viewing a List
To view a list, click on the list name to select it. The items in the list will display in the main grid. The main grid title will change to the name of the list. 115

Creating a List
Right-click on Item Lists to bring up the List Actions Menu. Select Create New List.
An empty list is created and given the name "My List[n]". You can rename it to anything you'd like.
Adding Items to a List
Select the items in the grid pane and then drag and drop them onto the list name. The counter to the right of the list name will increment to confirm insertion. These items will still reside in their folder and will still be referenced in any other lists that they were previously a part of.
Removing Items from a List
To remove items from a list, first ensure that the list is displayed in the grid by clicking the list name in the sidebar. Once the contents of the list are shown, you can select any items you want removed from the list, then right-click and choose Remove from List.
Do not select the items in the list and press "Delete" - that will bring up the Delete Item confirmation dialog box, which is not the same as removing items from a list.
Duplicating a List
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide To duplicate a list, right click the list name and select Duplicate List. The new list will have the same name as the original list followed by [X], where X is an incrementing number. The new list will contain all the same items as the original list.
Deleting a List
To delete a list, right click the list name and select Delete List. The list itself will be deleted, but all items in the list still reside in their original folder and are still referenced by any other list they are included in.
Renaming a List
To rename a list, right click the list name and select Rename List. The list name will change into an editable format.
Moving a List
To move a list, click on the list and drag it to within the Item Lists section of the sidebar. You cannot move a list outside of the Item Lists section. You also cannot have nested lists.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Using Filters to Organize Your Items Another useful way to view your items is by using Filters. Filters can be thought of as smart lists. Instead of manually adding items to a filter, you can simply specify some criteria that identifies items you want in a list. For example, you can create a filter of all items that have the word "ring" in the title. Whenever you view the "ring" filter, a list of current items that match your criteria will be displayed in the grid. As you add or delete items with "ring" in the title, your filter contents will dynamically change. That's what makes them smart, the ability to continually update their contents based on the criteria you specified. Because filters create their contents based on a predefined set of criteria, you cannot manually add or remove items from a filter. Filters and Folders are located in the Items Views Pane. You may have to scroll down in order to see the list of Filters.
eBay Blackthorne ships with many different filters. Some of the filters are for reporting purposes and some are for tracking statuses of Items, Listings and Sales. The filters that are for status tracking are special for several reasons. First, they always appear at the top of the list of filters. Second, they are organized into status families. Status families are hierarchical groupings of statuses. For instance, the status family New and Unlisted includes all items in the In Process and Entry Completed statuses since the items you are current working on (In Process) and the ones you've completed (Entry Completed) are both New and Unlisted. This hierarchical grouping helps you view records at different levels of status. With eBay Blackthorne, you can view filters, delete filters, rename filters, move filters, edit filters, and hide and show filters.
Viewing a Filter
To view a filter, click on the filter name to select it. The items in the filter will display in the main grid. The main grid title will change to the name of the filter.
Deleting a Filter
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide To delete a filter, right click the filter name and select Delete Filter. The filter itself will be deleted, but all records in the filter still reside in their original folder and are still referenced by any other filter they are included in. You cannot delete the filters that come shipped with eBay Blackthorne.
Renaming a Filter
To rename a filter, right-click the filter name and select Rename Filter. The filter name will change into an editable format. You cannot rename the filters that come shipped with eBay Blackthorne.
Moving a Filter
To move a filter, click on the filter and drag it to within the Filters section of the sidebar. You cannot move a filter outside of the Filters section.
Editing a Filter
To edit a filter, right-click the filter and select Edit Filter. Since editing a filter is the same thing as modifying a view, the Customize View window will open to the Rows tab. You can make any condition changes, column layouts changes or advanced option changes you would like. See Customizing the View for more information. You cannot edit the row criteria in the filters that come shipped with eBay Blackthorne, but you can modify the column layouts and advanced options.
Hiding and Showing Filters
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide The filters that are shipped with eBay Blackthorne try to accommodate many different users. You may find that there are some filters that we provide that you do not use. To make your program less cluttered, you can hide any filters that you do not use. To hide or show filters, right-click any filter and select Hide/Show Filters. The Hide/Show Filters window will open.
Leave a check next to any filter you want shown and uncheck any filter you want hidden. Click OK when you are finished.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Searching for a Record Even though folders and filters help you organize your information, sometimes a search can help you find a particular record faster. eBay Blackthorne provides a search tool for each of the major modes. You can find it in the sidebar, and it works virtually the same in all major modes.
To perform a search:
1. Select the field you want to search on from the first input box. The most common fields are listed near the top of the dropdown and all other fields are listed in alphabetical order under them. The list of fields will change depending upon the mode you are in. If you have a text string that you want to search on, but aren't sure what field it may be in, you can choose Any Text Field. 2. In the second dropdown, choose your comparison operator. The comparison operator values will change based on the data type of the field chosen in the first dropdown. 3. Enter the value you want to search for in the last box. Depending upon the data type of the field the last entry may be a checkbox, a numeric editing field or a text editing field. If you are searching for a text string, you do not need to add quotes around it. 4. Finally, click the Go button to perform the search. All records that match your search will appear in the grid, and the grid title will change to identify the search.
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When you perform a search, a special filter called Search Results is created. You can use this filter to return to your latest search results at any time.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Archiving Items Once you have sold the last copy of an item you have, and you have been paid for it, you no longer need immediate access to the item. By archiving the item, you can make it easier to find your active items because there will be fewer items to sift through. Archiving items also has the added advantage of making the program perform better because there is less data loaded into memory. Archived items remain in your database, they are simply flagged as inactive so they are not kept in memory. You can always get to your archived items to reference them or even restore them. You can even modify your folders and filters to hide or show archived records, though you will see slower performance when showing archived records. To archive, select all the items that you would like archived and select File|Archive Selected Items from the main menu. You can also right-click on the grid and select Archive Selected Items from the context menu. Since items can have listing records associated to them, and listing records have sales records associated to them, archiving items will also archive all the associated listings and sales records. If they were not archived then you could have listing and sales records in memory that had no corresponding item record. Likewise, archiving listings will archive the associated sales. Because the inventory counts rely on the listings and sales records to exist, you cannot archive sales records. You should archive the listing record instead which will also archive all the sales for that listing and keep the inventory counts straight.
Restoring Archived Items
To restore archived items, select the Archived Items filter to display all the archived items. You can also select any other view that has been customized to show archived items. Archived items will be identifed by the archive icon ( ) in the Archived column of the grid. Then select all the items that you would like restored choose File|Restore Selected Items from the main menu. You can also right-click the grid and select Restore Selected Items from the context menu.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Printing Items

Printing Items
Although much of your work can be done directly within eB, sometimes it becomes necessary to print information about your items to help with other tasks. Any view that is displayed in any grid can be printed to your printer. You can setup your printer to choose the paper size and orientation beforehand. If you'd like, you can also print a detailed sheet for each item.
Print Grid Setup
Before printing the grid, you can set it up how it will print. Any settings you specify will stay set until you make changes. To setup the way your grid prints: 1. From the main menu, select File|Print Grid Setup... to display the Print Grid Setup window.
2. Select the Printer that you will be printing to using the Printer... button. 3. In the Paper group box, select the Size of your paper and the Source. 4. Select the Orientation to use for printing. The sample page at the top will change to reflect your setting. 124
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 5. Specify the Margins. The sample page at the top will change to reflect your settings. 6. Click OK when finished.
Printing the Item Grid
Any grid can be printed. The printed grid will look just like the grid on the screen. To save paper, you should adjust the column widths and not include any more columns than necessary. To print the grid: 1. From the main menu, select File|Print Grid... to load the Print preview window.
2. From the Print preview window, you can print the grid display multiple pages
, zoom in
, go to a specific page .
, or close without printing
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 3. When you click the Print button, it will be printed to the printer specified on the Print Grid Setup window. Every month or so, James likes to double check his inventory numbers with his actual inventory. He first loads the Inventory Items filter on the Create Items mode. This shows him all the items he tracks inventory for. A long time ago, he created a special column set called "Printing Inventory " for printing his inventory. It includes just the title, part number and the quantity on hand fields. His Inventory Items filter is set to use the Printing Inventory column set. By combining a filter with a custom column set, James has created his own report that he can print using File|Print Grid...
Printing Item Details
This feature is not supported in the Basic version.
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Monitoring Listings
Monitoring Listings Overview
Once your item has been submitted to eBay, it will now be tracked as a Listing. Your Listings will be displayed on the Monitor Listings mode. The listing record is created when you submit an item, and it will exist until you delete or archive it. During its lifespan, a listing will be running, and then at some point be over. It may have ended with a sale or not. If it did not sell because the reserve price was not met, or if it didn't get any bids, you can relist it on eBay which qualifies you to get the listing fees back if the item sells the second time. If it does sell, a sale record and a buyer record are created and the listing record becomes a permanent record of the listing on eBay. All of the steps in the lifespan of a listing are identified by statuses. A status is assigned to a listing depending upon where it is in this overall process and it helps you keep track of what is selling, what sold, and what is eligible to be relisted. You can easily see all the listings in a particular status from the Filters Tree in the Views sidebar.
Clicking on any status in the Views sidebar will load all listings with that status into the Listings grid. For example, to see all listings that are running for the first time (not a relist) click the First Run filter as shown above. The Relisted filter would show all running listings that have been relisted, and the Second Chance Offered filter shows all running listings that are second chance offers. Statuses are grouped into status families. A status family is shown by the hierarchical structure in the Views sidebar. In the example above, the First Run, Relisted and Second Chance Offered statuses are in the Running status family. A running listing can be either a listing that is being run for the first time, a relist or a second chance offer. With status 127
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide families, you can view all the running listings no matter what type they are, or you can view the types of running listings separately.
The Lifespan of a Listing

The following diagram shows all the details of a listings lifespan. In this diagram, a listing record is identified by a yellow round cornered rectangle. Statuses are identified by light purple boxes and status families are the darker purple boxes that surround them. Actions and events are represented by pink ovals.
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Let's walk through this process together. Listings are first submitted from the Create Items mode. When submitting an item, it can be scheduled or started immediately. If it is started immediately, it is placed in the First Run status of the Running status family. First run indicates that it is not a relisting of a failed auction. If the listing is scheduled, it will be placed in the On eBay status of the Scheduled status family. Basic users cannot schedule using Blackthorne. See "Submitting an Item" for more information on the different types of scheduling. When the time for a scheduled listing occurs, the listing will be submitted, and the status of the listing will change to either First Run or Relisted depending upon whether it was a scheduled relisting or not. While your listing is running, you can view any of the filters in the Running family to monitor your listing information like who is bidding on it and what the bid has reached. In addition to viewing your listings, you may occasionally find that something has changed, and you need to modify your listings description. If your listing has received bids, you can add to your listings description. If it hasn't received any bids yet, then you can revise the description. If necessary, you can even end your listing early. Once your listing ends, a Sale record will be created. If the listing was successful, then a Buyer record will also be created for the buyer of the auction (if he/she doesn't already exist in your buyers database). If your listing was not sold, then an Unsold Sale record will be created. An Unsold Sale record records the fees associated with unsuccessful sales. This is used when generating profit and loss reports to ensure that all your costs are being tracked. The Unsold Sale record also helps you keep a history of how many times an item sells successfully which can be useful in deciding which items to continue selling. You will read more about tracking Sale records in the "Processing Sales and Shipping" topic. All successful listings are moved into one of the statuses in the Completed Sales status family depending upon whether it was a relisting, second chance offer, or neither. The status that an unsuccessful moves into is based on whether it was a relist or not. If it was a relist, then it is not eligible for relisting on eBay and it will move into the Relist Unsold status. If it was not a relist, then it is relistable and will be placed in the No Bids or Reserve Not Met status based on the reason it was not successful. Any listing in the Relistable status family can now be relisted again and will qualify for listing fee reimbursements if sold. When it is relisted, it moves into the Relisted status of the Running status family. At any time after a listing has ended, regardless of whether it sold or not, you can make a second chance offer to another bidder of your listing. Making a second chance offer in essence creates a new listing on eBay that only one person can bid on. In eBay Blackthorne, we create a new listing record for this listing and set it to the Second Chance Offered status.
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An additional status of Unsold in the Completed Sales status family is provided for you to identify listings that initially sold on eBay, but for some reason the transaction never concluded (i.e. you lost the item, the buyer backed out, etc.). When situations like this occur you can manually set the listing status to Unsold from the Listing Status dropdown on the grid. If a listing is no longer eligible to be relisted, but you want to submit another listing just like it, you have two choices. You can either return to the Create Items mode and submit another listing for the same item record, or you can choose to submit the listing to eBay again from the Monitor Listings mode.
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Viewing Listings
Viewing Listings The Monitor Listings mode contains a listing record for every listing you have ever created. This is great for historical recording and reporting purposes, but would be very hard to find information you are looking for without some way of choosing the listings you want to view. Fortunately, eBay Blackthorne provides many ways to choose which listings you are viewing.
Viewing Listings by Status
As illustrated in The_Lifespan_of_a_Listing, each listing is assigned a status. All of the steps in the lifespan of a listing are identified by statuses. You can easily see all the listings in a particular status from the Filters Tree in the Views sidebar.
Clicking on any status in the Views sidebar will load all listings with that status into the Listings grid. For example, to see all listings that are running for the first time (not a relist) click the First Run filter as shown above. The Relisted filter would show all running listings that have been relisted, and the Second Chance Offered filter shows all running listings that are second chance offers. Statuses are grouped into status families. A status family is shown by the hierarchical structure in the Views sidebar. In the example above, the First Run, Relisted and Second Chance Offered statuses are in the Running status family. A running listing can be either a listing that is being run for the first time, a relist or a second chance offer. With status families, you can view all the running listings no matter what type they are, or you can view the types of running listings separately.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide At the beginning of every day, Sharon has a ritual she likes to go through. First she likes to see what her current bids are, so in the Monitor Listings mode, she clicks on the Running status family in the sidebar. This shows her all her currently running listings where she can view all the current bids in the grid. Next, she wants to make sure that she has the right listings scheduled, so she clicks on the Scheduled status family and quickly verifies the listing records that are waiting to be listed. Finally, she wants to relist any listings that are relistable so she clicks on the Relistable status family, hits Ctrl-A to select all listings in the Relistable filter and then selects the Relist button from the Actions toolbar. In just a few minutes she is updated on what has happened overnight and has relisted her eligible listings.
Viewing Recent Bidding Activity
In addition to being able to view listings by their status, a special filter has been created to let you view all listings that have received bids today. It can be found under the My Listing Filters section of the Views sidebar.
Throughout the day, Sharon will also occasionally select the Listings that received bids today filter to keep track of her bids. She often clicks the column headers to sort them by their End Date and Current Price, Bid Count and the number of Watchers.
Viewing Listings by Format

Viewing Listings by Seller Account

Searching for Listings
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Like all other modes, you can perform a search from the Monitor Listings mode using the Search area of the Views sidebar. See the topic Searching for a Record for details on how to perform the search.
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Modifying Listings
Modifying Listings From time to time, it becomes necessary to modify some of your listings. You may want to add more information to your listing, correct an error, or cancel the listing altogether. If the listing was scheduled, you may even want to modify the time that it is supposed to start.
Revising a Listing
Making changes to an item's listing using is subject to a few restrictions, depending on whether any bids have been placed on the item and whether the change is being attempted within twelve hours of the end of the auction. A complete list of the restrictions can be found in the Listing Modification Rules. In general, you can make most changes if your item has not received any bids. If your item has received bids, or is near the end, there are more restrictions on the modifications you can make. The simplest way to approach it is to try to make the modifications. If they are not allowed, then an error will appear. If you still want to identify changes in your listing, then you can add to your listings description.
To revise a listing:
1. Select all the listing records you would like to revise from the Monitor Listings grid. 2. Select Listing Actions|Revise Listing or click the Revise button on the Actions toolbar. The Revise Listing window will appear.
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3. Make any modifications that you would like to the listings. The X of Y message in the upper right corner identifies the listing record that you are modifying. Use the navigation arrows next to it to navigate between the selected listings. You can view the listing on eBay by clicking the eBay ID link in the upper left corner. 4. After you have made your modifications, choose whether to "Apply changes only for this item", or "Apply changes to all future listings for this item" from the options in the lower left. If you choose "Apply changes only for this item", then only the listing record will be modified. The original item record that was used to create the listing will remain unchanged. If you choose "Apply changes to all future listings for this item", then both the listing and the original item record will be changed. All future listings created from the item will have the same modification. Howard listed a pair of tennis shoes for 7 days. Before his item received any bids, he decided to extend it to a 10 day auction since he was going to be out of town when the 7 day auction would have closed. He only wants to change this one listing and not all future listings of these tennis shoes, so he chooses "Apply changes only for this item". Later, Howard discovers that he spelled tennis wrong. He goes back to revise his listing, only this time he chooses 136
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide "Apply changes to all future listings for this item" because he wants it to be spelled correctly on all future listings. 5. Click Revise to send the changes to eBay for the listing that is currently displayed in the Revise Listing window. If you want to send all the changes at once, click Revise All. If you want to exit without saving any changes since the last time you clicked the Revise or Revise Listing button, then click Close.
Adding to a Listing Description
If you item has received bids, then the only way to modify your description is by adding to your description. When you add to your description, the original description remains in the listing and any text you add appears at the bottom of the listing. You cannot modify your listings after it has received bids because it really isn't fair to the bidder. Changing a description from "mint condition" to "nearly mint condition" could lead to a lot of problems.
To add to a listings description:
1. Select all the listing records you would like to add text to from the Monitor Listings grid. All selected listings will have the same message added. If you would like to add different messages to different listings, you must select them and add to your description one at a time. 2. Select Listings Actions|Add to Description from the menu. The Add to Item Description window will appear.
3. Enter the message that you would like to add and click OK. The message may include HTML if you desire. A status message will appear in the status bar to let you know if it was successful or not. Additional details will be added to the Activity Log if there was a problem.
Ending a Listing Early
You can also end your listing early if you need to after providing a reason for ending the listing early. If your listing has at least one valid bidder, then ending the listing early will 137
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide sell it to the highest bidder. If you do not want the item to sell, you must go to eBay first and cancel all bidders before ending the item.
To end a listing early:
1. Select all the listing records you would like to end early from the Monitor Listings grid. All selected listings will be ended for the same reason. If you would like to end listings for different reasons, you must select them and end them one at a time. 2. Select Listings Actions|End Listing Early from the menu. The End Listing Early window will appear.
3. Select the reason for ending the listing early and click OK. A status message will appear in the status bar to let you know if it was successful or not. Additional details will be added to the Activity Log if there was a problem. You can use End Listing Early to end "Good til Cancelled" store items also. Simply choose "The item is no longer available for sale" as the reason.
Rescheduling Listings

Bulk Changing Listings
You can also make changes to many listing records at once using Bulk Change Fields under Listings Actions on the main menu. To learn more, Making Bulk Changes. Any listings that are Scheduled or Running can be bulk changed. Any listings that are Relistable or Completed cannot be bulk changed. When Running listings are bulk changed, the changes will be made immediately in your running listings on eBay. It may take some time to perform all the changes on eBay, so please be patient. Since Relistable listings must maintain the information of the original listing, you cannot make bulk changes to a Relistable listing. There is a way to modify your relistable listings before you submit them again though. To make bulk changes before relisting a listing, you can simply use the Relist feature and schedule them with Blackthorne for 10
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide minutes in the future. You will then have relist records in the Scheduled by Blackthorne filter. You can then bulk change those records and let the scheduler submit them.
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Resubmitting Listings
Resubmitting Listings Although Create Items is the primary mode for submitting listings, it can often be convenient to resubmit a listing while you are in the Monitor Listings mode. There are several types of resubmissions that you may want to perform. If your listing ended without any bids or the reserve was not met, and it is within 90 days of closing, then you qualify for free relisting on eBay. This means you can list the item again, and you will not be charged the listing fees if the item sells the second time around. If your item sold, or it is past the 90 days, you may simply want to just submit another copy of the item. Finally, whether your item sold or not, you can make second chance offers to other bidders. For the purposes of our documentation, we will use the term relist only for those items that are being sent to eBay again and qualify for free relisting. We will use the terms resubmit or submit again to refer to any other means of sending a listing to eBay again.
Relisting
Any listing that ended without any bids or the reserve was not met, and is within 90 days of closing, qualifies for free relisting on eBay. If a relisting is sold, the listing fees on the relist are refunded.
To relist a listing:
1. Select all the listing records you would like to relist from the Monitor Listings grid. The Relistable filter will contain all listings that are relistable. You can easily select all relistable listings by clicking on the Relistable filter and selecting Ctrl-A. For more information on the Listing filters, see The_Lifespan_of_a_Listing. 2. Select Listing Actions|Relist Item... or click the Relist button on the Actions toolbar. The Relist Listing window will appear.
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3. Make any modifications that you would like to the listings before relisting. The X of Y message in the upper right corner identifies the listing record that you are modifying. Use the navigation arrows next to it to navigate between the selected listings. 4. Click Relist to send the changes to eBay for the listing that is currently displayed in the Relist Listing window. If you want to send all the changes at once, click Relist All. If you want to exit and save any changes that you have made without relisting now, click OK, and if you want to exit without saving any changes since the last time you clicked the Relist or Relist Listing button, then click Cancel.
Submitting to eBay Again
If your listing does not qualify for free relisting, but you want to submit it anyway use the Submit Again feature. Submitting a listing again will perform the same steps as submitting a listing from the Create Items mode, but it saves you time by not having to go to the Create Items mode.
To submit a listing to eBay again:
1. Select all the listing records you would like to submit again from the Monitor Listings grid. 2. Select Listing Actions|Submit to eBay Again... or click the Submit Again button on the Actions toolbar. The Submit Again window will appear.
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3. Make any modifications that you would like to the listings before submitting them again. The X of Y message in the upper right corner identifies the listing record that you are modifying. Use the navigation arrows next to it to navigate between the selected listings. 4. After you have made your modifications, choose whether to "Apply changes only for this item", or "Apply changes to all future listings for this item" from the options in the lower left. If you choose "Apply changes only for this item", then only the listing record will be modified. The original item record that was used to create the listing will remain unchanged. If you choose "Apply changes to all future listings for this item", then both the listing and the original item record will be changed. All future listings created from the item will have the same modification. 5. Click Submit Again to submit the listing that is currently displayed in the Submit Again window. If you want to submit all the listings at once, click Submit All. If you want to exit without saving any changes since the last time you clicked the Submit or Submit All Again button, then click Close. Submit Again will start another listing based on the values in the current listing. The original listing will remain as a historical record of the original listing. A new listing record will be created to allow you to track the new listing.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 6. If you clicked Submit or Submit Again, then the Submit window will appear. Fill out this window as you would when submitting listings from items. For more info see Submitting an Item.
Making Second Chance Offers
Regardless of whether your listing sold or not, if you have additional copies of an item, and the item had other bidders, you can make a second chance offer to those other bidders. A Second Chance Offer is simply an offer to your bidder to purchase another copy of your item at their highest bid. Making a Second Chance Offer to a bidder will start a new listing at eBay just for that bidder. No other bidders will be able to see the second chance offer. The Buy It Now Price will be set to the highest bid that bidder placed on your previous auction.
To submit a listing to eBay again:
1. Select the listing record that you would like to send a second chance offer to from the Monitor Listings grid. 2. Select Listing Actions|Send Second Chance Offer... or click the Second Chance button on the Actions toolbar. The Second Chance Offers window will appear.
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3. The grid in the Second Chance Offers window shows all the non-winning bidders and their highest bids. Select a bidder that you would like to send a second chance offer to. 4. Choose whether "The original buyer completed their purchase" or "The original buyer FAILED to complete their purchase". 5. Set the number of days that the second chance offer is valid for from the Duration dropdown. 6. If you would like a copy of the email sent to the bidder, check the Send me a copy of the Second Chance email box. 7. Click OK to send the offer, or Cancel to exit. You can continue to select bidders and click OK to submit multiple offers.
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Printing Listings
Printing Listings Although much of your work can be done directly within eB, sometimes it becomes necessary to print information about your listings to help with other tasks. Any view that is displayed in any grid can be printed to your printer. You can setup your printer to choose the paper size and orientation beforehand.
Print Grid Setup
Before printing the grid, you can set it up how it will print. Any settings you specify will stay set until you make changes.
To setup the way your grid prints:
1. From the main menu, select File|Print Grid Setup... to display the Print Grid Setup window.
2. Select the Printer that you will be printing to using the Printer... button. 3. In the Paper group box, select the Size of your paper and the Source. 4. Select the Orientation to use for printing. The sample page at the top will change to reflect your setting.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 5. Specify the Margins. The sample page at the top will change to reflect your settings. 6. Click OK when finished.
Printing the Listings Grid
Any grid can be printed. The printed grid will look just like the grid on the screen. To save paper, you should adjust the column widths and not include any more columns than necessary.
To print the grid:
1. From the main menu, select File|Print Grid... to load the Print preview window.
, zoom in
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 3. When you click the Print button, it will be printed to the printer specified on the Print Grid Setup window.
Printing Listing Details
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Viewing Related Pages on eBay

To help make you more efficient, many of the common eBay pages can be accessed directly from the Main menu under the eBay menu. Following is a list of those pages and what modes they are available in. eBay Page Listing Bid History Respond to Questions High Bidder/Buyer About Me High Bidder/Buyer Feedback Running Listings Pending Listings Counters Dispute Console Buyer/Bidder Mgmt Description Loads the eBay listing for the active record. Loads the bid history page for the active record. Loads the interface that allows you to respond to outstanding bidder questions. Loads the About Me page for the buyer of the active record. Modes Listing/Sales Listing/Sales All Listing/Sales/Buyer
Loads the Feedback page for the buyer of Listing/Sales/Buyer the active record. Loads the running listings for the seller of the active record. Loads the scheduled pending listings at eBay for the seller of the active record. Loads the counter page on My eBay. Loads the dispute console. Loads the buyer/bidder management page. Items/Listings/Sales Items/Listings/Sales All All All
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Responding to Questions
While your listing is running, buyers can submit questions to you through the eBay site. These questions can be managed and answered through the my eBay pages on eBay, but you are also notified of them in Blackthorne and can answer them without leaving the program. When you have questions waiting to be answered, you will see a message on the status bar of the main panel.
Your count of messages may not be the same as the count on eBay. They may differ for any of the following reasons. ! The Blackthorne count will only include messages for the seller chosen in the Seller dropdown. ! If All Sellers is chosen in the Seller dropdown, it will total the messages for all sellers. ! Messages for archived listings will not appear in the eBay Blackthorne count. ! Only messages for listings that are tracked in eBay Blackthorne will appear. ! Only messages for the last 7 days will appear in the Blackthorne count. To answer the questions, simply click the link or select eBay|Respond to Questions... from the main menu. The, and the Respond to Questions window will appear. Insert image here
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Processing Sales and Shipping

Processing Sales and Shipping Overview
In Create Items mode, you enter your inventory information and submit listings. In Monitor Listings mode, you track and manage those listings. Once a listing has ended, you will perform all post processing of the sale in the Finalize Sales mode. If the listing was successful, then the Servant will automatically create a Successful Sale record for the listing. It will also create a buyer record (if you don't have one already for the winning bidder) and link that buyer to the sale. If the sale was unsuccessful, then the Servant creates an Unsold Sale record. An Unsold Sale record sets the quantity sold to 0 and records all of the fees associated with the listing so all profit and loss reporting will remain accurate. During the lifespan of a sale, you will perform many operations on the sale. You will contact the buyer, record payments, pack and ship items, etc.. All of the steps in the lifespan of a listing are identified by statuses. A status is assigned to a sale based on where it is in the overall process and it helps you keep track of who you have to email, what items you need to pack and who hasn't paid you yet. You can easily see all the sales in a particular status from the Filters Tree in the Views sidebar.
Clicking on any status in the Views sidebar will load all sales with that status into the Sales grid. For example, to see all sales that have just been created, click the Ready for payment request filter as shown above. The Payment received filter would show all sales that you have been paid for but not yet shipped, the Payment Cleared folder shows payments that have been received and cleared, and the Shipped filter shows all sales that have just been shipped.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Statuses are grouped into status families. A status family is shown by the hierarchical structure in the Views sidebar. In the example above, the Payment Received, and Shipped statuses are in the Paid status family. Sales that have been paid may or may not have been shipped yet. With status families, you can view all the sales no matter what type they are, or you can view the types of sales separately.
The Lifespan of a Sale

The following diagram shows all the details of a sales lifespan. You have a lot of flexibility in managing your sales. This diagram is only one of many possible work processes. Whenever possible, alternative paths will be pointed out. In this diagram, a sale record is identified by a rose colored round cornered rectangle. Statuses are identified by light purple boxes and status families are the darker purple boxes that surround them. Actions and events are represented by pink ovals.
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Let's walk through this process together. Sales are initially created automatically when a listing ends. All newly created sales are added to the Ready for Payment Request status family. If you have a lot of repeat buyers, Pro users will probably want to combine your sales into orders. Combining orders is not supported in the Basic version. Next, you will send an email notification to the buyer. Emails can be customized to set the status of any sales records included in the email, and in this case, sending the First Notification to High Bidder sets the status of the sale to Payment Request Sent in the Awaiting Payment status family. If you specified all your shipping fees when you submitted the listing and you have requested eBay to notify your bidder when the auction is over, then sending the First Notification to High Bidder is optional. Instead, you would simply use Sales Actions|Update Sales Status to... to change the status of the selected sales to Payment Request Sent. Since you can highly customize your First Notification to High Bidder and sending the email will automatically set the status for you, we recommend you take advantage of the notification email in eBay Blackthorne. It really isn't any more work, and you can give your customers a personal touch. After sending your first notification and while you are waiting for a response, you can choose to send one or more follow up notifications. At any time while you are waiting for payment, you can choose to manually move set the status of a sale to Past Due. When you feel that you have given a buyer ample time to pay, but have not yet received payment, you can open a dispute. Eventually the buyer will pay, or you will move the sale into the Unpaid status of the Completed Sale family. Once a buyer has paid for an item, you will record the payment and set the status of the sale to Payment Received in the Paid status family. If at any time, the buyer paid using eBay Checkout and PayPal, the Servant will automatically record the payment, save the buyer address and set the sale status to Payment Received. By accepting PayPal payments, you can greatly reduce the amount of work involved with each sale. If a buyer goes immediately to PayPal to pay once the auction is over, your sale will bypass all other steps up to this point and appear in the Payment Received status. Once you have received payment, you can optionally send a Received Payment email. Next, you will ship your items. Once shipped you will record the sale as being shipped by changing the status yourself, or sending the Item Shipped email which will set the status for you. Once again, since it takes about the same amount of time to change the statuses as it does to send the emails,
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide we recommend you send the email. It can provide your buyer with an update on when it was shipped as well as including the tracking number if you have it. There are only a few things left to do after you have shipped the item. You will probably want to leave feedback, and delete any pictures that you have uploaded to your web space. Leaving feedback is a very flexible feature. In the diagram above, we show the seller waiting until feedback is received before leaving feedback, but the seller is free to leave feedback at any time. The same is true of deleting pictures. You can do it anytime you'd like, or go through once a year and manually delete them if you'd like. At any time in the future, you can easily submit another copy of the item to eBay. You can also look at various grid reports at any time.
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Viewing Sales
Viewing Sales The Finalize Sales mode contains a sale record for every listing that has ever closed. This is great for historical recording and reporting purposes, but would be very hard to find information you are looking for without some way of choosing the sales you want to view. Fortunately, eBay Blackthorne provides many ways to choose which sales you are viewing.
Viewing Sales by Status
As illustrated in The_Lifespan_of_a Sale, each sale is assigned a status. All of the steps in the lifespan of a sale are identified by statuses. You can easily see all the sales in a particular status from the Filters Tree in the Views sidebar.
Clicking on any status in the Views sidebar will load all sales with that status into the Sales grid. For example, to see all sales that have just been created, click the Ready for payment request filter as shown above. The Payment received filter would show all sales that you have been paid for but not yet shipped, and the Shipped filter shows all sales that have just been shipped. Statuses are grouped into status families. A status family is shown by the hierarchical structure in the Views sidebar. In the example above, the Payment Received, and Shipped statuses are in the Paid status family. Sales that have been paid may or may not have been shipped yet. With status families, you can view all the sales no matter what type they are, or you can view the types of sales separately. After checking on her listings each morning, Sharon likes to process her sales. First, she selects the Ready for Payment Request status family, hits Ctrl-A to select all, and sends the First Notification to High Bidder email. Next, she clicks on the Awaiting Payment filter and sorts them by the date the payment
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide was requested (oldest dates first). She then evaluates the oldest requests to see if she needs to send out follow up emails or file disputes. She continues to use filters to record payments and show her sales that need to be shipped.
Viewing Sales by Format

Viewing Sales by Seller Account
Viewing Sales that are Ready for Feedback
In addition to being able to view sales by their status, format or account, some special filters have been created to help find sales that have outstanding feedback tasks. The Ready for feedback reminder and Ready to send feedback filters can be found under the Sales Reports section of the Views sidebar.
The Ready for feedback reminder filter will show you all sales that have a status of Successful, but have not yet left feedback for you. The Ready to send feedback filter will show you all the sales where you have received positive feedback, but have not yet left feedback. The last thing Sharon does each day is to take care of her feedbacks. She first loads the Ready for feedback reminder filter, hits Ctrl-A to select all, and sends the Feedback Reminder email from the Email Buyer dropdown on the Actions toolbar. Hopefully this will trigger a few more people to leave her feedbacks. Then she loads the Ready to send feedback filter, hits Ctrl-A and leaves feedback from the Feedback dropdown button on the Actions toolbar. In just a few minutes, she has left all of her feedbacks and sent out all of her reminders. Most sellers wait until they receive feedback before they leave feedback. If you don't want to wait, you can modify the Ready to send feedback filter to remove the conditional check to see if you have received feedback yet.
Searching for Sales
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Like all other modes, you can perform a search from the Finalize Sales mode using the Search area of the Views sidebar. See the topic Searching for a Record for details on how to perform the search.
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Requesting Payments and Invoicing

Requesting Payments and Invoicing After a listing is sold, it is up to the seller and the buyer to complete the transaction. The buyer needs to know exactly how much to pay, what his shipping options are, and where to send the money. The seller needs to know where the item is being shipped, and what method the buyer prefers to be able to calculate postage. There are many ways this information can be exchanged. They range from using the fully automated checkout process on eBay to the more manual process of contacting the buyer and requesting payment. The method that you use depends upon many factors including whether or not you know the shipping charges when you list the item, whether you package items together for a discount, and whether or not the buyer chooses to use the automated checkout. Occasionally, you will have an unresponsive buyer and may have to send follow up notifications. In the worst possible scenario, your buyer never pays and you have to submit a dispute to get your fees returned.
Automating the Payment Process
Automating the payment process is one of the biggest time savers that a seller can implement. As mentioned earlier, the buyer needs to know exactly how much to pay, what his shipping options are, and where to send the money. The seller needs to know where the item is being shipped, and what method the buyer prefers to be able to calculate postage. If this information is exchanged in an efficient manner it can save both buyer and seller a lot of extra work. To automate the process, the seller must provide all the information that the buyer needs at the start of the auction. This information is provided in the Shipping Preset when creating an item.
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By choosing either Calculated or Flat rate shipping, and specifying all the shipping options in your listing, eBay will have enough information to total the sale for the buyer. See Entering Item Details - Shipping for more information on the differences between the two methods. If you do not know what your shipping will be and have chosen the SelfManaged shipping method, then eBay will not have enough information to total the fees for the buyer and you will have to contact the buyer yourself. In addition to sending the information with your item, you will also need to tell eBay that you want them to provide the checkout pages. You can do this from Preferences under My eBay. Edit the Payment from buyers and turn Use Checkout on.
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When you have turned on Checkout, your Buyers will have the option to checkout immediately after the auction is over. This will allow them to choose their preferred shipping method, provide their shipping address and indicate how they will pay for the item. If the user indicates they will pay with a check or money order, then your sale record in Blackthorne will have its status set to Payment Request Sent, indicating that you are still waiting for payment. The Type of Payment field in your sale record will be set to the payment type specified by the buyer in checkout. If you accept PayPal, then the user can pay you immediately. If the user pays with a PayPal eCheck, then the sale status is set to Payment Received. Once the check clears the status will be set to Payment Cleared. If the user pays with a credit card through PayPal, then the status of the sale is set to Payment Cleared. Jonathan lists all of his auctions with a Calculated shipping method and has turned on Checkout. He had 12 auctions close last night and needs to process them this morning. From Sales, he takes a look at his Payment Cleared filter. He sees that 7 of his buyers paid with a credit card through PayPal. These sales are ready to be shipped. He then checks the Payment Received filter and finds that 2 more buyers chose to pay with a PayPal eCheck. He will leave these sales alone until the checks
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide clear and the sales move into the Payment Cleared filter. A check of the Payment Request Sent folder shows that 2 of his buyers used checkout and indicated that they will be sending payment. One of the buyers specified they are sending a money order (as seen in the Type of Payment field on the sales record), and the other buyer indicated they would be paying with a personal check. Finally, he checks the Ready for Payment Request filter to find that the last buyer has not performed Checkout yet. Since the auction closed late last night, he decides to wait until the afternoon to see if the buyer will use Checkout. If after refreshing that sale in the afternoon, the buyer still has not checked out, he will send him a First Notification to High Bidder email.
Notifying the Buyer
If you do not use Checkout, or if some of your buyers do not choose to use Checkout, then those sales records will have their status set to Ready for Payment Request. Buyers who don't use checkout will either email you or wait for you to contact them to work out the details of payment. For these sales, you may want to send a First Notification to High Bidder email to each buyer. When an item is sold, eBay will automatically send a notification to your winning bidder. For many sellers, this notification is adequate. If you prefer a more personal touch or want to provide more details, then you should send your own First Notification to High Bidder email. If you have buyers that have won more than one of your auctions, then you will want to combine your sales into an order before sending your emails. Combining sales lets you work with multiple sales together. You can combine the shipping costs and send only one email for all sales in the order.
To send a First Notification to High Bidder email:
1. Select all the sales records you would like to send the email to. 2. From the Email Buyer dropdown button on the Actions toolbar, choose First Notification to High Bidder. The Email Buyer window will appear.
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3. The Email Buyer window contains a composed email for each buyer of the selected sales. The X of Y message in the upper right corner indicates which email you are viewing. You can use the navigation arrows next to it to browse through the emails. The To, CC, BCC, From, and Reply To fields along with the Subject and Text of your email will be filled in. You may want to take a moment to view each email for accuracy. 4. By default, the From and Reply To information will be the values from the Email Account that was associated with the item when it was listed. If you would like to change the Email Account that is sending the email, you can choose one of your existing Email Accounts from the Account dropdown. 5. The text of the email is created from the First Notification to High Bidder email template. If you would like, you can edit the note text on this Email Buyer form before sending the email. Any changes made will not apply to the email template or any other future email. For more information on modifying email templates, see the E-Mail Templates topic. 6. If you would like a copy of the email printed on your printer when you send it, check the Print copy of email box. 7. You can make any changes to the body or subject of an email before sending it. Changes made on this screen will not be saved in the template and will only be sent with the current email. 8. When you are ready to send your email, click the Send button to send them one at a time, or click Send All to send them all in a batch. The act of sending an email can be customized to automatically change the status of the sale when the email is sent. A note on the status bar identifies what status changes will occur when
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide sending the email. By default, this email will set the status to Payment request sent. 9. When all emails are sent, the window will close, or you can hit Cancel at any time to return to the main window. Leslie does not use Checkout on her auctions. When the auction is over, she prefers to contact the buyer directly to develop a relationship with the buyer. For each sale that ends, she sends a customized First Notification to High Bidder email. This email includes a little bit about her and her company as well as the important information about shipping and payment. She can send out all of her emails very quickly by viewing the Ready for payment request filter, hitting Ctrl-A to select all sales and then choosing First Notification... from the Email Buyer button. After a quick check of the emails, she hits Send All.
Sending Follow Up Notifications
Unfortunately, not all buyers are as quick to respond as sellers might like. If buyers do not respond to the first notification, then you may need to send a second or even a final notification. Each notification may be worded more strongly than the last. eBay Blackthorne provides two additional emails and statuses to help you manage this process. If you do not receive a response to your first notification, you may want to send a Second Notification to High Bidder email. Sending a second notification will set the sale status to Second payment request sent. If you still do not get a response or a payment after the second request was sent, you may choose to send a Final Notification to High Bidder email before beginning the dispute process on eBay. By default, the filters for Second payment request and Final payment request are hidden. You can show them by right-clicking on the Sales by Status area of the sidebar and choosing Hide/Show Filters... Check any filters you want shown and uncheck any that you want hidden.
To send a Second or Final Notification to High Bidder email:
1. Select all the sales records you would like to send the email to. 2. From the Email Buyer dropdown button on the Actions toolbar, choose Second Notification to High Bidder, or Final Notification to High Bidder. The Email Buyer window will appear.
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3. The Email Buyer window contains a composed email for each buyer of the selected sales. The X of Y message in the upper right corner indicates which email you are viewing. You can use the navigation arrows next to it to browse through the emails. The To, CC, BCC, From, and Reply To fields along with the Subject and Text of your email will be filled in. You may want to take a moment to view each email for accuracy. 4. By default, the From and Reply To information will be the values from the Email Account that was associated with the item when it was listed. If you would like to change the Email Account that is sending the email, you can choose one of your existing Email Accounts from the Account dropdown. 5. The text of the email is created from the Second or Final Notification to High Bidder email template. If you would like, you can edit the note text on this Email Buyer form before sending the email. Any changes made will not apply to the email template or any other future email. For more information on modifying email templates, see the E-Mail Templates topic. 6. If you would like a copy of the email printed on your printer when you send it, check the Print copy of email box. 7. You can make any changes to the body or subject of an email before sending it. Changes made on this screen will not be saved in the template and will only be sent with the current email. 8. When you are ready to send your email, click the Send button to send them one at a time, or click Send All to send them all in a batch. The act of sending an email can be customized to automatically change the status of the sale when the email is sent. A note on the status bar identifies what status changes will occur when
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide sending the email. By default, this email will set the status to Final Payment 9. When all emails are sent, the window will close, or you can hit Cancel at any time to return to the main window. Each day, Leslie checks to see if there are any unresponsive bidders. First, she loads the Payment request sent filter and sorts by the Date Status Changed in descending order to see who hasn't responded for the longest period of time. She selects all sales that had the status changed more than 3 days ago and sends the Second Notification to High Bidder from the Email Buyer button on the Actions toolbar. She then loads the Second payment request filter and looks for anyone who hasn't responded in 3 more days since the second notification was sent, and sends them the final notification.
Combining Sales
request sent or Final Payment request sent.

Recording an Over the Counter Sale

Dealing with Disputes
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Receiving Payments
Receiving Payments Depending upon the payment methods that you allow, there are different ways that you can receive payments. If you accept PayPal, your payments may be made electronically. If you accept credit cards, the buyer may call you on the phone with their credit card information. If you accept checks or money orders, your payments will come in the mail.
No matter how you accept payments, it is very important that you record them accurately. Recording payments allows you to track your profit and loss and helps you keep track of which items need to be shipped. Any sales that have their status set to Payment Cleared will indicate that payment was received and is ready to be shipped. Any sale with a status of Payment Received means the payment has been received by has not cleared (checks and eChecks) and shouldn't be shipped until you verify the payment has cleared with your bank.
Automatic Payments
If you accept PayPal, then your buyers may choose to pay with an electronic check, directly from their bank account, or by using a credit card through PayPal. When paying from their bank account or using a credit card, the funds will show up immediately in your account. The next time eBay Blackthorne refreshes sales, it will automatically record that payment for you and set the status of those sales to Payment cleared. If your buyer uses an electronic check, then the money will show up in a few days when the check clears. When the buyer first specifies they will use an electronic check, Blackthorne will set the status of the sale to Payment received. Later, when the check clears, the status will get set to Payment cleared. Any sale with a status of Payment cleared means the money is in your account and you can ship the item. The Type of Payment on the sale record will get set to either Check or PayPal accordingly. In addition, the Shipping Address of the buyer will be retrieved from PayPal and saved in the sale record. For information on how to set up your listings to accept electronic payments, see the topic Requesting Payments and Invoicing - Automating_the_Payment_Process.
Credit Card Payments
If you accept credit cards, then you will have to modify the sale record manually to record the payments.
To record a credit card payment:
1. Gather the information from the buyer that you need to process a credit card transaction and process the transaction through your credit card service. This information includes the credit card number, expiration, billing and shipping
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide address. If the credit card transaction was successful, then you can continue to record the payment in the sale record. 2. Locate and select the sale record for the payment. You can find it by looking in the Awaiting payments filter, or by performing a search for the buyer, sale id, eBay ID, etc. 3. From the Details area of the sale record, choose an existing Shipping Address from the dropdown or add a new one using the Edit button.
4. The Default Billing Address will be set to the Shipping Address if it did not previously exist. You can change it or click Edit if the Billing Address is different than the Shipping Address. 5. In the Type of Payment field, choose Credit Card. The Default Credit Card input box will appear.
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6. If the credit card info is not already entered, then click the Edit button to enter it. Click OK to save and exit.
7. Finally, change the status of the sale to Payment Cleared in the status dropdown.
Receiving Checks and Money Orders
If you accept checks or money orders, then you will have to modify the sale record manually to record the payments.
To record a check or money order payment:
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 1. Locate and select the sale record for the payment. You can find it by looking in the Awaiting payments filter, or by performing a search for the buyer, sale id, eBay ID, etc. 2. From the Details area of the sale record, choose an existing Shipping Address from the dropdown or add a new one using the Edit button.
3. In the Type of Payment field, choose Check or Money Order. 4. If the payment was a money order, change the status of the sale to Payment Cleared in the status dropdown.
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5. If the payment was a check, you may want to send the buyer a Received Payment email to let them know that you have received the payment and you will ship once the payment has cleared. You can send the email by choosing Received Payment from the Email Buyer button on the Actions toolbar. then wait until the check clears. Sending this email will automatically set the sale status to Payment Received. If you do not send the email, you will have to set the Sale Status to Payment Received manually. 6. For payments by check, wait several days until the check clears. When it clears, you can set the Sale Status to Payment Cleared.
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Shipping Items
Shipping Items Perhaps the most labor intensive task of selling on eBay is packaging and shipping the items once they have sold. After receiving payments, you need to ship your items. Whether you store your inventory in a warehouse, or on a shelf in your family room, you will need to retrieve all the items and organize them by buyer. All items to the same buyer can then be packaged in the same box (or multiple boxes if necessary). Depending upon your business, you may have to wait for delivery or for an item to be completed before you are ready to pack it. After packing the boxes you need to put the shipping address and return address on the package. The last thing to do before shipping the items is to place postage on the package. You can take the packages to the Post Office, FedEx, UPS or any other shipper an they will put the proper postage on it for you, or you can put the postage on it yourself. Finally, you will ship the items and then return to eBay Blackthorne to update the sales records to reflect they have been shipped either manually or by sending an Item Shipped email.
Waiting for Delivery or Fabrication
Some sellers obtain their inventory from a readily available supply. They often wait until an auction is over before ordering the item. Other sellers take custom orders in their auctions. They may need monograms for a shirt, or a choice of ring size before they can build or make the item. Usually an item that has been paid for is ready to ship, but in these cases the item must wait for something else to be done before it can be shipped. A status called Ready to Ship in the Paid status family can help keep track of these types of items. The Ready to Ship status is hidden by default. To show it, you must right-click the Sales by Status area in the Views sidebar and select Hide/Show Filters. Check the Ready to Ship filter and click OK. When using the Ready to Ship status, you do not ship sales until they are placed in the Ready to Ship status. Dennis and Clare sell custom made jewelry. Dennis handles the listing and sales end of the business, and Clare makes the jewelry. Clare doesn't start making the jewelry until payment has arrived. Clare created a custom filter called Ready for Production to show her all the sales with a status of Payment Received or Payment Cleared. Each day, Clare checks the Ready for Production filter to see what items she has to make. As she completes an item, she places it in the Out box on her desk and changes the status of the sale to Ready to Ship. At the end of every day, Dennis gathers all the jewelry from the Out box, and looks in the Ready to Ship filter to find all the sales that he needs
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide to ship items for. He can easily print his packing lists and labels from this filter also.
Printing Packing Lists

Printing Shipping Labels

Printing Postage

Recording Sales as Having Been Shipped
After shipping your items, the sales records should have their status changed to Shipped. You can do this manually, simply by changing the status in the Sale Status dropdown, or you can send an Item Shipped email which will set the status for you automatically. Unless you have a reason not to, you should send the Item Shipped email. It is an easy way to update the status of your sale while letting your buyer know the item was shipped and the tracking number if applicable. There is one more way a sale record can be marked as shipped. If you are a Selling Manager Pro user on eBay, and you have marked the sales as being shipped in Selling Manager Pro, the Blackthorne sales will be marked as shipped the next time the servant refreshes the sale records.
To send an Item Shipped email:
1. Select all the sales records you would like to send the email to. 2. From the Email Buyer dropdown button on the Actions toolbar, choose Item Shipped. The Email Buyer window will appear.
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3. The Email Buyer window contains a composed email for each buyer of the selected sales. The X of Y message in the upper right corner indicates which email you are viewing. You can use the navigation arrows next to it to browse through the emails. The To, CC, BCC, From, and Reply To fields along with the Subject and Text of your email will be filled in. You may want to take a moment to view each email for accuracy. 4. By default, the From and Reply To information will be the values from the Email Account that was associated with the item when it was listed. If you would like to change the Email Account that is sending the email, you can choose one of your existing Email Accounts from the Account dropdown. 5. The text of the email is created from the Item Shipped email template. If you would like, you can edit the note text on this Email Buyer form before sending the email. Any changes made will not apply to the email template or any other future email. For more information on modifying email templates, see the E-Mail Templates topic. 6. If you would like a copy of the email printed on your printer when you send it, check the Print copy of email box. 7. When you are ready to send your email, click the Send button to send them one at a time, or click Send All to send them all in a batch. The act of sending an email can be customized to automatically change the status of the sale when the email is
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide sent. A note on the status bar identifies what status changes will occur when sending the email. By default, this email will set the status to Shipped. 8. When all emails are sent, the window will close, or you can hit Cancel at any time to return to the main window.
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Completing Sales
Completing Sales After an item is shipped, there are still a few housekeeping tasks that need to be taken care of before the sale is complete. It's a good idea to leave feedback for your buyers. Not only does it help the buyer, but it helps you build a relationship with your buyers which may make them more likely to return. If you host your own pictures, you might also want to remove them from your computer and/or web space to make room for more pictures. You can also choose to submit another item to eBay. Since you just sold the item, you may want to list another one.
Leaving Feedback
With eBay Blackthorne you can automate the task of leaving feedbacks. After creating a library of feedback messages, you can leave a single message or randomized messages to all your buyers. Since leaving negative or neutral feedbacks should be carefully considered, you cannot leave neutral or negative feedback in bulk. They must be left one at a time.
Creating Feedback Messages
Before you can leave a new feedback message, you must add it to your list of Positive Feedback Messages.
To create feedback messages:
1. From the Finalize Sales mode, right click the Feedback button on the Actions toolbar and select Edit Feedback Messages... You can also get to the Feedback Message list from Tools|Options then choose Presets|Positive Feedback Messages. The Positive Feedback Messages list will appear.
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2. Click the New button to create a new feedback message. When the prompt appears, enter the text of your message and click OK. You could also create a new message using the Duplicate button. 3. If you want to modify one of your messages, choose it from the list and click the Edit button. Make your modifications and click OK to save. 4. To delete a feedback message, choose it from the list and click the Delete button. 5. If you would like, you can make leaving feedbacks automatically change the status of the sale. To set a status change, enter a status in the When Submitting to eBay Change the Sale Status dropdown. If leaving feedback is the last step in your process, it is a good idea to have feedbacks set the sale status to Successful. This will help you identify which sales have had feedback left for them.
Sending Feedback
You can send either a specific feedback message, a random message or a negative/neutral message.
To send a feedback:
1. Select all the sales records you would like to send feedback for. If you will be sending a negative or neutral feedback, then you must only select one at a time.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 2. To leave a specific message... From the Feedback dropdown button on the Actions toolbar, choose the feedback message that you want to leave. A message will appear asking you if you want to leave the feedbacks. Click Yes. The same feedback message will be left for the buyer of each selected sale. 3. To leave a randomized message... From the Feedback dropdown button on the Actions toolbar, choose Random Positive. A message will appear asking you if you want to leave the feedbacks. Click Yes. Each buyer selected will receive a random feedback message from your Feedback Message list. 4. To leave a negative or neutral message... From the Feedback dropdown button on the Actions toolbar, choose Negative/Neutral. A prompt will appear allowing you to choose the type of feedback (negative or neutral) and the message itself. Click OK to submit the feedback.
Deleting Pictures
Once your sale is complete, you no longer need the pictures, unless you have multiple copies of the item and you will be selling more in the future. Pictures take up space on your computer's hard drive and on your web site if you host your own pictures. A little bit of housecleaning at the end of your sale can keep you from getting overrun with unneeded pictures. Pictures can be removed manually, or you can set your preferences to remove the pictures automatically when your sale is completed.
To manually delete pictures:
1. Select all the sales records you would like to remove pictures for. 2. Select Sales Actions|Manually Remove Pictures... from the main menu. The Delete Pictures from Web/Computer window will appear.
3. Use the checkboxes to choose whether you will remove pictures from the web, your computer or both. Click OK to delete. The status bar on the main window will display a message informing you how many pictures were deleted.
To have pictures automatically deleted:
1. Select Tools|Options from the main menu. 2. Select Pictures under Appearance from the Options tree.
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3. Check the Automatically delete pictures when Sale Status is set to Complete? box. 4. Check Remove the pictures from the web and/or Remove the pictures from my computer to indicate which pictures should be deleted. 5. Anytime a sale is moved into a status in the Completed status family, the pictures for the sale will be deleted. Martina sells unique one of a kind items. She hosts the pictures for those items on the 10 megs of space that her ISP gives her with her internet connection. To make her process more automatic, she customized her Item Shipped email to set the status to Successful in the Completed status family. She then customized her pictures so they would delete whenever the status of a sale was set to Completed. Now, when she ships an item, she sends an Item Shipped email. The email changes the status to Successful which in turn triggers the deletion of her pictures, so just by sending the email, all of her cleanup tasks are done automatically.
Submitting the Item to eBay Again
If you have multiple copies of an item, you may want to list another copy each time one sells. From the Finalize Sales mode, you can easily submit another copy of an item.
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To submit an item again:
1. Select all the sales records you would like to submit again from the Finalize Sales grid. 2. Select Sales Actions|Submit to eBay Again... or click the Submit Again button on the Actions toolbar. Fill out this window as you would when submitting listings from items. For more info see Submitting an Item.
3. Click OK to submit the items again.
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Reporting on Sales
Reporting on Sales Grid reports are created using custom column sets and filters. In fact, every filter provided is really a grid report. It shows a specific set of data with a specific layout. Grid reports can be modified or created from scratch using Customize View.
Profit and Loss Report

Sales Tax Report

Grid Reports
A grid report is simply a customized view that includes a selection of records and a column set. To view a grid report, you simply select it from the Views Sidebar under the Sales Reports heading. There are several grid reports provided for sales. Sales Report Profit and Loss Report Description Contains all sales in the Paid status family or those with a status of Successful or Unpaid in the Completed status family. The date period dropdown, and totals row is shown. The column set includes sale, cost and profit columns. Sales Tax Report Contains all sales in the Paid status family or those with a status of Successful or Unpaid in the Completed status family. The date period dropdown, and totals row is shown. The column set includes sale tax, cost and profit columns. Consignments Contains all consignment sales where the consignor has not yet ready to payout been paid and the status is in the Paid status family or Successful. The column set includes the consignment related fields. Unsold Contains all consignment sales where the status is unsold. The consignments column set includes the consignment related fields. Ready for Contains all sales with a status of Successful or Shipped and have feedback reminder not left feedback yet. It contains the date period dropdown showing all sales closed in the last 31 days. The column set includes feedback related fields. Ready to send Contains all sales that have received feedback but feedback has feedback not been sent yet.
Sales History Report
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide This feature is not supported in the Basic version.
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Printing Sales
Although much of your work can be done directly within eB, sometimes it becomes necessary to print information about your listings to help with other tasks. Any view that is displayed in any grid can be printed to your printer. You can setup your printer to choose the paper size and orientation beforehand. If you'd like, you can also print a detailed sheet for each listing. Print Grid Setup Before printing the grid, you can set it up how it will print. Any settings you specify will stay set until you make changes.
To setup the way your grid prints:
1. From the main menu, select File|Print Grid Setup... to display the Print Grid Setup window.
2. Select the Printer that you will be printing to using the Printer... button. 3. In the Paper group box, select the Size of your paper and the Source. 4. Select the Orientation to use for printing. The sample page at the top will change to reflect your setting.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 5. Specify the Margins. The sample page at the top will change to reflect your settings. 6. Click OK when finished. Printing the Sales Grid Any grid can be printed. The printed grid will look just like the grid on the screen. To save paper, you should adjust the column widths and not include any more columns than necessary.
To print the grid:
1. From the main menu, select File|Print Grid... to load the Print preview window.
, zoom in
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 3. When you click the Print button, it will be printed to the printer specified on the Print Grid Setup window.
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Managing Contact Information

Managing Buyers
Each successful sale will end with a buyer. It may be a new buyer or it may be a buyer who has purchased from you before. When the sale ends and eB retrieves the sale information, it will automatically create a buyer record for the buyer if one does not already exist. If the buyer did not use eBay's Checkout then the buyer record will only contain the buyer's eBay User ID and their zip code. When a buyer uses eBay's Checkout, eB will know a lot about the buyer, including their name and address. Most of the buyer information that is used on a daily basis is shown on the Finalize Sales mode making the buyer mode necessary only when you want to analyze more detailed buyer information. Since buyers might by from you again sometime in the future, buyer records are never archived. Creating a New Buyer Most buyer records are created automatically. If you are recording an over the counter sale, you may need to create a new buyer.
To create a new buyer:
1. Select Buyers Actions|New Buyer from the main menu or click the New Buyer button on the Actions toolbar. If the Details Pane is shown, the new buyer will be created and selected in the grid. You can enter the buyer information in the Details pane. If the Details Pane is not shown, then the new buyer record will appear in the Buyer Edit window.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 2. Enter the buyer information. Viewing Buyer Filters The Views sidebar contains several filters. Selecting a filter will limit the buyers shown in the grid. The following table identifies which buyers are shown for each view. Filter All Buyers Buyers with Pending Sales Repeat Buyers Search Results All Buyers for .... Displays... All buyers. All buyers for sales in the status families Ready for Payment Request, Awaiting Payment or In Dispute. All buyers who have more than one sale record attached to them. The search results from the latest buyer search performed. This may not be present. All buyers that from the last QuickLink performed on the Buyers mode. See Finding Related Info with QuickLinks for more information.
Searching for a Buyer
Like all other modes, you can perform a search from the Buyers mode using the Search area of the Views sidebar. See the topic Searching for a Record for details on how to perform the search. Viewing the Buyers Feedback
To view a buyers feedback:
1. Select the buyer from the buyers grid. 2. Select Buyers Actions|View Feedback from the main menu or click the View Feedback button on the Actions toolbar. The eBay page with the buyers feedback will appear. Copying Addresses to the Clipboard If you need addresses in other applications like 3rd party shipping apps, then you can easily get them from eB.
To copy buyer addresses to the clipboard:
1. Select all the buyer records you whose address you would like to copy. 2. Select Buyers Actions|Copy Shipping Address Fields or Buyers Actions|Copy Billing Address Fields from the main menu. You can also copy shipping addresses from the Copy Shipping button on the Actions toolbar. All selected addresses will be placed on the clipboard with a blank line between them. 3. Paste (Ctrl-V) the addresses into any other application.
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Navigating Modes
Navigating Modes
During your daily chores, you will find yourself switching modes and looking for data frequently. In addition to using the mode tabs to switch between modes, you can use the Previous View button, the View History and QuickLinks to switch from mode to mode and view to view. Previous View Each time you change modes, filters, folders or lists, you are loading a new view. The Previous View button will return you to the last view. You can click it repeatedly to go further back in your view history.
View History You can also use the Previous View button to display and choose from your last 10 views. Simply click the down arrow next to the Previous View button to display the list.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide QuickLinks Depending upon your business and subscription level, you may have up to 6 primary modes (Create Items, Monitor Listings, Finalize Sales, Buyers, Suppliers, Consignors) that all display different types of data. Although the data is different, it is often related to data in other modes. Listing and Sale records were created from an Item record, Sale records are associated with a buyer record, Item records can be associated with a Supplier or Consignor and so on. QuickLinks will allow you to get to this related data easily.
To QuickLink to related data:
1. From any mode, select the records that you would like more information about. 2. From the Actions menu for the current mode, select Go To. A list of available QuickLinks will appear. Alternatively, you can right click the grid selections and choose Go To from the context menu that appears. Select the cross reference information you would like to see.
3. You can QuickLink using icons on the Details pane also. For each mode with related data, an icon will appear in the Details pane header. Simply click the icon for the mode you want to view.
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4. After executing the QuickLink, you will be shown all related records in the linked mode. For instance, selecting item records and clicking the Listings Quicklink will load the Monitor Listings mode and show you all the listings ever listed for the selected items. The sidebar will now contain an additional filter for the QuickLink.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide This temporary filter will exist until you perform another QuickLink to the same mode. You can switch filters and return to the QuickLink filter as long as it still exists. 5. Once the QuickLink view is displayed, you can customize the view or sort to further refine the data you are looking for.
QuickLinking to Sales from Items, is similar to looking at a Sales History report. It shows all sales for the selected items and can include total information in the Totals row. It doesn't show the average sale price and other stats that a Sales History report run from the Item would show. QuickLinks are very powerful. With a little creativity, you will be able to find just the right data you are looking for. Samuel sells caps with football and baseball team logos. He stores his hat items in a folder called Caps. He would like to see all the running listings for his football caps. To do this, he opens the Caps folder and selects all of the football caps. He then QuickLinks to the Listings. This shows him all football cap listings he has ever submitted. He then clicks the Listing Status column to sort by status, and can easily find all the football caps with a status family of Running. Debbie sells DVD's which she can get from her supplier on one days notice. She does not order her DVD's until an auction is over and the DVD is actually sold. She needs a way to see all the items that she needs to order, broken down by supplier. To do this, she loads the Ready for Payment Request filter in Finalize Sales. This shows her all her recently completed successful auctions. She QuickLinks to Items to see all the items for those sales and then sorts the items by Supplier ID. She exports to Excel and now has a list of all items she needs to order from each supplier. Other uses for QuickLinks include:
! ! ! !
Finding all sales for an item Finding all sales for a Dutch listing Finding the items for all relistable listings to ensure there is adequate inventory remaining and anything else you can think of...
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Customizing Ad Templates
Customizing Ad Templates
When creating an eBay listing, much of the text of the listing is usually the same for every listing. There will be some part of the description that is different for each item, but the shipping message, payment message, tax message and many other components are repeated in every listing. Ad Templates are designed to minimize the amount of data entry you do entering these duplicate messages. With an Ad Template, you specify all the common text in the template and intersperse tags where the unique data should be placed. By creating an Ad Template and applying it to your item, you will simply need to enter the unique description and not all of the other text. eBay Blackthorne comes with two pre-made Ad Templates that you can use to generate your listing layout. The Simple Ad Template provides no additional text. It simply has a [[Description]] tag that gets replaced with whatever you enter in the Description field in your item record. The Enhanced Ad Template contains the [[Title]], [[SubTitle]] and several other messages that you can customize. One of the first things you will want to do to customize eB for your business is to create your own Ad Template. It will give your listings a personal touch. From the Options window, you can duplicate existing templates, delete templates or rename templates. See Templates for more information on managing your templates. The Ad Template Studio is where you will edit your Ad Templates. Within the Ad Template Studio, you can customize the text that is included in your template using a WYSIWYG editor. Interspersed with your text, you can insert field tags to act as a placeholder for information that comes from your database. When the listings are generated, your text is merged with the data from your database to create a complete listing. You can also maintain and use common strings known as Global AutoText. Inserting Global AutoText is an easy way to get a common string or paragraph into an Ad Template. If you are familiar with HTML, you can view and edit the source HTML if you desire. You can also modify some of the layout options including the image placement, image width and the counter to use. Editing an Ad Template Editing an Ad Template is performed in the Ad Template Studio. The Ad Template Studio is a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to create the custom text for your listing Ad.
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To edit an Ad Template:
1. From Tools|Options choose Templates|Ad Templates. 2. Select the template you would like to edit from the list and click the Edit button. 3. You could also edit the Ad Template by clicking the Edit button next to the Ad Template input box on the Item Entry pane. 4. The Ad Template Studio will open with your template loaded.
Viewing an Ad Template By changing the tab at the bottom, you can view your Ad Template in a number of different formats. The Design View is a WYSIWYG HTML Editor that lets you view your text in a semiformatted layout. This mode is used to create your template. The HTML View will show you the raw HTML source of the Ad Template. It is available as a reference or if you want to add your own custom HTML to the template. The Preview will show you what
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide your formatted listing will look like when it is submitted. If you are editing your Ad Template from the Options window, all Field tags will be resolved using a sample record from your database. Spell checking is not enabled in the Design View since the Design View is supposed to show exactly what will be displayed and the red wavy lines violate that rule. However, you can spell check in the HTML View. HTML tags will be ignored by the spell checker. See "Spell Checking" for information on using the spell checker. You can enter plain text or HTML on the HTML View tab. When using HTML however, you must ensure it adheres to eBay guidelines for HTML and Javascript. Formatting Text In the Ad Template Studio, you create the text for your listing in the Design View editor. You can add text anywhere in the editor. You can add formatting by placing your cursor or selecting text and then clicking on one of the format buttons on the toolbar. The buttons perform the following formatting: Icon Description Cut the selected text Copy the selected text Paste the selected text Undo the last action Redo the last action Make the selected text bold Italicize the selected text Underscore the selected text Set the font Remove all formatting from the selected text Set the color of the selected text Increase the size of the selected text Decrease the size of the selected text Left align the selected text Center the selected text Right align the selected text Indent Outdent Start/Stop an numbered list Start/Stop a bulleted list
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Insert a horizontal line Insert a table Insert a hyperlink Perform a search and replace In addition to the toolbar, all of these common functions as well as several other common functions can be accessed from a context menu by right-clicking anywhere in the Design View editor. Some of the additional features under the menu include: Edit|Find and Replace - Performs a search and replace. Formatting|(Normal/Heading1-Heading5/Formatted) - Sets the heading level for hierarchical titling. Document|Properties|Background Color - Sets the background color of the document. Document|Open - Opens an HTML file in the Design View editor. Document|Save As - Saves the current file being edited. Document|Print - Prints the current HTML file being edited. Document|Toolbar - Toggles the display of the toolbar. In the Design View, the Enter key will start a new paragraph which performs double spacing. To get a single line break, use Shift-Enter. You can also drag any text file (with or without HTML in it) directly onto the Design View to load it. Robert has been conversing with Sylvia on the eBay Blackthorne Discussion board about the great new Ad Template he has created. Sylvia asks Robert if she can use it to. Robert opens the Ad Template, right clicks the Design View and selects Document|Save As to save his template. He calls the file ForSylvia.htm and sends it to her. When she receives the file, she creates a new, empty Ad Template and drags the ForSylvia.htm file onto the Design View and the new template is there. Adding Item Field Tags
Item Field Tags allow you to create a placeholder in your Ad Template for information
that will be filled in from your database when the listing is created. Item Field Tags appear with double brackets ([[ ]]) around them.
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In this example, [[Title]] and [[Description]] are Item Field Tags. When the listing is created, the Title and Description from the item record will replace the item field tags. The result will look like something like this:
Notice the Item Field Tags were replaced, and the "Shoe Size Conversion Table" text and table remained as specified in the template.
To enter an Item Field Tag into an Ad Template:
1. Place your cursor at the location where the tag is to be entered. 2. Select the field you would like to enter from the Item Fields list and click the Insert Field button. Your tag will appear in the editor. You can also simply double-click the field to enter it at the cursor location.
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When applying any formatting to an Item Field Tag such as bold or font changes, make sure the entire tag is selected before applying the formatting. If only a portion of the tag is selected, then the HTML will split the tag and cause it to not resolve properly. By using Custom Fields from the items record, you can make your Ad Templates even more intelligent. For instance, if you sell T-Shirts, you might create an Item with the following Item Details.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Notice there is no description, and it uses an Ad Template called Hanes T-Shirts. You can then use the Custom 1 field for the size, and Custom 2 for color. As you enter a new item, you might put XL in Custom 1 and Heather Gray in Custom 2.
You can then have these values dynamically entered into your listing by using the [[ItemsCustom1]] and [[ItemsCustom2]] variables in your Ad Templates. The following template...
... would look like this when formatted.
If there are only a few different variations in your listings, you could replace your Description with just a few Custom fields. Adding Global AutoText There are often large chunks of text that you tend to include repeatedly in your communications and listings. You may have a paragraph describing how and when you ship that you include in several different emails and your listings. By placing that text into a Global AutoText variable, you can easily add this text to any email or listing. Global AutoTexts can also be used to add commonly used scripts to your listings. A Global AutoText called "Countdown" has been provided so you can include a countdown message in your listings. i.e. "Only 21 more days until Christmas!!!". It is easily modifiable to other special days by following the inline comments.
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To enter Global AutoText into an Ad Template:
1. Place your cursor at the location where the Global AutoText is to be entered. 2. Select the Global AutoText you would like to enter from the Global AutoText list then click the Insert AutoText button. Your tag will appear in the editor. You can also simply double-click the Global AutoText to enter it at the cursor location.
When applying any formatting to a Global AutoText such as bold or font changes, make sure the entire tag is selected before applying the formatting. If only a portion of the tag is selected, then the HTML will split the tag and cause it to not resolve properly. You can also edit existing Global AutoTexts or even add new ones.
To edit a Global AutoText:
1. Select the Global AutoText you would like to edit from the Global AutoText list. 2. Click the Edit AutoText button. The Edit AutoText window will appear.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 3. The requested AutoText will be selected from the list on the left, and the text will appear in the edit box. Make any modifications you desire. 4. You can also select any other AutoText from the list on the left and edit it at this time. 5. If desired, use the New button to create a new AutoText, the Rename button to rename an existing one, or the Delete button to remove an AutoText. 6. Click OK when you are finished. If you want to use HTML formatting in your GAT, you can double click the text entry box to open an HTML editor. You can nest Global AutoTexts. In other words, GAT's can contain other GAT's. You can also include Item Field Tags in a Global AutoText. The same set of Global AutoTexts are shared between Email Templates and Ad Templates. If you change the name of a Global AutoText, all occurrences of it in the Ad and Email templates will be changed automatically.
JavaScript Global AutoTexts
Most of the GAT's are simply string replacements, but some JavaScript GAT's have been included. A JavaScript GAT can add special formatting to your listings using JavaScript code. You can often easily change some of the parameters of its behavior by modifying the GAT as described in the comments at the top of each GAT. They are described in the following table. Name Countdown Prohibit Picture Copying Falling Snow Description Displays a countdown to a special day. You can set the special day and the colors of the messages. Prohibits other users from copying the pictures in your listing. No method is foolproof, but this should discourage most attempts. This will display falling snow over your listing. The amount of snow can be modified.
You are also free to create any other JavaScript GAT's you can think of. If you create one and would like us to consider including it in future versions, just send it to us. Setting Ad Template Options There are several options you can set for your Ad Template. These can be changed from the Options tab at the bottom of the Ad Template Studio.
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Image Layout
The image layout setting lets you determine where your images will be located. The sample images show how the layout will appear. The Standard, Right, Bottom, Left and Top placements are straightforward. The Manual placement requires a little bit of explanation. If one of the provided image placements does not meet your needs and you want a more customized location for your images, then you will use the Manual Image Layout. When using Manual, eBay Blackthorne will not place any images into your listing automatically. Instead, you must add [[Picture1]] - [[Picture12]] tags where you would like the images to be placed. Emily wants her listing to have the Title, SubTitle and Description at the top. She would then like her first image to appear followed by a shoe size chart and the rest of her shipping and payment info. Since there is no image layout that supports this, she chooses the manual layout and modifies her Ad Template to contain a [[Picture1]] tag like this:
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When formatted, the picture appears where she requested it.
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Image Width
When displayed, images can be set to show in their original width, or a custom width in pixels. Pixels are units of screen measurement. An 800x600 monitor is 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels high. If you set a custom image width, then all your images will be the same width. This can be used to give your listing a more uniform look, or if you want to simulate thumbnails and fit more pictures on the screen at once. When the image width is set to a custom image, the viewer can get an actual sized image by clicking on the image.
Counter
There are four options for including a counter in your listing. Counters are provided by Andale, through an agreement they have with eBay. Since eBay does not have the
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide counter values, they cannot return them to eB. You must view the counter totals on Andale. Alternate Methods of Displaying Pictures In addition to using the Image Layout to specify how you want your pictures displayed, there are a few other methods that can be used.
Adding a Link to a Picture
If you would prefer to display a link to your picture instead of the picture itself, use the [[Picture1Link]] - [[Picture12Link]] tags instead of the [[Picture1]] -[[Picture12]] tags. This template example:
looks like this when formatted:
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Building Your Own Link to a Picture
The [[PictureX]] tags and [[PictureXLink]] tags resolve to an HTML string that is an IMG or HREF tag. There is not a tag that resolves to just the path of an image. If you need to use just the path of an image, then you can apply the TrimHTML() function to either the [[PictureX]] or [[PictureXLink]] tags. Using the function would look like this.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide When formatted, the function will resolve to the value specified in the PictureX input box on the item record. This is most useful when you are building your own HTML or Javascript to perform special functions such as a picture swapper. Using JavaScript in Ad Templates You can use JavaScript in Ad Templates, but it must be used in a Global AutoText variable. The WYSIWYG editor does not understand JavaScript and will strip it out, but if placed into a Global AutoText the editor will not modify it. There are several sample Global AutoTexts provided that use JavaScript. The "Countdown", "Prohibit Picture Copying", and "Falling Snow" GAT's all use JavaScript. Here is an example of what it looks like.
Wherever you place the GAT in your Ad Template, the associated JavaScript will be placed. Using Stylesheets in Ad Templates The Design View editor does not support the inclusion of stylesheet information. Stylesheet information will be stripped out of the template when you view the template in Design View. With a little creativity, you can still use stylesheets. To use stylesheets in your templates, simply create the stylesheet in a separate file and include a link to the stylesheet in a Global AutoText. Therefore, you may have a Global AutoText called LinkToStyleSheet that contains text similar to < link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" > . When it is included at the top of your template, it will not get removed.
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Customizing Emails
Customizing Emails
eBay Blackthorne comes with several pre-made email templates that you can use to quickly send emails to your buyers. You can create new email templates, duplicate existing templates, delete templates or rename templates. See Templates for more information on managing your templates. Using the Email Studio, you can even edit your email templates to fully customize the emails you send your buyers. Within an email template, you can customize the subject and text of your message using a WYSIWYG editor. Interspersed with your text, you can insert field tags to act as a placeholder for information that comes from your database. When the emails are generated, your text is merged with the data from your database to create a complete email. You can also maintain and use common strings known as Global AutoText. Inserting Global AutoText is an easy way to get a common string or paragraph into an email. Custom calculations can even be performed on different database fields using the Math functions provided. To minimize the number of emails you send, the Email Studio has been designed to create combined emails when your buyers have purchased more than one item. The RepeatBlock and RepeatTotal constructs let you specify what information should be included for each sale in a buyers order. Editing an Email Template Editing an email template is performed in the Email Studio. The Email Studio is a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to create the custom text for your email.
To edit an email template:
1. From Tools|Options choose Templates|Email Templates. 2. Select the template you would like to edit from the list and click the Edit button. 3. The Email Studio will open with your template loaded.
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Viewing an Email Template By changing the tab at the bottom, you can view your email template in a number of different formats. The Design View is a WYSIWYG HTML Editor that lets you view your text in a semiformatted layout. This mode is used to create your template. The HTML View will show you the raw HTML source of the email. It is available as a reference or if you want to add your own custom HTML to the template. The Preview will show you what your formatted email will look like when it is sent. All Field tags will be resolved using a sample record from your database. The Text Only Preview will show you what your text will look like when it is sent as text only. Spell checking is not enabled in the Design View since the Design View is supposed to show exactly what will be displayed and the red wavy lines violate that rule. However, you can spell check in the HTML View. HTML tags will be ignored by the spell checker. See "Spell Checking" for information on using the spell checker. By default, eB sends HTML emails. HTML emails can be formatted more attractively than plain text emails and are supported by all major email programs today. If however, you have set up your email account to use your existing mail program (using the MAPI interface), you cannot send HTML
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide emails as the primary format. When using MAPI, you must send text emails with the HTML email as an optional attachment. The Text Only Preview will show you what the text email will look like. Tables and other formatting will not appear as expected in the Text Only Preview, so if you are using MAPI to send emails, you should verify your email format in the Text Only Preview. Formatting Text In the Email Studio, you can add the text of the subject and body of your email. The subject is entered in the Subject text box, and the body of the email is entered in the Design View editor. You can add text anywhere in the editor. You can add formatting by placing your cursor or selecting text and then clicking on one of the format buttons on the toolbar. The buttons perform the following formatting: Icon Description Cut the selected text Copy the selected text Paste the selected text Undo the last action Redo the last action Make the selected text bold Italicize the selected text Underscore the selected text Set the font Remove all formatting from the selected text Set the color of the selected text Increase the size of the selected text Decrease the size of the selected text Left align the selected text Center the selected text Right align the selected text Indent Outdent Start/Stop an numbered list Start/Stop a bulleted list Insert a horizontal line Insert a table Insert a hyperlink Perform a search and replace
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In addition to the toolbar, all of these common functions as well as several other common functions can be accessed from a context menu by right-clicking anywhere in the Design View editor. Some of the additional features under the menu include: Edit|Find and Replace - Performs a search and replace. Formatting|(Normal/Heading1-Heading5/Formatted) - Sets the heading level for hierarchical titling. Document|Properties|Background Color - Sets the background color of the document. Document|Open - Opens an HTML file in the Design View editor. Document|Save As - Saves the current file being edited. Document|Print - Prints the current HTML file being edited. Document|Toolbar - Toggles the display of the toolbar. In the Design View, the Enter key will start a new paragraph which performs double spacing. To get a single line break, use Shift-Enter. Adding Field Tags Most emails require some details about the item you have sold or the buyer that you are sending it to. Field Tags allow you to create a placeholder in your email for information that will be filled in from your database when the email is sent. Field Tags appear with double brackets ([[ ]]) around them.
In this example, [[BuyereBayUserid]] is a Field Tag. When the email is sent, the buyer's eBay userid from the sales record will replace the field tag. The result will look like this:
To enter a Field Tag into an email:
1. Place your cursor at the location where the tag is to be entered. 2. Select the field you would like to enter from the Fields list and click the Insert Field button. Your tag will appear in the editor. You can also simply doubleclick the field to enter it at the cursor location.
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When applying any formatting to a Field Tag such as bold or font changes, make sure the entire tag is selected before applying the formatting. If only a portion of the tag is selected, then the HTML will split the tag and cause it to not resolve properly.
Adding Global AutoText There are often large chunks of text that you tend to include repeatedly in your communications and listings. You may have a paragraph describing how and when you ship that you include in several different emails and your listings. By placing that text into a Global AutoText variable, you can easily add this text to any email.
To enter Global AutoText into an email:
1. Place your cursor at the location where the Global AutoText is to be entered. 2. Select the Global AutoText you would like to enter from the Global AutoText list then click the Insert AutoText button. Your tag will appear in the editor. You can also simply double-click the Global AutoText to enter it at the cursor location.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide To get a link in your email that sends your buyer to the eBay checkout page where they can pay for the item, use the Pay Now AutoText. When applying any formatting to a Global AutoText such as bold or font changes, make sure the entire tag is selected before applying the formatting. If only a portion of the tag is selected, then the HTML will split the tag and cause it to not resolve properly. You can also edit existing Global AutoText or even add new ones.
To edit a Global AutoText:
1. Select the Global AutoText you would like to edit from the Global AutoText list. 2. Click the Edit AutoText button. The Edit AutoText window will appear.
3. The requested AutoText will be selected from the list on the left, and the text will appear in the edit box. Make any modifications you desire. 4. You can also select any other AutoText from the list on the left and edit it at this time. 5. If desired, use the New button to create a new AutoText, the Rename button to rename an existing one, or the Delete button to remove an AutoText. 6. Click OK when you are finished. You can nest Global AutoTexts. In other words, GAT's can contain other GAT's. You can also include Field Tags in a Global AutoText. The same set of Global AutoTexts are shared between Email Templates and Ad Templates.
If you change the name of a Global AutoText, all occurrences of it in the Ad and Email templates will be changed automatically. 212
eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Using Math Functions When sending emails that request payments, it is handy to have fields from the database totalled automatically to let your buyers know what is due without having to calculate it themselves. The Math() Function in the Email Studio makes this possible. Math() is a function that prints the result of whatever basic arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) operation is passed to it. It can handle integers and decimals, and it will automatically format the results properly. Template Preview (Design View) Math( 3 + 5 ) 8 Math( 3 - 5 ) -2 Math( 3.0 * 5.0 15 ) Math( 3 / 5 ) 0.6 Math( 3 + 4 + 5) 12 Math(1.4142135 2.0000001064249604 * 1.4142135) Math() can also handle currency. If at least one of the terms given it is currency, the output will be in currency. Template (Design View) Math($3 + $5) Math($3 - $5) Math($3/5) Math($3 * 5) Preview $8.00 ($2.00) $0.60 $15.00
Any Field Tags that resolve to numbers can also be used. Template (Design View) Preview Math([[SalePrice]] + [[Shipping]]) $12.00 Math([[SalePrice]]*[[QtySold]] ) $20.00 Math([[SalePrice]]*[[QtySold]]+[[Shipping]]) $22.00 Multiplication and division operators will always take precedence over addition and subtraction. Therefore... Math(3+[[SalePrice]]*2) will resolve to the same thing as Math([[SalePrice]]*2+3)
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide To force your own precedence, you can use nested Math() functions like this: Math(Math(3+[[SalePrice]])*2) In this example, 3 will be added to the sale price and the result will be multiplied by 2. Math() can handle any parameters that are numeric. You can even add the sale price to a part number (Math([[SalePrice]] + [[PartNum]])) though that would make little sense. If the contents of Math() does not contain all numbers, then it will show as a blank when it is resolved in the email. When using Math(), do not place a space between Math and the first parenthesis or your equation will not resolve properly. Math() can be used in the both the Body and the Subject of the Email Template. Building Combined Emails with Repeat Block Frequently buyers purchase more than one item from a seller. When this occurs, it is convenient to send a single email to a buyer that contains information about all of his purchases. Combined emails need to show information about multiple sales. The Repeat Block allows users to specify which tags should be repeated for each sale. A Repeat Block looks like: Begin Repeat For Each Item Item Title: [[Title]] Item Number: [[eBayItem]] Quantity: [[QtySold]] Winning Bid: [[SalePrice]] End Repeat For Each Item It prints out everything in between Begin Repeat For Each Item and End Repeat For Each Item, and it repeats this for each item in a combined sale. If there is only one item in the sale, it doesn't do any repeating at all. The Repeat Block above will resolve to something like this:
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To insert a Repeat Block in the Description:
1. Highlight all the text and tags that you would like repeated. 2. Right-click and select Insert|Repeat Block. The template editor allows only one Repeat Block per message template. If you attempt to add a second block, the first block will be removed and the second one added in its place. The right-click menu also duplicates most of the standard text-editing functions that are available on the toolbar directly above the editing window. You can also get the same RepeatBlock functionality in the message subject, but you must manually enter the RepeatBlock tags in the subject line. To get a subject that says "You've won! eBay Item(s) (12345678901 09876543210)" enter the RepeatBlock as shown below.
Adding Combined Totals with RepeatTotal In addition to displaying information about multiple sales, you may also want the total of some fields for all sales included in the email. RepeatTotal() is a function that will sum up the total value of whatever field is fed to it inside the parentheses. RepeatTotal([[SalePrice]]) adds the sale prices of all the items in a combined sale. If there's only one item in the sale, RepeatTotal([[SalePrice]]) simply prints out the value of the field it is given. If you pass an non numeric field to RepeatTotal(), it will resolve to nothing.
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Editing Pictures
Editing Pictures
A picture is worth a thousand words, but to an eBay seller, it could make the difference between an item that sells and one that doesn't. Good quality, small images will make your listings look better and load faster. eBay Blackthorne's Picture Studio can help you custom tailor your images for an eBay listing, and it can do it to multiple images at the same time. The Picture Studio provides functions for rotating, cropping, zooming, scaling, adjusting the brightness and contrast, compressing and sizing of pictures. Rotating and scaling can be performed on multiple pictures at the same time. Auto-compressing and Auto-Sizing can be performed automatically just by loading the pictures in to the Picture Studio. Overview of the Picture Studio
To load the Picture Studio:
1. From the Create Items mode, select all the items that you would like to edit the pictures for and choose Items Actions|Edit Pictures from main menu. You can also click the Edit button in the Pictures group on the Item Entry pane. The Picture Studio will appear with all pictures from all selected items loaded.
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Across the top of the Picture Studio is the Item Record Grid. It contains a row for each item that was selected and loaded into the Picture Studio. You can click on an individual row or select multiple rows to work with only the pictures in the selected rows. On the left side is the Picture Selection Pane. It displays a thumbnail for every picture in all of the selected rows in the Item Record Grid. It allows you to further narrow down the selection of items to work with. Click on a picture to select it. Rotating and scaling will work on multiple pictures at the same time. To select multiple pictures, you can hold down the Ctrl key and click on each additional picture you want selected. Holding down the Shift key while selecting two pictures will select all pictures between the two clicked pictures. You can even drag and drop an imaginary box to surround the pictures you want selected. To the right of the Picture Selection pane is the Picture Editor. The Picture Editor displays the last picture selected. It will show the effects of rotating, scaling and changing the brightness and contrast, and it is used to set the bounds for cropping.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Immediately below the Picture Editor is the Picture Editor Dashboard. It contains the controls used to modify the pictures. At the bottom is the message bar. It contains information on how many items are selected from the total, which item the selected picture is used in, the size of the picture, width and height of the picture and the scaling percentage. Rotating If you rotated your camera when taking a picture, you will need to rotate the picture to make it display upright.
To rotate pictures:
1. Select the pictures that you want to rotate. 2. Click one of the rotation buttons on the Picture Editor Dashboard. You will see all selected pictures rotating in the direction of the arrow. Cropping Cropping a picture will remove unnecessary parts of the picture. Cropping is a good way to reduce the size of a picture without losing any important information.
To crop a picture:
1. Select the picture to be cropped from the Picture Selection Pane. 2. Use your cursor to drag and drop a selection box around the area to be saved. 3. Click the crop button to remove everything outside of the selection box. Cropping cannot be performed on multiple pictures at the same time, so if when multiple pictures are selected, the crop button is disabled. Zooming Zooming a picture will let you view more or less of your picture without actually changing its physical stored size.
To zoom a picture:
1. Select the picture to be zoomed from the Picture Selection Pane. 2. Select a value from the Zoom dropdown, or enter a zoom percentage directly into the dropdown. The values behave as follows:
! ! !
values below 100% show a smaller version of the picture. This is useful if you have a large image and want to see it all so you can crop it. 100% (Actual size) will display the image in the same size that it will appear in your listing. values > 100% will zoom in on your picture. You can use the scrollbars to move to different areas of your picture.
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Fit to Window will size the image so that it fits perfectly in the current window size.
Zooming only changes your view while you are editing it. It does not change the size of the picture as it appears on eBay. You need to use scaling to change the actual size of the picture. Scaling Scaling an image will reduce its size and still keep all the original content. When scaling, you may lose some resolution quality but the image will load faster.
To scale pictures:
1. Select the pictures that you want to scale. 2. Move the Scaling slider on the Picture Editor Dashboard to the desired picture width. The slider ranges from 1 to the width of the selected picture in pixels. All selected pictures will be scaled to the specified width.
If you will be scaling and cropping a picture, it is better to crop it first, then scale it. The result will have a higher resolution. Brightness and Contrast Adjusting the brightness and contrast can make your image look better.
To adjust the brightness and contrast of a picture:
1. Select the picture to be adjusted from the Picture Selection Pane. 2. Move the Brightness and Contrast sliders to the desired settings. The relative change will appear as a number on the right.
Compression and Sizing A compressed image will appear to be the same size on the screen, but will be a smaller file. Depending upon how aggressive or mild the compression is, you may or may not see any noticeable difference in the pictures appearance after a compression. Most pictures taken with digital cameras today can be greatly compressed without a noticeable difference. Pictures as large as 3-5 megs can frequently be reduced to 100-200k. All pictures taken with a digital camera should be compressed before posting on eBay.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Pictures from digital cameras also tend to be very large. Usually the smallest setting on a camera is 800x600 and goes up from there. Many computer users still use an 800x600 monitor, so any pictures larger than that will require those users to scroll to see your image. Therefore any pictures posted on eBay should always be scaled to less than 800 pixels, and preferably down to 700 or less. eBay Blackthorne makes compression and sizing easy. You can turn on automatic compression and sizing, and every time a picture is loaded into the Picture Studio, it will be automatically processed or you can manage compression and sizing manually.
To turn on automatic compression:
1. From Tools|Options, select Pictures under Appearance in the Options tree. The following options will appear.
2. Check the Auto-compress pictures when opening the Picture Studio box. 3. Set the Quality after compression slider. Smaller images load faster but will be of lower quality. Adjust this setting based on how much detail you need to show in your pictures. To test this value, make a copy of an image that has come from your camera and load it into the Picture Studio. If it is still of acceptable quality, lower the slider value, make another copy of the master image and load it into the Picture Studio. Repeat this process to find the setting that gives you acceptable results with the smallest file size. 4. Check the Automatically size my pictures to box and set a value. Any image larger than this value will be automatically reduced to this size when it is loaded into the Picture Studio.
To manually compress or size pictures:
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide 1. From Tools|Options, select Pictures under Appearance in the Options tree. The following options will appear.
2. Make sure the auto-compression and auto-sizing are turned of by unchecking the Auto-compress pictures when opening the Picture Studio box and the Automatically size my pictures to box. 3. When you open the Picture Studio, the Compress button will now be available. After making any modifications to your pictures, click the Compress button. 4. Sizing can be performed using the Scaling feature. Joe sells cars and wants to include a picture of the odometer reading in his listings. He takes a high-res picture of the instrument panel for each car and loads them into eB. If Joe had auto-compression and auto-scaling on, then the pictures would be resize and compressed when he loaded the Picture Studio. When he then cropped the odometer, he would not get a very good picture, because it was already resized and he has lost most of the resolution. To get the best possible picture, Joe turns off the auto-compression and autosizing. When he loads a picture of the instrument panel, he uses a Zoom of "Fit to Window" and then crops the odometer. Once it is cropped, he uses the "Compress" button to compress the image and still maintains the high quality. Undoing Changes While working with pictures, you may find at some point that you need to undo some changes you have made. You can use the Revert button on the Picture Editor Dashboard or the Cancel button on the Picture Studio window.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide The Revert button will revert the picture in the Picture Editor to what it was before the Picture Studio was opened. The Cancel button will revert all pictures in the Picture Studio to what they were when the Picture Studio was loaded.
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Database Management
Database Management
All of the information stored in your program is in a file called a database. The file is named BTData.mdb and is located in the Blackthorne\data folder. It is a very important file. It contains all of hard work, so you want to ensure its safety. It is common practice to backup important information like a database on a daily basis. This can be done automatically or manually with eB. You may also need to restore a backed up database at some point if your existing data is corrupted. The database is in Microsoft Access format and is not locked in any way initially. You are free to open it in Access and perform any operations on it that are allowed by Access including writing your own queries, reports, macros and input forms. With the full power of Access, you can import and export to almost any format. If you manipulate your data directly in Access, then be sure to not change the structure of the data. You can add tables, but do not delete any tables or fields or it may no longer work in eB. Also, you should backup your database before performing any manipulations directly in Access just in case something goes wrong. The information in your database can be private also, so if you don't want anyone else opening your database, you should password protect it. Database Administration You can manage your database tasks in the Database Administration window.
To open the Database Administration window:
1. Select Tools|Database Administration from the main menu. The Database Administration window will appear.
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Backing Up and Restoring a Database
Backing up your data is essential to ensure your businesses safety. By default, eB will make automatic daily backups for you and keep the last 3 days worth of backups. It stores these backups in a folder called "Blackthorne Backups" in your "My Documents" folder. By storing them in "My Documents", it prevents them from accidentally being deleted on an uninstall. If your data becomes corrupt, you can restore one of your existing backups. You can also force a manual backup from eB at any time, or even backup your data using your own process. If you have an existing tape backup system or automated backup of any sort that backs up your data on a regular basis, all you need to do is add the BTData.mdb file to your automated process. In fact, you may want to back up the entire data folder to save your settings, reports and custom dictionary as well.
To set the automatic backup options:
1. If you would like daily backups made, check Make Automatic Daily Backups. We HIGHLY recommend you leave this checked. 2. Set the Number of Automatic Backups to keep. Databases can be large files, so the more backups you keep the more space you will need. They are also very important files, so the more backups you can keep, the better off you will be. Choose a number that is a balance between the amount of disk space you have available on your computer and the size of the safety net you want.
To manually backup a database:
1. Click the Backup Now button. The Backup Database window will appear.
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2. A unique file path will be generated by default. It will be in the path to your "My Documents\Blackthorne Backups" folder, and will be given a unique name. You can leave this name, modify it in the text box, or select a new path with the Browse button (...). 3. Click OK and the backup will be saved.
To restore a backup:
1. Click the Restore Now button. The Restore Database window will appear.
2. Use the Browse button (...) to locate and select the file you would like to restore, or you can type it directly into the input box. 3. Click OK and your currently loaded database will be replaced with the specified database. Although, the previously loaded database has been replaced, it is not lost. It has been placed in the My Documents\Blackthorne Backups folder and given a new name. The new name is in the format OldName_Unrestore_MM_DD_YYYY_HHMMSS. If you did not mean to perform the initial restore you can rename the unrestored database and load it again. Also, if the database is corrupt, support may request you send the unrestore database to them.
Password Protecting a Database
This feature is not available in the Basic version. Repairing a Database From time to time, data in your database may become corrupt for various reasons. Therefore, it may become necessary to occasionally repair your database. The database repair can be performed while running eB, or with eB closed. Also, if eB identifies a problem and attempts to close the program, it will prompt you to repair the database in an attempt to solve the problem. 225

To repair a database while running eB:
1. From the main menu, go to Help|Support to load the Support Troubleshooter. 2. In the Support Troubleshooter, select the 3. Fix Database tab. 3. Click the "Repair the Database" button and follow the prompts.
To repair a database while eB is closed:
1. From Windows, choose Start|All Programs|eBay|Blackthorne Software|eBay Blackthorne Database Repair. 2. Follow the prompts. Creating a New Database This feature is not available in the Basic version. Switching Databases This feature is not available in the Basic version.
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Spell Checking
Spell Checking
The path to any professional listing or email starts with ensuring that everything is spelled correctly. The text input boxes for entering listing information and emails have real time spell checking built in. This includes the Title, Subtitle, and Description fields in Create Items, and the HTML View tabs in the Description Editor, Email Studio and Ad Template Studio (the HTML tags will be ignored and not flagged as incorrectly spelled). All words will be checked against an English dictionary file that is built into the program. When a word is spelled incorrectly, it will immediately be flagged with a wavy red line underneath it. You can correct the word from a list of suggested spellings, add the word to the dictionary or choose to ignore the misspellings. You can also turn off spell checking completely.
Correcting a Misspelled Word When a word is misspelled, you can correct it from a list of suggested spellings.
To correct a misspelled word:
1. Right click the misspelled word. A list of suggested spellings will appear.
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2. Click on the correct spelling from the list. The misspelled word will be replaced with the correct spelling. Adding to Your Custom Dictionary If you come across a word that you know is correctly spelled, but is flagged as misspelled, you can add it to your custom dictionary. Once it is added to your custom dictionary, it will be considered a valid word for all future listings.
To add a word to your custom dictionary:
1. Right click the word you would like to add. A context menu will appear.
2. Choose Add. The red wavy line under your word will disappear. 228
The custom dictionary is a readable text file called BTCustomEN.dic. It is stored in your Blackthorne\data folder. You can edit this file if you want to add a lot of words from another source (like another users BTCustomEN.dic folder. Just ensure that you place just one word on each line of the file. Ignoring Words If you come across a word that you know is incorrectly spelled, but you don't want to add it to your dictionary and you don't want to be bothered with the red wavy lines, you can choose to ignore it. Ignored words will be ignored only for the current text box you are entering data into.
To ignore a word:
1. Right click the word you would like to ignore. A context menu will appear. 2. Choose Ignore All. The red wavy line under your word will disappear for all occurrences of the word. Enabling and Disabling Spell Checking Spell checking can be turned on or off.
To turn off spell checking:
1. From Tools|Options choose Appearance|Data Entry from the Options tree. The Data Entry options will appear.
2. Set the Enable spell checking box.
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Add links from Item entry, email studio, ad templ studio.
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Synchronizing Data with eBay

Synchronizing Data with eBay
eBay Blackthorne is different than most auction management solutions since it runs on your local computer, and not on the internet. Because it interacts with eBay which is an internet application, there must be a lot of communication between the two applications. The most obvious interaction is when you click the Submit button to send listings to eBay, but there are many more times when the two programs must talk. eBay Blackthorne needs to get bidding info, lists of categories, buyer message info, and much more from eBay. There are also several housecleaning functions that must occur like making automated backups, and getting shipping information from 3rd party shipping programs. It would be very annoying if these tasks were manual and required user intervention so we created the Servant to perform these tasks for you. Automatic Synchronization Using the Servant The Servant performs all the tasks necessary to keep your data in synch with eBay and other housekeeping tasks so you don't have to. The functions performed by the Servant include:
! ! ! ! ! ! !
performing automatic backups refreshing your listings, sales, buyers, feedback, fees and dispute info incrementally checking for new updates and messages to eB getting your buyer messages from eBay making sure your list of store categories is in synch with eBay making sure you have the latest categories and item specifics making sure the list of finance offers is current
The Servant is always running. If you are not connected to the internet, then it simply doesn't perform any internet actions, but it will continue to run until you are connected. The Servant is a pretty intelligent tool. It will perform each task at different intervals so you only update data as needed. For instance, it checks to list scheduled items every minute, and checks for new versions of the program only every 4 hours. It also prioritizes its tasks. Scheduled listings will always override any other tasks, and tasks like refreshing the finance offers are very low and only occur if nothing else is pending. The Servant can also wait until your computer is idle for a period of time before performing some tasks. Since downloading categories can take several minutes, the Servant waits until your program has been idle for 10 minutes, and then it assumes you are away from your desk and will perform the category update for you (if there are new categories available).
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Most of these functions are very quick, and are hardly noticeable in the interface. Some of those that take longer, like getting categories are scheduled for times when your computer is not in use. There are a few important tasks that can be time consuming and reduce your performance while they are occurring. Refreshing listings, sales, buyers, feedback and disputes are all very important tasks, yet can slow your computer down while they are working. To improve performance of users with very large databases, we have added the option to turn off these automatic tasks. To turn off the processor intensive tasks, toggle Refresh|Automatically Refresh from the main menu. When these tasks are turned off, it is up to the user to perform them manually from the Refresh Activity window. Manually Refreshing and Updating Although the Servant is keeping your data relatively up to date, it may not have performed some tasks for several hours. The Refresh Activity window allows you to force immediate updates to some of the data normally maintained by the Servant. In addition, there are some Servant tasks that can be turned off and will need to be refreshed manually. The Refresh Activity window also allows you to perform those manual refreshes. eBay Blackthorne is designed to take care of all these tasks for you. Ideally, you should simply leave all functions of the Servant on, and only perform a particular refresh when there is a valid reason.
To refresh activity manually:
1. From the main menu, select Refresh|Refresh Activity... or click F5. The Refresh Activity window will appear.
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2. Select the type of information that you would like refreshed in the Data to Refresh group. The following table describes what each refresh option will do. Refresh Menu Item All Listings Action performed Checks all types of refreshes to be performed all at once. Performs a refresh of your listing data. Any new bidder information as well as any changes you make to your listing on eBay will be updated and saved in your listing record. If a listing ends, then a sale record will be created for the listing. If the listing was successful, a buyer record will be created also. When retrieving information for the new sale record, all activity for other running sales will be retrieved and stored at the same time. You can choose to update all Running and Completed listings or just the Completed listings. If you run many listings, and you do not care to see bids as they change, you should choose to only update Completed listings. This will make the refresh faster. Performs a refresh of the sales data. All new activity on
Sales
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide sales will be retrieved and saved in your sales records. Performs a refresh to update listing fees for listings. Listing fees will automatically be retrieved when the listing is over and a sale record is created. If you would like to have them updated before then, use this refresh. Performs a refresh of any feedbacks you have received.
Listing Fees
Feedback
3. Select the Period to be refreshed. By default, you should always refresh Since last refresh. This will get you all the data since the last time you refreshed. If however, you are missing some data, you may want to force the refresh between certain dates using the From/To option and selecting a past date range. 4. Click Start to begin the refresh. Steve has a very large database and a slow computer and internet connection. When "Automatically Refresh" is turned on, his computers performance gets much slower. Since Steve only needs a refresh of his data in the morning, he sets "Automatically Refresh" off. Each morning, he selects Refresh|Refresh Activity. He chooses to refresh only his completed listings, sales, and combined sale information since this is all he needs to perform his shipping tasks. He does this while he goes for his morning coffee. When he returns, his listings, sales, buyers, and orders are updated. You can also perform a refresh on selected listings or sales as well as refreshing category and other types of information.
To refresh other information:
1. From the Refresh menu, choose the type of refresh to perform. The following table describes what each refresh option will do. Refresh Menu Item Refresh Selected Listings Action performed Refreshes all listings that are selected in the Listings grid. It will perform a separate call to eBay for each selected listing. If refreshing a large number of listings, it will be faster to Refresh All Listings. The break even point will depend upon your connection and computer speed. Any changes to the listing performed manually on eBay will be recorded in eB. Refreshes all sales that are selected in the Sales grid. It will perform a separate call to eBay for each selected sale. If refreshing a large number of sales, it will be faster to Refresh All Sales. The break even point will depend upon your connection and computer speed.
Refresh Selected Sales
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Update eBay Categories
Update Item Specifics
Update Store Categories
Retrieves the latest categories from eBay. This is performed by the Servant no more than once a day after your computer has been idle for 10 minutes. If you are having trouble with finding a category, you can manually force this check. The update will occur in the background and may take several minutes to complete. You can still use the program while the update is being performed. Retrieves the latest Item Specifics information from eBay. This is performed by the Servant daily and you should only need to manually force the update if you are having problems with Item Specifics or if asked to by support. Retrieves the list of your store categories daily. If you just changed your store categories on eBay and want them reflected in eB immediately, you can use this feature.
Synchronization with Selling Manager and my eBay eB, Selling Manager, and my eBay are all eBay Selling Tools. eB is primarily PC based while Selling Manager and my eBay are web based. While there is a lot of duplication of features between the solutions, some users will still use more than one solution to manage their business. When using multiple solutions, it is important to understand how changes in one affect the other.
Invoicing Status
From my eBay, sellers can indicate whether or not they would like eBay to send an invoice automatically at the end of a sale. eB also allows users to send invoices in batches. In eB, invoices are performed using the First Notification to High Bidder email. In my eBay, the invoices are set to be included in all sales or none. In eB, sellers can choose which sales to send invoices to. Since my eBay performs this action as an all or nothing feature and since many sellers like to send both the eBay invoice and the more customized eB emails, we do not record the invoices as being sent in eB when they are sent from my eBay. When sending invoices through eB, the sale records will automatically move from the Ready for Payment Request status to the Awaiting Payment status. Users who do not want to send invoices using eB, should simply change the sale status manually.
Shipping Status
Sellers can record the date an item was shipped in Selling Manager. When eB performs a refresh to the sales record, it will retrieve the date the item was shipped and update the status of the sale to Shipped. Likewise, when sellers change the status of a sale in eB to Shipped, the date the item shipped will be sent to Selling Manager. 235

Payment Status
Sellers can record the date an item was paid for in Selling Manager. When eB performs a refresh to the sales record, it will retrieve the date the item was paid for and update the status of the sale to Payment Cleared. Likewise, when sellers change the status of a sale in eB to Payment Received, Payment Cleared, or Ready to Ship, the paid flag will be sent to Selling Manager.
Modifying Listings
Although not directly related to my eBay or Selling Manager, users can manually change the content of their listings on eBay. The next time the listing is refreshed in eB, either manually or from the Servant, the changes made on eBay will be made to the listing record.
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Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting
When you experience problems or have questions, it is important that you get the help you need as quickly as possible. The Support Troubleshooter is provided to help solve your problem as soon as possible. In addition, many of the functions performed by eB are recorded in the Activity Log. By viewing the Activity Log, you may be able to identify any problem you might be having. The Support Troubleshooter When you experience problems or have questions, it is important that you get the help you need as quickly as possible. The Support Troubleshooter is designed to do just that. Ideally, the Support Troubleshooter will be able to solve your problem before you ever have to contact email support. If it can't, then by performing all the steps in the troubleshooter before contacting support, you can reduce the time it takes to solve your problem. Traditionally, a user will contact support with a problem and support will respond with several suggestions or questions to narrow down the problem. The Support Troubleshooter replaces these initial emails by helping you run through the suggestions before sending a support email. The Support Troubleshooter performs the following tasks:
! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
verifies your computer hardware to make sure you have enough resources to run eB. helps you download the latest operating system updates to ensure you have the necessary software pre-requisites. checks to see if you are running the latest version of eB and helps you download the new version if not. checks your eB subscription and connection to eBay. repairs your database helps you search the documentation and discussion boards for an existing answer to your question. gives you the option of trying the latest beta to see if it solves your problem. if all else fails, it collects the necessary information about your problem and sends it to customer support.
To run the Support Troubleshooter:
1. From the main menu, select Help|Support. The Support Troubleshooter will appear.
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2. Starting with the first tab, you will check your Prerequisites. This is to verify that you have the proper hardware and software for running eB. The Hardware group will check to see if you have a fast enough processor and enough memory to run eB. Ideally, you should have at least a 1.5GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. If you do not, then you may experience slow response times. Upgrading to more RAM will help reduce this if the performance is unacceptable. Many problems can occur if you are not running the latest Windows updates. These problems include failing to start, slow responses, and program crashing. Clicking the Run Windows Update button in the Operating System group will take you to Windows Update. You should regularly verify that you are running the latest updates available. We recommend you check the "Turn on Automatic Windows Updates" box. When checked, your copy of Windows will automatically download the latest updates when you aren't using your computer. If you are not running the latest version of eB, then your problem may already be fixed. The Latest Version group will check to see if you are running the latest version of eB. If not, click the Download Update button. You should always verify you are running the latest Windows updates and the latest version of eB before contacting support. If you are not, then the first thing
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide support will recommend is to perform these updates. 3. To use eB, you must have a valid subscription, and eB must be able to communicate with eBay over your internet connection. Click on the Connection tab to validate your subscription and connection.
Click the Check Your Subscription button to verify that you are subscribed. If you are not subscribed, you will be provided with a "Subscription check unsuccessful. Click here to subscribe" link. Click the Test Connection to eBay button to see if eB can contact eBay. Even though you may have a working internet connection, this test may fail if you have a firewall that has not given eB permission to use. If your connection fails, click the link at the bottom to view the Connections KnowledgeBase to troubleshoot your connection. 4. From time to time, your database may be corrupted in some way. The Fix Database tab allows you to run a repair on your database.
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Simply click the Repair the Database button to repair the database. A message will appear when it is complete. Repairing your database performs the following operations:
! ! ! ! !
performs a compaction and a Microsoft Access database repair fixes any missing indexes, primary keys or errors in the table structure validates data relationships and removes dead links fixes any missing default field values rebuilds the sidebar tree views for all the modes, removing any incorrect nodes
5. Most common errors and questions will already have an answer in the documentation or on the Discussion Board. You can check for an answer to your problem on the Get a Quick Answer tab.
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We are constantly adding more information to the documentation as we identify trouble spots to users. Click the Search the Documentation button to load the documentation. You can enter keywords or a question into the documentation search and it will provide you a list of related topics. The most knowledgeable eB users hang out at the eB Discussion Boards. The Discussion Boards can be a great place to get a quick answer. Click the Go to the Discussion Board button to view the boards. 6. In addition to the released version that is available, most of the time, the next version is available in Beta test. The latest beta can be downloaded from the Try the Latest Beta tab.
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A Beta test version of the software is a version that has not been fully tested, but may contain a solution to your problem. When downloading a beta version, you should be aware of the possibility that it may contain bugs and you may need to revert to a previous version if you have problems. You should also always backup your data before loading a beta version. The Try the Latest Beta tab displays the latest release notes for eB. If you see the word "Beta" next to the Version as in the above example, then it means a beta version of the product is available. The bullets below indicate fixes made in that version. You may be able to determine if your problem is already fixed. If so, use the Install the Latest Beta button to upgrade to the beta version. 7. If none of the previous actions fixed your problem, then you should send an email to support. Please make sure you have checked everything on tabs 1-5 before emailing support since that is the first thing they will recommend if you haven't performed the checks. You can email support from the Contact Support tab.
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Enter one of your existing email accounts in the From dropdown. This email account must be correctly setup and able to send emails. Select an appropriate message Subject or enter your own. Enter a Detailed description of question or problem. The more accurate anc complete the information, the better we'll be able to help you. Enter your Firewall software, Internet Connection type, and Network Environment. If you check Include saved settings and logged information in email, then your settings files and activity log will be sent with the email. This can be very valuable to us in helping identify your problem. Click the Send button when the form is complete. If your email account is not properly set up, then you will not be able to send a request this way. Instead, you should use the "submit a support request from eBay Help" link to submit your request directly through eBay. The Activity Log 243
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Appendices
Getting Mail Settings From Outlook
1) On the top-level menu, select Tools | E-Mail Accounts.
2) On the E-Mail Accounts form that comes up, select "View or change existing e-mail accounts" and click "Next."
3) Select the relevant E-mail account by clicking on it, then click "Change...
4) The outgoing SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) mail server is listed
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Supercharging the Listing Process - An Extended Example

(Scenario: Robert Northrop, proprietor of Endless Mountain Enterprises, acquired a large collection of rubber stamps, which he knew nothing about. This example takes you through the whole process of how he learned about them, then listed them en masse. The example shows how various advanced eBay Blackthorne features can greatly speed up the process.)
! ! !
Step 1: Research Step 2: Plan of Attack. Step 3: Setting up Templates/Presets.
Step 1: Research To gain some familiarity with rubber stamps, Robert logged on to eBay, clicked on "Advanced Search" and searched for closed auctions of the same items he had received. This quickly gave him an idea of what these items are currently fetching (as opposed to what some sellers fancifully believe they might fetch), so that he could price his accordingly. He read the descriptions to find out what people consider important about this type of item. In the case of rubber stamps, it seems that some of the important things are:
! ! ! ! !
Brand name - there is one enormous manufacturer (Stampin' Up!), a few major manufacturers, and hundreds of one-person boutiques. Is it a set, or just an individual stamp? How many stamps are in the set, and is it a complete set? Is the set/stamp still available new, or is it retired? What is its overall condition?
Step 2: Plan of Attack Robert's goal was to enter these items into his database, spending as little time as possible in the process, then place all of them up for auction without investing any more time at all. He wanted each ad to explain all the unique characteristics of each item, but he wanted it done completely automatically. To do this, he wanted to use several Item Fields to store extra, unique information about each item. He knew that he could use Custom Field 1 and Custom Field 2, but if he was going to totally automate the listing process, he would need more. So he "borrowed" some fields that he didn't normally use. When creating each listing, he planned to store the following into these fields (all of which accept text input): Item Field Contents
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Description Custom Field 1 Custom Field 2 Part Number Storage Location Lot Size Condition of item "set of stamps"/"stamp" Brand Name Name of item or set Retired/Still available Count of items in set
In the next release of eBay Blackthorne, users will have the ability to create and name their own custom fields. This will obviously streamline the process described here. He checked to see if eBay could supply Item Specifics for rubber stamps, but they weren't available. Robert experimented with photographing the stamps, but then settled on simply scanning in the "business end" of each one. Step 3: Setting up Templates/Presets With the plan of attack in place, Robert started by creating a new template. Templates are listed by whatever is in the Title field, so Robert typed in "Rubber Stamp." He wants the actual item titles to describe the unique characteristics of each stamp, but he also wants to enter each piece of information exactly once.
In the Part Number field, he typed: "Enter Item Name" as a placeholder to remind himself that this field was going to be holding the item name. For category, Robert brought up the Category Selector, and searched for "Stamp":
In the search results, he double-clicked on Crafts > Stamping > Stamps > This automatically switches the display to the Browse tab, and fills in the category tree:
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Crafts > Stamping > Stamps > is not a fully-resolved category, so Robert clicked on Mounted> in the next column, and then Other Themes.
His intention here was to pre-select a general stamp category for the template, so that when he was entering actual items, selection of the specific category for that item would be very quick. in the "Description" field, he entered "CONDITION OF ITEM" to remind himself what was going to be stored there. Q: "But doesn't the "Description" field need to contain the full description of the item?" A: "Not at all, little grasshopper - watch and learn."
Even though he planned to use a theme, he skipped the "Theme" selector, knowing that there's a better way to select a theme. He moved on to the "Ad Template" field, and
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide selected "Manage Ad Templates..." He highlighted "Enhanced," clicked "Duplicate," named the duplicate template "Rubber Stamps," then clicked "OK" followed by "Done."
Preparing for Photos Using Windows Explorer, Robert created a new folder for rubber stamps, then a subfolder for images. Using an image-editing program, he created a sample rubber stamp image, and inserted it into the template. Later, when entering individual stamps, he'd be able to quickly find their images because the image finder would automatically start in that folder.
Format and Pricing His research having told him that rubber stamps are very popular, he set the template up as a 3-day auction, with a $0.99 starting price and no reserve. He thought it best to risk occasionally having to "give one away" in return for the added interest that people bring to auctions with low opening bids and no reserve.
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Custom Fields He chose "Gallery Only" as the default listing upgrade, and entered "SET/SINGLE" and "BRAND NAME" in the two custom fields to remind himself what he planned to store in them. (Later, when he realized that 90% of the stamps in circulation come from the company Stampin' Up, Robert went back to the template and replaced "BRAND NAME" with "Stampin' Up!" - thus even further reducing the amount of typing he needed to do.)
He likewise entered "RETIRED/STILL AVAILABLE" in the Storage Location field.
He set up shipping and payment to match his normal business practices. That takes care of the last of the dull details. Now we get to the fun part. The Fun Part On the Ad Template menu, he selected "Rubber Stamps" and clicked "Edit."
First thing he wanted to do was set up the item title exactly the way he wanted it, without needing to write in the details of each item himself. He clicked on "Edit AutoText..." followed by "New..." He named the new AutoText "TitleText":
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For the actual title text, he entered: [[Custom2]] "[[PartNum]]": [[StorageLocation]] [[Custom1]] Next, at the top of the template body, he inserted [[TitleText]] on a line by itself, then clicked "Preview." The actual text that appeared was: "BRAND NAME "ENTER ITEM NAME": RETIRED/STILL AVAILABLE STAMP/SET OF STAMPS," which was exactly what he wanted. While he had the preview window open, he used the on-the-fly theme picker at the top of the window to select a theme. This is a convenient way to select a theme because the actual themes immediately display in the preview window.
He quickly set up the template body by inserting mostly item fields and AutoText:
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Then checked his work by clicking the Preview tab once more:
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide With the template in place, Robert settled down to a short day of data entry, made significantly more efficient by his preparatory work. When he got into his stride, he found that he could enter all the information about an item in about one minute. To generate the title for the ad, he clicked "Preview." What came up typically looked like:
Before closing the preview, he copied the title, then pasted it directly into the Title field, checking carefully that it didn't get truncated in the process (the Title field only accepts the first 55 characters, then ignores the rest - this is because eBay only allows 55character titles). In a little over an hour, Robert submitted 100 sets of rubber stamps to eBay, using the Blackthorne scheduling feature to start a new auction every five minutes. The advertising copy here is not Shakespearean (it's difficult to come up with consistently correct syntax when some items might be singular and others plural), but it gets all the relevant information across efficiently.
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Private Registry Files

eB stores a lot of information related to how you use the program. It keeps track of your option settings, preferred window sizes, default options, database paths, and internet paths to different functions. Some programs (like our predecessor Seller's Assistant) store this information in the Windows registry. We have chosen to store them in our own private registry files. This makes it easier for users to interchange settings between computers and it also helps with program support. Private registry files have an extension of .pvt. They are text files and are readable in a text editor. We do not recommend you modify them in any way. The following table describes the private registry files created by eB. Name Location Purpose Settings.pvt data Holds all options set on the Options window. This file can be folder shared between computers to easily transfer option settings to another computer. System.pvt bin Holds all state information related to the local computer. This folder includes information on window sizes and locations, default directories, and operational settings (like "Don't show this window again"). This file should not be shared with another computer. bin bt.pvt Holds encoded information about the database currently folder loaded. This file should not be shared with another computer. Deleting this file will reset eB to using the BTData.mdb database in the data folder. bin daily.pvt Holds paths to internet web sites. Each day it is rebuilt by the folder servant with the latest internet paths.
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Adding Pictures to Print Templates

By default, the Packing List contains a picture of each item included in the list. If you have chosen to remove this, or you are running with an older packing list and now want to include it, you can follow the steps below. There are four components necessary to get pictures to show up in your print template. Pic1Loc Field First, the list of available fields must include the Pic1Loc field. This is not customizable by the user. The print template will either include this field or it will not. Any print template that includes this field can have a picture displayed. ItemPicture Control A picture box control must be placed on the form where you would like the picture to appear. You can place it anywhere in the Details group, and size it to your liking. The example below is taken from the Packing List.
The (Name) must be set to ItemPicture, and the SizeMode should be set to Zoom to get the largest available image without losing the aspect ratio. You can set these properties by selecting the ItemPicture and filling in the properties in the lower right hand corner of the Print Studio. An example is shown below.
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In addition, you can also choose a LineColor, LineStyle and LineWeight to get a box around your image. You should not need to change any of the other properties. txtPic1Loc Field You must also place an invisible text box called txtPic1Loc in the Details group. The txtPic1Loc text box will contain the path to the picture and is used by the Script to fill in the ItemPicture control. The control does not have to be visible since it is only used by the script. It can also be any size, but its best to make it small so it doesn't get in the way.
You must also set several of the txtPic1Loc properties in the lower left. To set the properties, select the txtPic1Loc text box and set the (Name) property to txtPic1Loc, the Visible property to False, and the DataField property to Pic1Loc. You should not need to change any of the other properties.
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Print Template Script To make this all work together, the Print Template must contain some internal script coding. All current versions of the print templates that support pictures contain this script already. If you happen to have an older print template and want to add the scripting, you can open the rpx file and include the following code. <Script><![CDATA[public void Detail_BeforePrint() { try { string u = @" " + ((TextBox)rpt.Sections["Detail"].Controls["txtPic1Loc"]).Text.ToString(); System.Net.WebClient clientAHB = new System.Net.WebClient();
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide System.IO.Stream dataAHB = clientAHB.OpenRead(u); System.IO.StreamReader readerAHB = new System.IO.StreamReader(dataAHB); ((DataDynamics.ActiveReports.Picture)rpt.Sections["Detail"].Controls["ItemPicture"]).I mage = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(readerAHB.BaseStream); } catch {} } ]]></Script> As shown in this example:
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Glossary
#
<Blank Item>: The special item template that ships with this program. It contains no information, just blank fields.
A
Activity Log: A text log that Blackthorne keeps, showing all program activity, including communication with eBay and any picture hosting sites. Ad Template: A pre-formatted ad description that can be reused. Automation: a Blackthorne utility that schedules and executes tasks automatically.
B
Back Button: A button at the top left of the Blackthorne application window. The back button "remembers" the most recent views and can instantly return the user to any of them. BCC: Blind-Carbon-Copy: An e-mail address (other than the main addressee) that is sent a copy of outgoing mail. The BCC address is INVISIBLE to all other recipients of the message. Bid History: A record of all bids made in an auction, showing who made the bids, how much they were for, and exactly when they were placed. Browse Buttons: Small buttons on the Help window that allow the user to browse back and forward between related help topics. Bulk Editing: The ability to make the same changes in multiple auction items simultaneously.
C
Categories: Everything on eBay is assigned to one or two categories - descriptors that start with the most general term and become increasingly more specific. Example: Antiques > Asian Antiques > Chinese > Statues > Buddha. CC: Carbon-Copy: An e-mail address (other than the main addressee) that is sent a copy of outgoing mail. The CC address is visible to all recipients of the message. Combining Sales: Combining shipping expenses for a buyer who bid on (and won) multiple auctions. Consignment: A quantity of items belonging to a third party, given to you for auction under the terms of a Consignment Plan.
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Consignment Plan: A specific agreement between an auctioner and a consignor, spelling out the financial and other terms between the two parties. Consignor: A person who gives you items to sell at auction for him. Counters: a Javascript applet that shows how many page views have been requested CSV: Comma-Separated Values: A popular way for unrelated programs to exchange data with each other - each piece of exported data is separated by a comma. Each row and column is labelled so the importing program (usually, not always!) knows how to interpret the data. Custom Fields: Each item has two custom fields that you can use to store arbitrary information about that kind of item: shoe size; country of origin; year of manufacture...
D
Description Editor: A "pseudo-WSYIWIG" editor for ad descriptions that includes a Preview feature. Directory: Another name for a folder or sub-folder, either on your hard drive on on your FTP server. The terms "folder," "directory," "sub-folder," and "sub-directory" are used interchangably. DPI: Dots Per Inch: A measure of the fineness of output of a printer or computer monitor. Sometimes used to describe the amount of detail in an image. Dutch Auction: A special type of auction where identical items are offered to separate bidders.
E
eB: eBay Blackthorne eBay Time: eBay Time is the same as Pacific Zone time (the time of day at eBay headquarters in San Jose, California in the United States). Starting and ending times for all auctions are listed in eBay time. ePS: eBay Picture Services
F
Field Presets: Pre-filled out information, ready to be inserted in some of the fields of a form. Filters: Pre-defined or customized views that display only items that match a set of criteria. Filters automatically update their display when any changes are made to the database. FTP: File Transfer Protocol: Another Internet protocol similar to TCP/IP, but specially suited to large file transfer. Blackthorne uses FTP to upload photographs to servers.
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Glossary fully-resolved category: eBay categories are of the form "Antiques > Furniture > Desks > Post 1900" Starting with a very general category, it gets more and more specific, ending with the most precise sub-category available. Any category that ends with ">" is not fully resolved. FVF: Final Value Fee: an eBay fee that is a percentage of the selling price.
G
Grid: The grid pane shows information about auction items in a compact, tabular format. Click on any item in the grid to get an expanded listing of that item in the Details pane.
H
Hiding Fields: Fields that you don't use can be removed from the display area, reducing the amount of clutter onscreen. Hosting Pictures: See Picture Hosts HTTP: Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol: the file-transfer protocol that allows the World Wide Web to exist. Invented in its entirety by a character named Al Gore (played by Tim Berners-Lee).
I
Image Well: An input box (titled: "Click to Insert Picture") that also allows for insertion of an image by dragging and dropping it onto the well. Once dropped, the image appears in the well. ISP: Internet Service Provider - a company that provides internet access and space on their web server to upload pictures, etc. Item Record: All of the information about a particular auction item. Item Specifics: An eBay service that automatically supplies most of the information about common items like DVDs
L
Lot Size: The number of items being sold to a single bidder, in a single auction. See also "Dutch Auction." Low Inventory Level: A number you can set for each inventory item. The item will appear in the Low Inventory Filter when the quantity on hand drops below this amount.
M
Multiview: See Grid
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N
NPBA: Non-Paying Bidder Alert NYI: Not Implemented Yet: A program feature that is intended for a future release.
P
Part Number: A field provided for part numbers you many use in your business to track inventory. PCMCIA: An industry-standard peripheral hardware interface for laptop computers. Also the Founding Father of the too-cute acronym Movement: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms. (Almost lost in the mists of time is the original derivation: Personal Computer Memory Card International Association.) PDF: Portable Document Format - used by Adobe Corp for documents that can be read using their free Acrobat reader. Pending Listings: Items that are ready and scheduled for listing at some future time. Items can be scheduled using eBay's (for fee) service, or scheduled using Blackthorne. Picture Hosts: Web servers that allow photographs to be uploaded to public directories. the "address" of the photograph in the public directory can then be sent to eBay. This is sometimes a cheaper option than uploading the photograph to eBay directly. Preset: A named set of field values that can be block-assigned. Push-out: A special link that, when clicked on, inserts extra explanatory text into the page, pushing the existing text out of the way. A second click on the link removes the extra text.
Q
QuickLinks: Small icons at the top of the Details Panel that link to more information about the current item.
R
Radio Buttons: A group of option buttons that are mutually exclusive - only one can be selected at a time. Named after the station-selector buttons on older car radios. Relistable auction: An auction that received no bids, or no bids that matched the reserve price. eBay allows a one-time free re-listing in such cases. Right-Click: Clicking the lesser-used button on the mouse. For right-handed people, this is the right mouse button. Right-clicking often brings up a context-sensitive menu that varies depending on where the mouse cursor is on the screen.
S
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Glossary SA: Seller's Assistant, either Pro or Basic Scheduled Submissions: Auctions that have been scheduled to begin at some point in the future. Screenshot: An image of a running computer program that is taken directly from the computer display. Second Chance Offer: Offering the auction item to a losing bidder. A second chance offer is unlikely to be accepted if the asking price is more than the amount bid by that bidder. Seller Assistant: The previous version of eBay Blackthorne. Servant: The Servant is a Blackthorne utility that allows you to precisely schedule (e.g.) auction starts without any need for you to be present. Shill: In the context of auctions, a shill is a acquaintance of the seller who bids on an item for the sole purpose of raising the price. Sometimes it is the seller himself, using a separate eBay account. Sometimes, multiple shills will bid on the same auction. Shill bids are illegal, and if uncovered will result in eBay sanctions and/or prosecution. eBay uses sophisticated software to uncover suspicious bidding patterns. SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol: A common E-mail protocol. Stage: For an item, its current point in the sales process. Stage family: A group of stages (in the lifespan of an item) that share certain characteristics. For example, "Listed" and "Relisted" both belong to the same stage family. Status: For an item, the current stage in the sales process (used interchangably with "stage")
T
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol: The unwieldy name given to the set of protocols that unrelated computers use to communicate with each other. Without TCP/IP, there would be no Internet. Template: A named document with a preset format, used as a starting point for an auction item so that the format does not have to be recreated each time it is used. You can create as many different templates as you need. TWAIN: A standard protocol that allows computer programs to communicate with imaging devices like scanners and cameras. Popularly thought to be the too-cute acronym: Technology Without An Interesting Name. In fact, it's not an acronym at all. A reference to how difficult it previously was to connect imaging devices to computers, It was taken from Rudyard Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West" : "...and never the twain shall meet..."
W
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get: an editor that shows what the final copy will look like while you are in the process of creating it. Before WYSIWYG came along, editors were WYGIAG: What You Get Is Anybody's Guess
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Index
A Ad Template...................................... 254 Advanced Search ...................... 122, 254 All-Items Folder................................ 116 Assigning Email Account ................................ 71 Seller Accounts ............................... 71 Assigning ............................................ 71 AutoText ........................................... 254 B Back button ............. 15, 21, 71, 116, 122 Blank Item........................................... 67 C Column Set........................................ 116 Context-sensitive menu............. 116, 119 Conventions Used ............................... 15 Creating Filters.................................. 122 Customize View........................ 116, 122 D Description Editor............................... 71 Duplicating Lists............................................... 119 Duplicating........................................ 119 Dutch Auction..................................... 71 E E-mail templates ............................... 213 Endless Mountain Enterprises........... 254 Exit...................................................... 59 Extended Example ............................ 254 F Field Presets Managing ...................................... 101 Field Presets ...................................... 101 Field Presets ...................................... 105 Filter Deleting......................................... 122 Duplicating.................................... 122 Moving.......................................... 122 Renaming ...................................... 122 Viewing......................................... 122 Filter.................................................. 116 Filter.................................................. 122 Filter.................................................. 125 Filter Actions Menu .......................... 122 Folders............................................... 116 Format Selector................................... 48 Free Relists........................................ 144 FTP site ............................................... 21 G Getting Started .............................. 15, 47 H Hide/Show Filters ............................. 122 Hide/Show Sidebar ............................. 48 Hotmail ............................................... 21 I Importing Data ................................................. 49 Other Data....................................... 21 Importing............................................. 21 Importing............................................. 49 Installing ............................................. 21 Introduction......................................... 15 Invoicing ........................................... 163 Item Lifespan......................................... 122 Item ................................................... 122 Item Templates............................ 67, 105 Items Creating................................. 101, 105 Submitting..................................... 112 Items.................................................. 112 Items Views Pane.............................. 122 L Lifespan............................................. 122 List Creating......................................... 119 Deleting......................................... 119 Duplicating.................................... 119 Moving.......................................... 119 Renaming ...................................... 119 Viewing......................................... 119 List .................................................... 119 Listing Upgrade .................................. 71 Listing Your First Item ....................... 53
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide Listings Monitoring .................................... 136 Viewing......................................... 136 Listings.............................................. 136 M Main Window ..................................... 48 Manage Ad Templates ...................... 254 Manage Presets ................................. 101 Math() ............................................... 213 Mode Tabs .......................................... 48 Monitor Listings........................ 112, 131 Multiview Grid.................................... 67 Multiview Panel .................................. 48 N Navigation Toolbar ............................. 48 New Item Action button...................... 67 O Organize Items Using Filters.................................. 122 Using Folders ................................ 116 Using Lists .................................... 119 Organize Items .................................. 115 P Payments Receiving ...................................... 171 Payments ........................................... 171 Picture Studio.................................... 254 Preset................................................. 101 Previewing Item Description............................ 107 Previewing ........................................ 107 Printing Address Labels.............................. 176 Items.............................................. 128 Listings.......................................... 149 Packing Slips................................. 176 Profit ............................................. 185 Sales .............................................. 185 Sales Tax Report ........................... 185 Printing.............................................. 128 Printing.............................................. 149 Printing.............................................. 176 Printing.............................................. 185 Q Quick Finish........................................ 47 Quick Start .................................... 47, 53 QuickLinks.......................................... 48 R Repeat Blocks Inserting ........................................ 213 Repeat Blocks ................................... 213 RepeatTotal ....................................... 213 Resubmitting Items ........................... 114 S Sales Tax Report Printing.......................................... 185 Sales Tax Report ............................... 185 Searching........................................... 125 Second Chance Offers....................... 144 Seller Accounts ................................... 63 Seller's Assistant Importing......................................... 21 Seller's Assistant ................................. 21 Setup Assistant Using ............................................... 21 Setup Assistant.................................... 21 Setup Assistant.................................... 47 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.......... 252 Submission Errors............................. 114 Submitting Item ............................................... 112 Second Chance Offers................... 144 Submitting......................................... 112 Submitting......................................... 144 T TCP/IP................................................. 21 Templates.................................. 105, 213 Theme choosing .......................................... 53 Theme ................................................. 53 U Using Folders .................................... 116 Using Seller Accounts....................... 115 Using the Setup Assistant ................... 21 V Viewing Completed ..................................... 160 Disputed ........................................ 160 Filter.............................................. 122 List ................................................ 119 Listings.......................................... 136 Recent Bidding Activity ............... 136
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Index Related Pages on eBay.................. 152 Relistable Listings......................... 136 Running Listings........................... 136 Scheduled Listings ........................ 136 Viewing............................................. 119 Viewing............................................. 122 Viewing............................................. 136 Viewing............................................. 160 Views Pane........................................ 116 Views Sidebar ..................................... 48 W Windows Folders .............................. 116 WYSIWYG......................................... 71
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eBay Blackthorne - The Official Guide

eBay Blackthorne - Seller's Assistant Migration Guide

Preparing for Migration

How to Transfer Data from SA to Blackthorne

Downloading and Installing

Already have Blackthorne Installed?

Importing SA Data and Setting Your Preferences

Changes from Seller's Assistant