January Update

Second best month, profits of 12.4bn ISK.  I had expected nearer 7bn but my manufacturing business is really going well.

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.

I don't have standings of note.

Despite being away from Eve for 2 weeks in January or so my wealth increased by 12.4bn ISK to 73.9bn ISK, which is an average of 399m ISK per day.

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).  I wrote a post on Rush Jobs which details why it is more profitable paying up.

I am now buying 2 Plex a month to finance my two accounts.  Up until December 2013 i had 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 34.5bn ISK – it is dead money though inflated by me being away from Eve.  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 . . . . . 

Given i will be travelling a lot on business in February and March i have decided to materially alter my trading for the next 2 months.  I will only sell the items i manufacture and only sell other items that make me a profit of at least 15m ISK a time.


Dodixie trader: Life remains good for this trader.

Items for sale fell to 17.7bn ISK from the prior month's 21.7bn ISK mainly due to me being away in the last week and so not hauling new items to replace those sold.  I would hope i would be back up to 22bn ISK of items on sale in February.

I sell manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and any item i can find that makes profits of over 15m 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 to 194m from 1.2bn ISK.  I have decided to pull out of station trading for now.

The alt is currently using 82 of the 141 trading slots - that may go down in February.

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 – for now i will focus on the manufactured items from my alt in Lonetrek and selling expensive items hauled from Jita.


Hek trader: Life remains good.

Items for sale fell to 12.7bn from the prior month's 14.2bn ISK mainly due to me being away in the last week and so not hauling new items to replace those sold.  I would hope i would be back up to 14bn ISK of items on sale in February.

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 15m 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 64 of the 129 available sell slots - this may fall as i focus on the more expensive items to sell.

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: Going very well.

Only really fully started up in mid December and focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  During January this alt's sales were 7.3bn ISK and i suspect the profits were 3.6bn ISK.  Items for sale at the month end were 8.1bn 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 28 of the 37 available sell slots - i am increasing the number of available slots and looking for a few expensive items to sell.

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.  Needless to say, with being busy in rl this whole invention thing has been on the back burner!


Rens Trader: first full month

Started just before xmas and also focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  During January this alt made sales of 3.7bn ISK and i suspect profits of 1.8bn ISK.  Items for sale at the month end were 6.7bn ISK.

Rens is a slower trade up so i did not expect to see great things - but this is much better than i thought.  I was hoping for this alt to earn the Plex per month for this account but is infact earning 3 Plex per 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 33 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 59 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 8bn ISK sales per month for now.  During the month it made sales of 7.9bn (vs 6.2bn ISK in December) and estimated profits of 4bn ISK (same as November).  It currently has 2.4bn ISK of sell orders though this is lower than normal because i was away at the end of January.

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 - though this has not made me much so far.

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. 625m ISK per month at todays prices.

During December i believe it made me profits of 2.2bn and during January i believe it made me profits of 5.4bn ISK and therefore fully able to justify its place.

In all, this second account is a big success for my business.


Outlook: February 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.