December Update

My best month ever, again.

As a reminder, i spend 30 to 45 minutes during the weekdays on Eve.  My strategy is to focus on low volume but high margin items that i either manufacture or buy (off sell orders) in Jita to sell in Dodixie / Hek / Rens / Amarr.

Despite being away from Eve for a week or so my wealth increased by 18.8bn ISK to 61.6bn ISK, which is an average of 607m ISK per day - and therefore met one of my goals which was to increase my wealth by the equivalent of a Plex a day.

Once again, i benefited from a player's blunder which in effect gifted me c500m ISK.  The one thing i know about blunders is that i make them also, hence i somewhat expect to be making equally biug blunders along the way!

For those able to devote much more time to Eve, one way of reading this blog is to see how little time is required to generate sufficient ISK to plex your own account.

I have 2 accounts with 6 alts in total.

• One one account: I have a trader at Dodixie and a trader at Hek which sell items that have been hauled there from Jita; and I have a manufacturer in the Lonetrek region that sells items in Jita and sends items to the traders in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens to sell.

• On the other account: I have a buyer in Jita that is is only there to buy items in Jita to send to the traders in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens; I have an alt that is skilling up in Invention which currently sits in Amarr to sell the items manufactured by my Lonetrek manufacturer; and i now also have an alt that sits in Rens to also sell the items manufactured by my Lonetrek manufacturer.

All my hauling is done by third parties, namely PushX Industries - the time required to haul items from Jita to my traders in Dodixie and Hek would take up too much time.  Better to let these third parties do the hauling (for a fee, of course) whilst i am offline.  All my hauling is "Rush Jobs" and generally takes no less than 5 hours (often in under an hour) to haul from Jita to my four locations in Dodixie / Hek / Amarr / Rens (which are also the other trade hubs).  On average i pay 20m ISK per haul but it is well worth it given i can get those items bought in Jita onto the market in the other trade hubs very quickly and the hauling costs make up 1 to 3% of my sales price.  Not much given i aim to make 20% margins before all costs (hauling, broker fees, sales taxes).

From January i will be buying 2 Plex a month to finance my two accounts.  Up to now i have only needed to buy 1 Plex per month.  So, 1.2bn ISK per month costs going forwards.

As ever, i sit with too much surplus ISK which needs to be invested.  Current surplus is 16.3bn ISK – it is dead money.  I know two things about that ISK.  Firstly, it will be there tomorrow with no chance of making a profit (or a loss).  Secondly, there is inflation in Eve so in effect it is not keeping up with the cost of living in Eve - in other words, its value to me in the future is lower than its value to me today.  I must invest it . . . . . 

The main driver to my improvement in December i suspect was my manufacturer is now selling its items in Amarr and Rens as well as Dodixie, Hek and Jita - i.e. is now selling in 5 trade hubs instead of 2.  In all that alone contributed additional sales of 4.5bn and i suspect made me profits of 2.2bn.


Dodixie trader: Life remains good for this trader.

Items for sale have risen to 21.7bn ISK from the prior months of 16.4bn ISK.  The inclusion of more expensive items to sell has boosted the value of the sell orders.

I sell manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and any item i can find that makes profits of over 5m ISK, has a profit margin of over 20% and is a slow seller.  I.e. ship equipment, implants, ship modifications, a few skillbooks and a few blueprints.

As i did in November, again I neglected the station trading side of this alt given lack of time, hence buy orders have fallen to 1.2bn ISK from 1.3bn ISK.  At present, updating the station trading orders tends not to happen given my daily time constraints.  I may end this side of my business in January.

The alt is currently using 101 of the 141 trading slots.

This alt pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

There are no medium term goals for this alt – i suspect i may move out of station trading and continue to seek higher priced items to move form Jita to Dodixie to sell as selling any additional items my manufacturing alt decides to produce.


Hek trader: Life is better now.

Items for sale have risen to 14.2bn ISK from the prior months of 11.3bn ISK.  The inclusion of more expensive items to sell has boosted the value of the sell orders.

Much like the Dodixie trader I sell manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and any item i can find that makes profits of over 5m ISK, has a profit margin of over 20% and is a slow seller.  I.e. ship equipment, implants, ship modifications, a few skillbooks and a few blueprints.  Other than the manufacturer items, there are very few common items i sell in Dodixie and Hek.

Following this move i now use 93 of the 129 available sell slots.

Pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.


Amarr Trader: Has got of to a flying start.

Only really fully started up in mid December and focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  However, in the half month that it has been up this alt has made 4.2bn ISK of sales making very good profits (i suspect the profits were c2bn ISK).  Items for sale are 5.1bn ISK.

At present, i have no plans to expand into selling other items - i will stick to selling the items my manufacturer produces.  Amarr, being the second largest trade hub, can be very competitive.

Following this move i now use 29 of the 37 available sell slots.

Pays 1.0% broker fees to post an order and a further 1.5% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

The main aim of this alt is to train up for Invention, and here the training goes on.


Rens Trader: only just started, literally just before xmas and also focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  In the week or so that it has been up this alt has made 374m ISK of sales making very good profits (i suspect the profits were c150m ISK).  Items for sale are 6.7bn ISK.

Rens is a slower trade up so i dont expect to see great things but i would like to see this alt at least make sufficient profits to finance the purchase of a Plex a month.

I have no plans to expand into selling other items - i will stick to selling the items my manufacturer produces.

Following this move i now use 31 of the 37 available sell slots.

Pays 1.0% broker fees to post an order and a further 1.5% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

Manufacturing alt: This alt does all my manufacturing from the Lonetrek region which is within easy access to Jita.  Not much has changed since November.

This alt sells its items in Jita and contracts to Push Industries to haul items to the traders in Dodixie / Hek / Amarr / Rens to sell.

I have a list of 52 items i focus on to sell, currently selling 27 of them in Jita and 33 in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens.  The other items that i watch have too low a profitability.

I own 44 blueprints worth over 1bn ISK, most of which have already comfortably paid for themselves.

This alt may have plateaued at 6 to 7bn ISK sales per month for now.  During the month it made sales of 6.2bn (vs 7bn ISK in November) and estimated profits of 3bn ISK (same as November).  It currently has 3.4bn ISK of sell orders and another 1.4bn ISK of items in manufacture.

My expansion into manufacturing has been a great success so far.  I am now training this alt up to manufacture T2 items and i am in the process of manufacturing my first T2 items at present.

And all this takes is 15 minutes update time a day.

The current near term goals is to find other T1 items to sell as well as expanding into T2 items.

The new account:  I started a new account in September which will cost me a plex a month to maintain, i.e. 600m ISK per month at todays prices.

During December i believe it made me profits of 2.2bn and therefore fully able to justify its place.  Largely riding on my Amarr alt but i believe it can consistently make good profits going forwards.


Outlook: January to March are going to be busy times for me in RL, hence i suspect i will be back to making 7bn ISK per month.


Current Wealth:

Expected business purchases in the next 30 days

• Plex x2 = 1.2bn ISK

I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK.

* I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost until i finally hold it as ISK.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what cost is or at least the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.