I have been going through the CCP 2013 financial statements which were recently released - more on that in another post here.
One interesting line on page 30 in the Deferred Income note is a line called "In-game purchases not yet consumed".
Deferred Income are revenues for which the company has received cash for in 2013 but which is meant for 2014.
So, the question here is what cash did CCP receive in 2013 which will be a sale in 2014?
A good example (but not the answer) is subscriptions. Someone who buys a 6 month subscription on the 1st November 2013 will have 2 months of their cash payment recognised as a sale in 2013 and then the 4 months (January - April) recognised as Deferred Income. In this case, there is a separate line for Subscriptions in the Deferred Income note. So "In-game purchases not yet consumed" refers to something else.
My guess at the moment is that "In-game purchases not yet consumed" refers to Plex or time codes bought but not yet used.
The "In-game purchases not yet consumed" for 2013 is $2,108,158 (vs 2012 of $1,067,512). So, if i was to assume that each Plex cost $15 then that would indicate that there are 140,544 Plex sitting in the game waiting to be used (vs 71,167 in 2012). That does seem a bit high.
As a sense check, there are currently (as i write this blog post) 1,143 Plex for sale in Jita. Eve-Central has noted 1600 up for sale across Eve.
Therefore, i assume there are other items that are included in "In-game purchases not yet consumed".
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Thursday, 24 April 2014
My Daily Routine - as of April 2014
One of the key reasons i went for my trading strategy of selling slow moving but high margin items is that there is little competition and hence i only need devote up to 45 minutes per day on all this. Time is my enemy and a scarce resource.
Below is an outline of my current routine which takes up to 45 minutes per day. If i have been away on business away from the game then it can take over an hour given i need to update many more orders.
Below is an outline of my current routine which takes up to 45 minutes per day. If i have been away on business away from the game then it can take over an hour given i need to update many more orders.
Traders - takes me just under 30 minutes
1. update the trader at Rens: this trader sells items i manufacture, not very many - so only takes 3 minutes to update all the orders and note down what needs replenishing
2. update the trader at Amarr: this trader also sells items i manufacture and a handful of items purchases from Jita - also only takes 4 minutes to update all the orders and note down what needs replenishing
3. update the trader at Hek: this trader sells items bought from Jita and items i manufacture - so takes 7 - 11 minutes to update all orders and note down what needs replenishing
4. update the trader at Dodixie: this trader sells items bought from Jita and items i manufacture - so takes 9 - 13 minutes to update all orders and note down what needs replenishing. It takes longer than Hek because Dodixie tends to be more competitive.
5. buy required items at Jita and set up courier contracts: this takes 5 minutes. At the most i am buying for all four traders and setting up courier contracts with Push Industries using their Rush Jobs feature. I include the items i manufactured which have been hauled into by my manufacturing alt (see below)
6. final (a couple of hours later) post of all items shipped from Jita before i go to bed.
Manufacturer - takes me 15 minutes
This alt normally starts at my manufacturing station in Lonetrek.
1. It pick up items which have been manufactured overnight and hauls them to Jita - they are then bundled with items bought from Jita and sent out to my traders in the other trade hubs (see above).
2. I update my sell orders in Jita (i sell items i manufacture in Jita).
3. I buy the required raw materials for production from Jita - these are the items i need to manufacture which my traders in the trade hubs have sold out of.
4. I haul these raw materials to Lonetrek and start the manufacturing.
1. It pick up items which have been manufactured overnight and hauls them to Jita - they are then bundled with items bought from Jita and sent out to my traders in the other trade hubs (see above).
2. I update my sell orders in Jita (i sell items i manufacture in Jita).
3. I buy the required raw materials for production from Jita - these are the items i need to manufacture which my traders in the trade hubs have sold out of.
4. I haul these raw materials to Lonetrek and start the manufacturing.
5. I normally manufacture from the same station though occasionally i have to go to another station in the same system to find a spare manufacturing slot.
Inventor - at present this is ad hoc, so no real daily time taken up for now.
Sunday, 20 April 2014
Eve Forum Market Discussions
For those that may not know, on the Eve Forums there is a dedicated section to discussions on all things market related. From players asking for loans, attempts at setting up new banks, discussions on prices etc.
Worth a look.
I have included the Link in my "Useful Links" section on the right >>>>
Worth a look.
I have included the Link in my "Useful Links" section on the right >>>>
Thursday, 17 April 2014
Inflation in Eve Online
Below is the great youtube video of the Eve Economy Lecture given by Dr Eygo at the 2013 Fanfest where he talks about the Eve Online economy and notably about inflation within the economy. It is 52 minutes long and well worth listening to if you want to see what inflation is in Eve (or at least how Dr Eygo views the inflation).
[short answer is: over 10 years none, over last 7 years positive inflation].
As ever, inflation is in the eye of the beholder and different for everyone (my government tells me that UK inflation is 2% and yet i know my cost of living is going up by more each year!).
The main chart CCP appear to follow, which is below, is the "Main Price Indices of New Eden". Updated to end February. It shows the (using the definitions in the last Quarterly Economic Report which was in December 2010!):
For most players in Eve the main measure of Inflation will be the Consumer Price Index - i.e. what it costs to replace items blown up by others and to maintain their activities of blowing up others.
If logic were to reign - then the Mineral Price Index would lead the Primary Producer index which would lead the Secondary Producer index which would lead the Consumer Price Index.
In other words, if Minerals rise / fall in price then the other indices are affected in turn as the change in the price of the minerals flows through the chain.
Alternatively, the Consumer Price index would lead - i.e. a rise in demand for Consumer items leading to a rise in their price would place greater demand on the manufacturing chain leading to a rise in the price of minerals at the end.
[short answer is: over 10 years none, over last 7 years positive inflation].
As ever, inflation is in the eye of the beholder and different for everyone (my government tells me that UK inflation is 2% and yet i know my cost of living is going up by more each year!).
The main chart CCP appear to follow, which is below, is the "Main Price Indices of New Eden". Updated to end February. It shows the (using the definitions in the last Quarterly Economic Report which was in December 2010!):
- the Mineral Price index (blue line): price index of the 8 minerals
- the Primary Producer Price index (red line): price index of manufacturing items used for the production of other manufacturing items. I.e. drone compounds, moon materials, planetary commodities and items used in invention.
- the Secondary Producer Price index (green line): contains production materials and other production items that are used in the manufacturing of consumer goods, i.e. goods included in the Consumer Price index
- the Consumer Price index (purple line): measures the overall price changes of consumer products. This is not limited to consumables such as fuel, ammunition or Plex, but also includes assets such as ships, modules, implants and starbase structures. In summary, anything that is not produce other goods in this index.
For most players in Eve the main measure of Inflation will be the Consumer Price Index - i.e. what it costs to replace items blown up by others and to maintain their activities of blowing up others.
If logic were to reign - then the Mineral Price Index would lead the Primary Producer index which would lead the Secondary Producer index which would lead the Consumer Price Index.
In other words, if Minerals rise / fall in price then the other indices are affected in turn as the change in the price of the minerals flows through the chain.
Alternatively, the Consumer Price index would lead - i.e. a rise in demand for Consumer items leading to a rise in their price would place greater demand on the manufacturing chain leading to a rise in the price of minerals at the end.
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Team Security - a nice ISK sink.
We had a very interesting blog post by Team Security where they talked about their war on Bots and RMTers. The blog post talks about why they do it and what players can do in-game to help.
What interested me was how much ISK they had seized since September 2013. As shown below in their graph, they have seized 19trn ISK, with 4.2trn ISK seized in March alone!
This is perhaps a major ISK sink in the game.
Though, to put this in perspective, back in March 2013 the size of the Eve Online economy was (called Gross User Product by CCP, or the value created) was about 135trn ISK [source is the Eve Online Economy lecture at the Fanfest - youtube video starts at the correct place on this link]. Hard to know what the economy has done over the last 12 months but perhaps safe to say that in March 2014 Team Security took 4% of the economy out of action.
What interested me was how much ISK they had seized since September 2013. As shown below in their graph, they have seized 19trn ISK, with 4.2trn ISK seized in March alone!
This is perhaps a major ISK sink in the game.
Though, to put this in perspective, back in March 2013 the size of the Eve Online economy was (called Gross User Product by CCP, or the value created) was about 135trn ISK [source is the Eve Online Economy lecture at the Fanfest - youtube video starts at the correct place on this link]. Hard to know what the economy has done over the last 12 months but perhaps safe to say that in March 2014 Team Security took 4% of the economy out of action.
Wednesday, 9 April 2014
Plex as an inflation hedge
Since i started focusing on earning ISK last May (2013) there have been two facts that have required overcoming.
Firstly, because i don't want to spend more than 30 to 45 minutes a day focusing on ISK activities i have found that i have had surplus ISK which i can not invest, peaking at 35bn ISK in January 2014. There are only two things i know about that ISK in my wallet: 1) It will be there tomorrow; and 2) it has no chance of earning more ISK whilst it is stuck in my wallett.
Secondly, there is inflation in EVE. Prices are rising over time. Player base is rising / more activity in the game gathering ISK / increasing wealth in the game . . . . . i have another post discussing this at a later date.
Hence, this ISK in my wallett is actually failing to keep its purchasing power. It is worth less to me tomorrow than it is today. Inflation is the silent thief of my wealth.
To solve this problem i ideally need to find something to invest my surplus ISK in to at least ensure it keeps up with inflation and so retains its purchasing power.
Hence, the ideal characteristics of such an investment would be:
- Price linked somehow to the rising wealth in the game though i also want the price to be independent of individual specific items
- Controlled supply - i want the supply of my investment to be limited or restrained so that as a scarce resource its value can grow as wealth in the game grows
- Readily converted to ISK no matter what the environment - come war, peace, patch, expansion, you name it i want my investment to be recognised by all players at all times as something of value
- Sufficiently liquid to convert to ISK in a short period of time - i.e. i can sell my investment very quickly into the market for a fair price
- Power Proof - i don't want any player / alliance power base able to control the price of my investment
- Patch / expansion proof - i don't want my investment to be materially reduced in value on the whim of a change in a patch or expansion.
In many ways, the only item in the game that i can think of which meets all these criteria is Plex.
Hence, i have started to invest my surplus ISK into Plex. I aim to keep a float of 10bn ISK in my wallett and invest the rest into Plex.
I appreciate CCP has stated they will intervene if the price moves to their disliking but i believe over time the price of Plex will rise.
Hence, i have started to invest my surplus ISK into Plex. I aim to keep a float of 10bn ISK in my wallett and invest the rest into Plex.
I appreciate CCP has stated they will intervene if the price moves to their disliking but i believe over time the price of Plex will rise.
I suspect that this is not what CCP had in mind for Plex and indeed these actions, assuming others do the same, will start to distort the Plex market over time (the price of Plex in ISK will be higher than it should be given investors are entering the Plex market to buy and hold rather than buy and consume).
There are a number of things the Eve Central Bank could do to combat this such as charging a rental tax to hold Plex (5% tax for Plex held longer than 3 months, for example) though i can't think of anything that would not put downward pressure on Plex in the short term.
The best solution i would have is for Eve to end the issue of the current Plex and launch a new Plex (call it NewPlex). The current Plex in issue will still be viable and can still be sold on the market. The NewPlex would then carry that rental tax if held for over 3 months.
The best solution i would have is for Eve to end the issue of the current Plex and launch a new Plex (call it NewPlex). The current Plex in issue will still be viable and can still be sold on the market. The NewPlex would then carry that rental tax if held for over 3 months.
Saturday, 5 April 2014
March Update
Despite being away from Eve for 2 to 3 weeks in March my wealth increased by 8.9bn ISK to 92.8bn ISK, which is an average of 289m ISK per day.
I had expected nearer 7bn but my holding in Plex generated a further 1.9bn increase in wealth - more on that further down.
I expected February, March and April to be slow given real life commitments. Indeed, i did not log in much during March until the final week.
Therefore, during these months i am only selling the T1 items i manufacture and only trading other items where i make at least 15m ISK profits and 20% margins - though in the week here and there that i am around i am willing to drop my profit target to 10m ISK.
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 any standings of note. To reduce my costs of trading i have trained all my alts that post sell orders to Broker 4 and Accounting 4.
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.
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, 1.4bn ISK per month costs going forwards. I do occasionally benefit from some kind soul upgrading their account having used the link to the right >>>>>>>>>
Plex: my next post will look at why i hold Plex. But as of the end of March i held 44 Plex at a cost of 28.9bn ISK which at 690m per Plex was then worth 30.4bn ISK. In other words, the rise in the value of Plex increased my wealth by 1.5bn ISK.
My biggest headache was that i was sitting on too much ISK which was not invested in the market. I had up to 35bn ISK in my wallet which was dead money. At most i need to hold 10bn ISK to finance my business, the other 25bn or so is surplus to requirements.
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.
So far, Plex is the best item i can find that (in the medium to long term) is the best asset to keep up with inflation in Eve - as i hope to detail in my next post. I expect to continue to invest all profits made each month into Plex from here.
Dodixie trader: Life remains good and consistent
Items for sale fell back from 22bn ISK to 20bn ISK which more reflected some sales made on the last day of the month.
I sell T1 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.
The alt is currently using 76 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 – 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 and consistent
Items for sale rose to 15.6bn ISK from last months 14.2bn.
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 manufactured items, there are very few common items i sell in Dodixie and Hek.
I use 74 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: Going well though slowing
Only really fully started up in mid December and focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region. During February this alt's sales were 4.8bn ISK vs prior months 5.6bn ISK and i suspect the profits were 2.4bn ISK vs prior months 2.8bn ISK. The decrease is because of competition reducing the profit margin on some of my manufactured products and so i no longer sell several of these items in Amarr.
Items for sale at the month end rose to 10.9bn ISK vs prior month of 9.7bn.
I now use 23 of the 45 available sell slots - when i have time i am looking for a few other items to sell in Amarr.
Pays 1.0% broker fees to post an order and a further 1.1% sales tax on a successful sale. Currently training Accounting to Level 4 and Broker Relations to Level 4 to bring those fees down further.
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: third full month and getting better
Started just before xmas and also focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region. During March this alt made sales of 4.5bn ISK (2.1bn prior month) and i suspect profits of 2.2bn ISK vs prior month of 1.0bn. Items for sale at the month end were 7.7bn ISK, up from prior month of 6.7bn.
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.
I trained this alt to give me 53 open sell slots and currently i use 39 of them.
Pays 0.8% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.9% sales tax on a successful sale.
No longer in training.
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 40 in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens - though perhaps less now in Amarr given competition has increased. 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 6.7bn (vs 7.9bn ISK in the prior month) and estimated profits of 3.3bn ISK. It currently has 7.3bn ISK of sell orders.
And all this takes is 15 minutes update time a day.
I have seeded a new market in Lonetrek - lets see how that goes. It is slow at present but so far i believe i have made sales in March of 700m ISK leading to profits of c400m ISK.
Outlook: April is going to be busy for me in RL, hence i suspect i will be back to making 7bn ISK per month. The month of May could perhaps be better though June back to being busy again in RL.
Current Wealth:
Expected business purchases in the next 30 days
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.
I expected February, March and April to be slow given real life commitments. Indeed, i did not log in much during March until the final week.
Therefore, during these months i am only selling the T1 items i manufacture and only trading other items where i make at least 15m ISK profits and 20% margins - though in the week here and there that i am around i am willing to drop my profit target to 10m ISK.
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 any standings of note. To reduce my costs of trading i have trained all my alts that post sell orders to Broker 4 and Accounting 4.
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.
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, 1.4bn ISK per month costs going forwards. I do occasionally benefit from some kind soul upgrading their account having used the link to the right >>>>>>>>>
Plex: my next post will look at why i hold Plex. But as of the end of March i held 44 Plex at a cost of 28.9bn ISK which at 690m per Plex was then worth 30.4bn ISK. In other words, the rise in the value of Plex increased my wealth by 1.5bn ISK.
My biggest headache was that i was sitting on too much ISK which was not invested in the market. I had up to 35bn ISK in my wallet which was dead money. At most i need to hold 10bn ISK to finance my business, the other 25bn or so is surplus to requirements.
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.
So far, Plex is the best item i can find that (in the medium to long term) is the best asset to keep up with inflation in Eve - as i hope to detail in my next post. I expect to continue to invest all profits made each month into Plex from here.
Dodixie trader: Life remains good and consistent
Items for sale fell back from 22bn ISK to 20bn ISK which more reflected some sales made on the last day of the month.
I sell T1 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.
The alt is currently using 76 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 – 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 and consistent
Items for sale rose to 15.6bn ISK from last months 14.2bn.
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 manufactured items, there are very few common items i sell in Dodixie and Hek.
I use 74 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: Going well though slowing
Only really fully started up in mid December and focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region. During February this alt's sales were 4.8bn ISK vs prior months 5.6bn ISK and i suspect the profits were 2.4bn ISK vs prior months 2.8bn ISK. The decrease is because of competition reducing the profit margin on some of my manufactured products and so i no longer sell several of these items in Amarr.
Items for sale at the month end rose to 10.9bn ISK vs prior month of 9.7bn.
I now use 23 of the 45 available sell slots - when i have time i am looking for a few other items to sell in Amarr.
Pays 1.0% broker fees to post an order and a further 1.1% sales tax on a successful sale. Currently training Accounting to Level 4 and Broker Relations to Level 4 to bring those fees down further.
Rens Trader: third full month and getting better
Started just before xmas and also focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region. During March this alt made sales of 4.5bn ISK (2.1bn prior month) and i suspect profits of 2.2bn ISK vs prior month of 1.0bn. Items for sale at the month end were 7.7bn ISK, up from prior month of 6.7bn.
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.
I trained this alt to give me 53 open sell slots and currently i use 39 of them.
Pays 0.8% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.9% sales tax on a successful sale.
No longer in training.
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 40 in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens - though perhaps less now in Amarr given competition has increased. 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 6.7bn (vs 7.9bn ISK in the prior month) and estimated profits of 3.3bn ISK. It currently has 7.3bn ISK of sell orders.
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 second T2 item - lets see how it goes but so far T2 items are not as profitable for me as the T1 items.
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.
I have seeded a new market in Lonetrek - lets see how that goes. It is slow at present but so far i believe i have made sales in March of 700m ISK leading to profits of c400m ISK.
Outlook: April is going to be busy for me in RL, hence i suspect i will be back to making 7bn ISK per month. The month of May could perhaps be better though June back to being busy again in RL.
Current Wealth:
- Plex x1 = 0.7bn 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.
Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Finding new items to sell in the Trade Hubs
I was away for most of March and as time goes by the items i am selling in the Trade Hubs tend to fall to very low profit. Hence, i am in continuous need of finding new items to sell.
It is a sort of cycle my Trading Business follows: Find new items to sell to replace existing items that no longer make profits.
So, with that, it is well worth reminding everyone how i go about finding new items to sell (and i am all ears for other ideas on this!).
For this exercise, all i use is Eve Central and a spreadsheet - but for our purposes we shall focus on Eve Central. The spreadsheet merely make the searching task easier once i have the data from Eve Central.
Eve Central is a website which records the price of items on the Eve Market in all locations. However, and here is the key point, it records the items by players automatically uploading the prices to the website via a small piece of software which monitors the Eve market as they browse it.
Therefore, the prices are only as complete and timely as those players browsing the Eve markets.
What i find is that the Jita prices are mostly complete and recent. The Trade hubs also though to a lesser degree. And then things start to deteriorate.
The Set up: Lets assume i am looking for new items to buy in Jita and to sell in Dodixie. As always, i buy from sell orders in Jita - i don't put up buy orders myself.
I normally have my alt in Dodixie open - that is so i can check the Dodixie prices and volumes. The Eve Central prices in Jita are normally correct.
The Method:
Firstly, open Eve Central and you will be presented with the Home Page as shown below:
It is a sort of cycle my Trading Business follows: Find new items to sell to replace existing items that no longer make profits.
So, with that, it is well worth reminding everyone how i go about finding new items to sell (and i am all ears for other ideas on this!).
For this exercise, all i use is Eve Central and a spreadsheet - but for our purposes we shall focus on Eve Central. The spreadsheet merely make the searching task easier once i have the data from Eve Central.
Eve Central is a website which records the price of items on the Eve Market in all locations. However, and here is the key point, it records the items by players automatically uploading the prices to the website via a small piece of software which monitors the Eve market as they browse it.
Therefore, the prices are only as complete and timely as those players browsing the Eve markets.
What i find is that the Jita prices are mostly complete and recent. The Trade hubs also though to a lesser degree. And then things start to deteriorate.
The Set up: Lets assume i am looking for new items to buy in Jita and to sell in Dodixie. As always, i buy from sell orders in Jita - i don't put up buy orders myself.
I normally have my alt in Dodixie open - that is so i can check the Dodixie prices and volumes. The Eve Central prices in Jita are normally correct.
The Method:
Firstly, open Eve Central and you will be presented with the Home Page as shown below:
Secondly, press the "Trade Finder" button as shown - this will open up the next page. At the bottom of that page is the "System and Region Price Comparison Tool" as shown below:
Thirdly, because i am comparing prices in Dodixie to Jita i fill in the fields as shown above and then press the "Compare" button which, after some computing, brings up the final page which lists all the items in order of profit.
Finding the Items to sell:
At this point i copy the entire page to a spreadsheet and then look for items where the profit is at least 20% and the price to buy in Jita is above a certain value and below another value (in other words i don't want to be buying very lowly priced items but at the same time i don't want to by buying items priced over 2bn ISK).
When i come across an item that looks promising i use my alt at Dodixie to check the price of the item to make sure it is real (not inflated or an outlier) and also to make sure that the item does sell at least once every three days.
The most common issue i find is that there is no volume at the price stated - in otherwords, items on for sale at the recorded price are unlikely to be sold.
An example of one that may not work:
On the webpage there was a Federation Navy 1MN Afterburner which you can buy from Jita for 55m ISK and sell in Dodixie for 85m ISK. And sure enough the prices check out - there are 4 sell orders up for 85m ISK.
However, there is no volume at this price, as shown below, and so it is not worth do this trade.
An example of one that should work:
On the webpage there was also a "Large Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II" which could be bought from Jita for 32m ISK and sold in Dodixie for 39m ISK.
The 17 sell orders up at this price as shown below - so the price is real:
And, as shown below, the volumes are good as well! Looks like we are seeing an average of 3 sold a day - that is bang inline with what i look for. I could make profits before taxes of 7m ISK by spending 32m ISK and the price is stable because the volumes are low enough to mean that the high volume undercutters stay away.
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