Translate this page

Some beautiful music to read the blog with

Saturday 4 January 2014

Some ideas for those wanting to start trading

I have had several requests on how to get started in trading.  Below are my views and a worked example (items to buy and sell) of how i would start.


Start small: it is no use ploughing in 40bn ISK if you don't know what to do.

Personally, if i knew nothing about making ISK from trading i would start with 4m ISK and see how that goes - learn the basics at 4m and that still works at 62bn ISK.  Handily, 4m ISK is also what you should come away with from the starter missions - so this applies to new players as well.  It also limits your initial sell orders to 5 or 6 - and so your time spent updating is low which leaves more time to learn from the experience.

Furthermore, the big traders and the 0.01 people don't mess around to make profits of 600k ISK a sale, it is just way too small for them - hence, you can learn your trading lessons without these people operating in your markets.


Have a dedicated trading alt: trying to PVP/PVE and then having to come back to Jita etc to trade is not really going to work.  Hence, you would be best served by setting up a dedicated alt to trade.  Ideally, you will need 2 dedicated trading alts eventually - one to do the buying in Jita and one to post the sell orders in the trading hub you choose to sell at.


Do regional trading: buy from sell orders in Jita, haul to another trade hub (say Dodixie) and put the item on the market to sell.

You don't actually need to know too much about the market cycles or even what you are selling to make Regional Trading work.  You just need to be sure that you can sell the item in the chosen trading hub somewhere close to what you put it on at (hint - check out the historical prices to see how they move).

It is perfectly possible to buy from Jita at 600k ISK to sell in Dodixie at 1.2m ISK (almost all pilots, including yourself i suspect, will not make the journey from Dodixie to Jita to save 600k ISK).


Focus on profit margins, not volume: the 0.01 undercutters focus on high volume items.  Hence, you would be best served looking for items that sell in volumes of under 10 a day (ideally under 5).  Don't be put off by that, you can still make very good profits but again without being disturbed by the 0.01 undercutters (i made 19bn last month on that strategy).  Also, the competition in these items is more rational assuming you don't disturb the market too much.  What i mean by "don't disturb the market" is if 4 of an item sell per day then at the most put up 2 of the item to sell, better still 1.  If you stampede on in there with 10 of the item to sell then the other competitors will head for the door fast and so bring down the price.  I find demand does not go up as the price of these types of item falls.


Use Eve-Central: Eve-Central is very accurate in getting the prices at Jita.  See my post on using Eve-Central on how this works.  
Use it to find ideas on what to sell.  This i call "Research" and always takes the longest time with plenty of false leads followed.



The Worked Example: Below is an example of how i would deploy that initial 4m ISK to buy 5 items from Jita to sell in Dodixie (the giving of the below though may render them invalid - these trades rely on no noticeable increase in supply . . . . . so don't all pile into these at once!):

In all cases, i would buy from sell orders in Jita and put new sell orders up in Dodixie priced just below the current lowest sell order.

. . . . . . all prices as of 1 January 2014.


The Item:

In Jita Inferno Heavy Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 800k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 1 or 2 a day sell for 2m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 800k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 2m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The Item:

In Jita Nova Heavy Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 700k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 1 or 2 a day sell for 1.4m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 700k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 1.4m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.




The Item:

In Jita Scourge Heavy Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 750k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 2 or 3 a day sell for 1.2m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 750k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 1.2m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The Item:

In Jita Mining Foreman Skillbooks are being sold by other players for 155k ISK.

In Dodixie 20 a day sell for 445k ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy three at Jita for 155k each, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 445m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days - these will be competitive given the high volume.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The Item:

In Jita Nova Heavy Assault Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 600k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 0 or 1 a day sell for 1.6m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 600k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 1.6m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The outcome:

All that would cost me 3.3m ISK before broker fees and i would hope to make sales of 7.5m ISK before sales taxes.  Worth holding back that final 700k from the initial 4m to pay broker fees etc.

I would do the hauling myself in a cheap but fast ship (these items take up next to no room - i suspect you could even go on autopilot with 3.3m ISK of cargo!).

in all, profits of 4.2m before broker fees and sales taxes.  Not a bad start!

14 comments:

  1. this is very interesting. I recently started station trading. And I Think ill be putting this to use.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I find station trading quite tough - it requires a lot of capital (low margins, better volumes). Regional Trading I believe is a better route in for those starting trading.

      . . . . . though that is just my humble view.

      Delete
    2. You need about 1bn to really be effective in station trading. Unlike region trading, you need to cover your investment with additional buy orders. If not, you'll be undercut by traders who pick up good for lower buy orders than what you picked up the item for.

      Essentially it takes double the investment region trading does.

      I also agree that region trading is the place to start. It'll give you a much better appreciation of why the New Eden markets work the way they do, particularly if you do your own hauling.

      Delete
  2. Hey Croda,

    Great post - been following you for a while and it's refreshing to see someone helping out others.

    One question I've had for a while that I didn't find any answer for in your blog posts - with regards to your manufacturing alts, at what point did you research the blueprints? Or did you buy pre-researched prints to save on this time delay before production?

    Cheers,

    Matt

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because i target high margin sales (and hence slow moving items) i have not sought to research my blueprints at all.

      In any event, whilst i could readily reduce the Production Time i would find it hard to find a spare slot in High Sec to research Materials Requirements.

      . . . . . . i find the same for Copying which is an issue i will run into when my Inventor really starts to get off the ground.

      In all, at some stage, i am going to need to gain standings to get a POS or make a deal to use someone elses.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the reply chief.

      With regards to a POS - you can buy readily created corps with standings for around 150mil or so on the Eve Online Buy/Sell forums. That might be something that you could utilise to save on the time it would take to grind standings? It's worth noting that any characters with standings in the corporation would reduce the standings back down after 7 days.

      The best way to keep the standings in a purchased corporation would be to have an alt-corp with a POS and make sure none of them have done any missions or have any standings at all.

      Hope that helps and apologies if you were already aware of that and I'm teaching you to suck eggs...

      Delete
  3. "Personally, if i knew nothing about making ISK from trading i would start with 4m ISK and see how that goes - learn the basics at 4m and that still works at 62bn ISK."

    You're completely right here: the basics stay the same. I would, if I may, to add one thing.

    As one moves to higher capital he/she should realize that the focus should be on the global activity. What I mean is that I noticed quite a few of people losing a lot of their time over analyzing individual items instead of trying to get the "big picture" of their activity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yes, very true. Seeing how items link to locations / events / seasons etc can allow you to take advantage of whole families of products rather than focusing on one item here and there.

      Delete
  4. How do you find the items that have the low volume that you are looking for. When I try, I always find that it trades to much or not enough. I get on how to use eve central to find possible items but how do you quickly find the items that have the right trade volume

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i start by looking for items that sell at least 20% higher in Dodixie than they sell for in Jita, using Eve-Central. That normally indicates they are slow moving (you can't have that price difference for fast moving items). And then of course i physically check the Dodixie market to make sure.

      All this will be part of another post in the near future.

      Delete
  5. Great points on Eve-Central being an awesome tool - in fact it's so useful that it's safe to say that any player really doesn't need a trading alt to succeed in trading, at least well enough to continually PLEX their account every month.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed. Part of the aim of this blog is to allow my readers to only devote two alts + 45 minutes a day (for 5 days a week) and be able to Plex their main account and their trading account (i.e. 2 Plex per month). I don't honestly think that would be too hard.

      Of course, it would not be possible if the entire Eve Universe read my blog and decided to follow it . . . . . . .

      Delete
  6. Ok having a bit of trouble pulling up the set up you picture above went to eve central found and am using the compare tool but I cant seem to find and pull up the listing info like you show for blueprints and implants I tried ctrl+f and got my fps for the monitor I use, I tried using eve centrals search bar got a list of blue prints but nothing like you show - so what am I doing wrong cant find the ( tool >>> finder) anywhere in eve central.

    I have been enjoy reading your blog it has been very helpful just having trouble in this spot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am guessing you are using the in-game browser? may be worth using an internet browser out of game (so ctrl-f brings up the "find" box on the web page)

      Delete