NOTE: This is an excerpt from my printed, 60-page Blackthorne Pro Quick Start Guide downloadable PDF version which is available in my eBay store.

There are several workshops I've presented about Blackthorne Pro -
please check my About Me page for links to those.

BTPro is an application for SERIOUS SELLERS. It is not called "Easy Lister" or "Simple Seller". Blackthorne Pro (BTPro) will require an investment of time to study, understand and use effectively. However, BTPro has features to satisfy the newbie as well as the "geek".

This guide is based on the way I work, thus I may not cover some of the basics you'll discover through your use of BTPro. I do hope this helps you regardless. Have much success with your eBay business and using BTPro!

Blackthorne First Use

When you first open Blackthorne Pro, there is a setup section to go through. You will enter information about your eBay business & how you will work with Blackthorne. You may just choose to enter your seller’s account information at this time and skip the rest. BUT, before you get started creating item records, you will have to enter the rest of that info. This is found under Tools>Options.

Enter Options Settings (Setup)

ACCOUNTS

Seller Accounts

If the smaller Edit Seller Account window does not open, click on the New button to enter your eBay User ID, Business Name & Address. If this account is the Blackthorne subscriber, check the “same as eBay User ID” checkbox. If you have added another Seller Account, you will not check the “same as…” checkbox, but will enter the Subscriber User ID into the appropriate field. When you click the OK button, a small window will pop up in which your Seller Account Name should be entered if it’s not already entered. When you click to okay the Seller Account Name, an eBay Blackthorne authorization window will open for you to enter your eBay password so that Blackthorne will receive a token to enable you to connect Blackthorne with eBay. Enter your password to sign in to eBay, click the Sign in Securely button, then click the Agree and Continue button. (Your eBay password is NOT saved in your Blackthorne database.)

Email Accounts

Create your email account(s) by clicking on Email Accounts on the side window and clicking the New… button to the right of the Options window. On the first tab, Connection, choose whether you want your emails sent from your email program (using the MAPI protocol) or want Blackthorne to send your emails (SMTP). MAPI & SMTP are commonly used for transmitting email, but some programs, do not use these conventions. It is generally easier for you to use Blackthorne to send your emails. On the second tab, Addressing, enter your email address for From & Reply To. If you do use Blackthorne to send your emails, you will also want to enter your email address to the CC or BCC field so you will receive a copy of the emails you send through Blackthorne. The third tab, Advanced, allows you to choose HTML emails (with formatted fonts and images) or Text-Only emails (plain). Most email programs and users now allow HTML emails to be sent & received. (I like to use HTML email, as I include my logo and a link to my website as well as highlight certain text for my buyers to notice easily.)

Picture Hosts

Create your picture host account if your eBay photos are on your own web space. Enter the Username & Password provided by your hosting company. Your host address will be www.yourspace.com or something similar. Enter the full path of your Pictures Web Address into the appropriate field. Test Connection using the button to the right of the 1 in the image above. If your settings are correct, a message, Connection Passed, will appear where the 3 is above. You must also click on the Browse button to choose the folder in your web space in which your eBay photos will reside. For some, that folder/directory may be the root folder, for some it will be public_html as it is above, for others it may be in another-named folder you’ve created for your eBay photos. You should also check the Advanced tab: Chances are that the FTP Port number entered by default & Use a passive data connection will be checked and will work for most settings. (If all else appears correct, but your Test Connection fails, you may ask your photo host if other settings are necessary for this. You may check to have Blackthorne automatically upload your pictures when submitting to eBay or to not do so as you will make sure they are uploaded ahead of time.

BUSINESS SETUP

Business Setup - Inventory

Especially if you sell multiples of items, you may want to use the Inventory Management feature of Blackthorne. Choose your preference whether Blackthorne should create your eBay listing if your inventory total available is less than that you’re attempting to list. If you are scheduling your listings through Blackthorne and do not do a Submit With Preview to catch any problems prior to scheduled submission, be aware if your settings prevent the creation of the listing or show a warning to which you must respond, your listings will stall. Business Setup – Tax Table Enter the state in which you reside and the percent of sales tax charged. If your state requires you to collect sales tax on the shipping, please check the box for that.

Business Setup – Sites

Only Select the eBay sites from which you list! If you list from eBay.com but sell to Canada, the UK & Australia, only United States should be selected.

PRESETS

Presets – Upgrades Presets

There are a few Upgrade Presets included with Blackthorne. If you, for example, sometimes use Featured Plus and Gallery on some of your listings, you’ll want to create a new preset for that like the image to the right. By the way, if you want to get the special sale price for the occasional gallery/subtitle/theme package eBay offers, use the Gallery preset, enter your subtitle into your item record & select a theme to use. eBay will compute the correct fees for that special.

Presets – Payment Presets

Create your payment presets on the screen shown to the right. Please note, if you have some store, Fixed Price or BIN items for which you require Immediate Payment through PayPal and auctions which do not allow this, you will have to have 2 different Payment Presets. Please also enter the appropriate information to the other tabbed pages in this window.

Presets – Shipping Presets

Shipping Presets are a rather involved setting. If you list a variety of sizes and weights of items, some for a flat shipping rate, some a calculated rate, using 2 or more shipping methods and apply a shipping promotional rule to some or the other, you will set up several shipping presets. Perhaps one of the groups of items you sell is postcards within the US only and you charge a flat fee of $2 for each card shipped via First Class Mail, your Shipping Preset will look something like this sample to the right: If another group of items you sell are widgets, which may weigh from 1# to 10# each, you will ship via priority mail or UPS Ground & you want to apply a Shipping Rule you’ve set up on eBay*, your shipping preset for this circumstance may look something like the image on the right. I have about 3 dozen Shipping Presets – some for flat shipping in the US only, some for various types of mail (ie: Media, Priority, First Class) & some calculated for items which weights and dimensions I’ll add into the item record.
*Shipping Promotional Rules in My eBay>Preferences>Combined Payments and Shipping Discounts

Presets – Feedback Messages

Blackthorne has some default positive feedback messages to send to your buyers. You may create new ones, edit and delete as you wish.

Presets – Consignment Plans

If you sell other people’s items on eBay, you will want to set up one or more consignment plans. The image to the left shows a sample plan – in this case, the Consignor (client) is charged all PayPal and eBay fees, is charged $5 if the item doesn’t sell, pays the $5 when you receive the item, is charged a minimum commission of $5 and pays a percent on the sales price from 50% of the first $99.99, to 40% for the next tier, 30% of the next and 20% of the balance. (I’ve rarely seen a consignment plan more complicated than this sample. The reason, I believe, is because we Trading Assistants try to keep things easy for our clients to understand.)

Presets – Destination Presets

Your basic Shipping Destination Preset will include your preferences to which countries you will ship to as well as include your location. If you have some items you’ll only ship within the US & Canada, you may create a preset with that condition to use when creating the item record for those countries. Also, if you sell items which are available only for local pickup, you should create a “local pickup only” preset.

TEMPLATES

Templates – Ad Templates

(Often referred to as Listing Templates) In this area, you may name your custom Ad Templates. I name my custom Ad Templates (AT) as part of the item creation, which will be described in Chapter 3. (I may not know what I want to call my templates until I’m creating a particular template for a particular item or shipping type.) Do not confuse Ad Templates with Item Templates, as they are two very different things!

Templates – Email Templates

BTPro has 7 default email templates which you may edit or delete or add to as you wish. I describe editing email templates on page 40. There are math functions available in the email templates – please log onto http://www.blackthornesw.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi?pg=topics and ask fellow users how to perform these.

Templates – Printing Templates

You may edit the Packing List and other printed materials in this section. See Chapter 3, Modifying the Packing List – this will guide you in modifying that and other reports.

CONNECTIONS

Connections – Updates

Choose to receive notification (on the status bar at the bottom of the Blackthorne window) when new or beta versions are released. Connections – Network Role Choose the role of your computer(s) from which you use Blackthorne. (For detailed information on setting up your network, go to the Blackthorne online Users Guide (F1 while in Blackthorne) and do a search on networks. The first 3 links should provide the information needed.) Connections – Endicia If you use Endicia (Premium Plan) for shipping labels & postage, you may choose other labels than the defaults chosen.

Connections – Refreshes

Select to have the Servant (Automatic Refresh) running and to import item records from eBay for items created outside of Blackthorne.

INTERFACE

Interface – General

Select your choices as in the image to right. Interface – Performance Select the features you want in this setting. For some users, the selections you make in this section may impact your Blackthorne’s performance.

INTERFACE – CREATE ITEMS

Interface – Create Items – General

Choose whether you want the Spell Checker to be on in Blackthorne and whether you want the item details to appear on 1 or 2 tabbed pages.

Interface – Create Items – Item Details

If you don’t use subtitles or part numbers, un-check them so you won’t see them in your item details window. If you use Blackthorne to manage 2 or more selling Ids, you may want to see the seller selection & contact email dropdowns.

Interface – Create Items – Description

If you’d like the font size in the Description field to be a larger size and/or you want that field to be shorter or taller, select your preferences.

Interface – Create Items – Categories

Choose whether to show the eBay or your store second categories in the item details window. Interface – Create Items – Pictures If you will be using Blackthorne’s Picture Studio to optimize your photos (by clicking on Edit button to the right of the picture wells in the item details) , you may want to choose settings in this preset. I would set the compression quality in the middle range and allow auto-compression to take place. (Most of us have our cameras set to a much higher than needed resolution for our eBay pix.) If you would like Blackthorne to automatically remove your photos from your computer or web host when you mark you sale “Successful”, you may note that in this window. The Title Bar Image (TBI) is the thumbnail photo which shows near the top/left of eBay’s listing pages. Choose whether or not you want to use the TBI or, if you have, for example, a logo which you like to appear in that space, you may enter its URL here.

Interface – Create Items – Format and Pricing

Select the fields in this area which you’d like to appear in the item record details. Interface – Create Items – Shipping If you use calculated shipping, you will have to show the weight & dimensions fields in Blackthorne’s Create Items window.

Interface – Create Items – Source

If you track Suppliers, Consignors or item costs, you’ll want to choose these fields to show in the item inventory section of the Create Items window.

Interface – Create Items – Inventory

Select the fields you wish to include in the item details section. Interface – Create Items – Custom Fields If you wish to show the Custom Fields in your item details, select them here.

Interface – Create Items – Item Status

You may want to see the fields in this section. (I don’t really care about seeing them, but since they’re at the bottom of the window & not taking up much screen “real estate”, I show them.) Interface – Create Items – Notes Choose whether to display the Notes field. (At the bottom, not taking up much real estate either.)

INTERFACE – MONITOR LISTINGS

Monitor Listings – Sounds If you like to hear a “Ca-Ching” or other sound when your items receive bids or are sold, choose the sound(s) you want to hear when Blackthorne refreshes that info.

INTERFACE – FINALIZE SALES

Finalize Sales - General Choose the settings you prefer in this area as in image to right.

INTERFACE – PRINT DIALOGS

Print Dialogs If you select "Don't ask again" on the Print Dialog, you can use this option to make the print dialog pop-up windows reappear.

Process of Workflow BACK TO TOP

When you’re ready to begin using Blackthorne, you should understand the usual process from item creation thru post-sales tracking:

1 – In the Create Items window, before you create a real item record, you should set up your Item Template(s). Item Templates hold default information for item records you’ll be creating. For example, you may enter your usual starting price, duration, shipping preset, category and other fields that are common to most or all of your items. Any of this information may be edited when you create the item record, but by having common data already entered, you’ll save time and maintain details. Please see Chapter 3 – Item Template Creation for more info.

2 – Create an item record from the New link near the top/middle of the Blackthorne window. You’ll select an Item Template from which to create this record. In Chapter 2 you’ll create a test listing; use this as a guide to creating real item records.

3 – Submit your item record to post to eBay. You’ll either submit your listing immediately or schedule to start at a particular time thru eBay or Blackthorne. I recommend you Submit With Preview so that you can discover if there are any errors which need to be fixed before submission, review your listing fees & do a proofreading of the description & photos. See Chapter 2 – Create Listing for further info.

4 – Should you need to revise a running listing, you’ll do that thru the Monitor Listings window as described in Chapter 2 – Revising Your Running Listings.

5 – When the sale has been made, the Automatic Refresh (Servant) should catch that and update Blackthorne usually within one half hour. You may also select all the records in the Running Listings filter and Refresh>Refresh Selected Listings to trigger the sale record.

6 – In the Finalize Sales window, your sales records will be in a filter depending on its sales status (Ready for payment request, Paid, Shipped, etc.) (See Chapter 3 – Filters for a sample Outstanding Sales filter you can create to keep all incomplete sales records in one area.) The process I use to follow up on sales is:

    * Send end of auction email notification with cost information to buyers.
    * When payment is received, send payment received email to buyer. (I note expected shipping date in this email.) I print out the Packing List at this time.
    * When item is shipped, send item shipped email to buyer. (I include the tracking # in this email.)
    * When I’ve received positive feedback from a buyer, its record is in the “Ready to Send Feedback” filter. I send feedback. (I have my settings to change the sales status to Successful at this point as the transaction is complete.)
    * If I’ve not received feedback from a buyer within 2 weeks of shipment, I have a sales filter which holds these records. I leave feedback as I choose at this point.
    * Since I sell items for others, when the Sales Status is Successful, I then issue a Consignor Payout Report and pay my clients at this time.

You can see this guide with screenshots linked to my website from my About Me page.