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.
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 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.
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, you will probably want to combine your sales into orders. Combining sales into orders will group your sales in eBay Blackthorne and on eBay to allow combining shipping charges and correspondence. 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.
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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. If your buyer responds to let you know that payment is on the way or will be delayed, you will move it into the Payment Request Replied status. This helps you identify any buyers that don't need reminders. 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.
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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. |
If you have received the payment, but you do not want to process the sale yet because your buyer paid the wrong amount or will be purchasing other items from you shortly, you can place it into the Payment on Hold status. If a PayPal payment is processed, but the amount paid does not equal what Blackthorne was expecting, the sale will be automatically placed into the Payment on Hold status for your review. Once you move it out of the Payment on Hold status, Blackthorne will not move it back in.
Once you have received payment, you can optionally send a Received Payment email. You can then print a packing list, shipping labels, and postage if you use a supported 3rd party postage solution.
Next, you will retrieve the items from the packing list, pack them with the packing list, slap the shipping label and postage on the box and ship the item. Sorry, we have no automation that will package an item or deliver it to the post office. You have to do this step manually.
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Printing packing lists, shipping labels and postage are all optional. You can ignore any of these steps if they are not part of your normal process. |
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, 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 and printable sales reports at any time.
