Last week was good, i would say my best week ever but it dawned on me that as my wealth rises any good week will be my best week ever for a while to come.
My wealth rose to 22.5bn isk vs the May month end of 16.1bn isk and that includes buying and using a Plex for the account.
Vs the prior week my wealth rose 2.9bn isk.
About a third of this increase occurred during the weekdays and two-thirds over the weekend.
That all said, yet again, my Amarr seller is not even coasting - he is doing poorly. This is going to warrant some investigation. I was hoping to be making good isk from Amarr by now. Right now i have about 5bn of items for sale in Amarr.
The main driver of isk gathering is the Dodixie seller where i have 23bn of items for sale. Nothing new to report in terms of items to sell other than my spreadsheet which pulls live pries from the game is allowing me to find items to sell quicker than the old look-up method.
My tactic of finding markets in Dodixie that used to have low volume items for sale but have now been abandoned is making some ground. For all these items, i remain the only seller and the sales tick over nicely. I don't gouge, i sell at a 25% profit margin to Jita sell price. I don't want to encourage competition to return and i want to encourage demand in Dodixie. 25% seems to be the good compromise here.
In other areas where i see there are 1 or 2 sellers of an item at double the Jita sell price then i also enter those markets with my usual 25% profit margin. It always amazes me that the competition does not react as i sell item after item at that level. I don't know if they are not checking their prices or believe i will go away.
Yet again, i report that Manufacturing plans has got nowhere fast.
I have settled down to paying 1% of the collateral on courier contracts as the fee - that almost always gets it done in a couple of hours. So no change there.
Outlook
I am hoping i can do better in June compared to May. The aim was to be for 7bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex) - that is on track to be met given i am already up 6.4bn with one week to go.
Other aims for June:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders
2) Plex the account and build up some surplus Plex.
3) Build up the Amarr trading business
Current wealth is 22.5bn ISK made up from:
- items for sale 28.0bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 5.6bn ISK*
- Plex held (0 Plex) 0.0bn ISK
- items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
- ISK in wallet 0.1bn 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. 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 the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold. In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.
Well, the second week in June started off very slow but had a cracking weekend.
My wealth rose to 19.6bn isk vs the May month end of 16.1bn isk and that includes buying and using a Plex for the account. In all, a rise of 2.3bn isk in the week. Right up there with some of the best weeks so far.
I cant really explain the slow weekdays - even Thursday night was slow. Of the 2.3bn profit made this week, perhaps only 0.3bn was made on the weekdays.
I was out of the country for most of the week, so nothing new to report.
Main item of note is that the Amarr seller is not really pulling his weight and i will need to investigate why.
On the list of things to do this week is to expand the items i can sell into Dodixie. Right now, 76 items up for sale and am fast running out of the big items (i.e value over 200m) to sell. My total Dodixie sales value is currently 20bn.
I am venturing back into skill books following the patch - so far so good, they have not been wiped out as a trade item to the degree that i thought they might.
I am also seeing if i can corner a few markets - some items have no sellers but clearly there is a small demand. So i am trying to see if putting up a stack of volume will allow me to gain some low effort income.
Needless to say, the Manufacturing plans have got nowhere fast.
i have settled down to paying 1% of the collateral on courier contracts as the fee - that almost always gets it done in a couple of hours.
Outlook
I am hoping i can do better in June. The aim has to be for 7bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex) - on track so far.
Aims for June:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders
2) Plex the account and build up some surplus Plex.
3) Build up the Amarr trading business
Current wealth is 19.6bn ISK made up from:
- items for sale 24.4bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 4.9bn ISK*
- Plex held (0 Plex) 0.0bn ISK
- items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
- ISK in wallet 0.1bn 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. 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 the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold. In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.
The first week in June was a good week. My wealth rose to 17.3bn isk vs the May month end of 16.1bn isk and that includes buy and using a Plex for the account.
So, trading generating enough isk to buy the 500 Plex to use and still had 1.2bn isk left over. That is perhaps my best week so far.
Three features making this the case:
1) Expanding the items i am selling to go back and include items selling for 35 m or 70m that still make 20% profit as well as those items selling for 700m or 1.5bn keeps the isk rolling in nicely.
2) For the first time in a long time the weekend actually made decent sales. For some reason, in the last few weeks most of my sales come on the week days, notably thursday
3) I have expanded in Rigs to sell. That is in the prelude to manufacturing them (if i ever get round to that!).
The target this month is to increase wealth by more than the prior months 5.8bn isk (hoping for 7bn) and to start building a surplus amount of Plex.
so, whats new this week:
1) i am moving faster to develop a spreadsheet that identifies items to sell
2) i have found a way to quickly build a manufacturing spreadsheet
3) i have expanded the Amarr seller.
1) Identifying items to sell
I still use Evemarketer to find items to sell but my spreadsheet that pulls current selling prices from Jita, Amarr and Dodixie has been re-ordered, expanded and made more efficient.
I still lack daily volume numbers but right now it is doing the job of identifying items that will sell at a 20% minimum profit margin.
With the addition of the Rigs into the spreadsheet i have more items to choose as my wealth expands.
One of the key bottlenecks to preventing wealth growth is to run out of ideas of things to sell.
2) Building up the manufacturing part of the spreadsheet
I found a spreadsheet everef.net that is a fantastic mine of information but also shows nicely the required raw materials for items. I have accessed the data and pulled it into my spreadsheet.
I wont be building the manufacturing spreadsheet quickly but i now have a way of almost instantly getting the required raw materials rather than slowly checking the info for each item.
3) Expanded the Amarr seller
The Amarr seller now has 4.7bn of items for sale. As Dodixie fills up with current ideas i add to Amarr.
To be honest, Amarr is not going great guns so far. The competition is higher and the Rig items i am selling can be slow at times.
Side note - Dodixie seller still has just over 16bn isk of items for sale.
The other part of this character is that he is training space flight to fly a covert interceptor into null sec to pick up cheaper blueprints to sell in Amarr and Dodixie.
Right now, i plan to fly a Victorieux Luxury Yacht unless anyone can think of a better cover ops ship to fly around null sec carrying expensive blueprints? I am not skilled in flight - so anything that can stay cloaked in warp and is not affected by bubbles will do the trick.
Outlook
I am hoping i can do better in June. The aim has to be for 7bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex).
Aims for June:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders
2) Plex the account and build up some surplus Plex.
3) Build up the Amarr trading business
Current wealth is 17.3bn ISK made up from:
- items for sale 21.3bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 4.3bn ISK*
- Plex held (0 Plex) 0.0bn ISK
- items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
- ISK in wallet 0.3bn 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. 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 the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold. In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.
At the end of my second month my wealth is 16.1bn isk. An increase of 5.8bn isk over the month.
I also had to fund a 2.2bn Plex payment, so compared to the prior month's increase of 7.3bn this month my wealth rose 8.0bn before Plex costs.
Not ideal i feel, i had a poor week mid month.
Two things i have learned.
1) I need to visit the game once a day to stay competitive - even if only for 10 minutes
2) I need to keep selling items that sell for 70m isk as well as items that sell for 700m isk. I cant just rely on the 700m isk items alone.
Also, that is the last time i will talk about wealth before Plex costs. The monthly Plex bill is a reality and i just need to cover it. So next month i am looking to beat the 5.8bn increase.
The good news here is that i am comfortably playing one account for free and could happly play 2 accounts easily for free. That is the aim.
Plex
I don't have any Plex sitting in my hanger right now. I will start buying a bit of Plex each day until i need to cash it in for extended game play. That is always the plan - rather than wait until the last day.
Over time, i will build up some surplus Plex to give me some flexibility.
Strategy
Has remained the same. 45 minutes play time each day and a bit more at the weekends . . . . . though i do have a habit of sitting there logged on whilst i do work at my desk.
I currently operate my business with three characters who don't undock.
There is a buyer in Jita who buys from Sell orders and then contracts couriers to transport these items to a seller in Dodixie or a seller in Amarr who put the items up for sale. This buyer in Jita is also doubling up as a manufacturer - more on that later (though don't hold your breath).
I focus on small cargo items (blueprints, implants and boosters) that sell once every 2 or 3 days and profit margins of over 20%.
Profit margin. If something costs 80 and i sell it for 100 then the profit margin is (100-80)/100 = 20%. I.e. it is the profit divided by the sales price.
I find the competition in Dodixie and Amarr in these items is low, slow and rational.
Big picture - i am playing on the fact that people at Dodixie or Amarr do not want to travel 15 or 9 umps to Jita to buy an item for a lower price. They are willing to pay up to save time (and perhaps the risk).
Identifying items to sell
I use Evemarketer to find items to sell. More specifically i have built a spreadsheet that pulls down the current selling prices for items in Jita, Amarr and Dodixie so that i can at least have a starting point to investigate further.
I will build this spreadsheet further when i have time to add daily volume into the equation also. This will complete it and make it much easier for me to identify items to sell.
Dodixie Seller
The main constraint to wealth generation is the amount of ISK i have to deploy. I am now regularly making over 1.5bn ISK sales per day.
Working backwards, if my wealth has increased by 8.0bn then that indicates daily profits of 270m isk.
My costs are:
1) Courier Fees - i limit those to 1%
2) Broker Fees - 2.68% (i have Broker Level 3, working on that now)
3) Sales Tax - 1.4% (i have Account level 3, working on that now)
Make a few assumptions on cost of items vs sales of items and i basically come to the conclusion i am paying 5% of the sales price as fees.
So my 20% margin target turns to a 15% cash profit in my pocket.
I trained up further in Wholesale and so i can now post a maximum of 129 items for Sale compared to the 72 i have currently up for sale valued at 16.4bn isk.
Amarr Seller
This is new and currently this character has 9 items up for Sale for a total of 3.2bn isk.
He can post up to 65 items right now.
The original plan was to manufacture items near Jita and courier those items to be sold in Amarr.
However, it is taking me longer than expected to get a grip of manufacturing so instead i am buying from Sell orders in Jita and couriering to Amarr to sell.
Early days, i tend to put more than 1 of a type of item up for sale at any one time.
Lets see how it goes.
Costs are a little better than the Dodixie seller given this one has Accountancy at level 4 and Broker Relations at level 4.
The other part of this character is that he is training space flight to fly a covert interceptor into null sec to pick up cheaper blueprints to sell in Amarr and Dodixie.
Right now, i plan to fly a Victorieux Luxury Yacht unless anyone can think of a better cover ops ship to fly around null sec carrying expensive blueprints? I am not skilled in flight - so anything that can stay cloaked in warp and is not affected by bubbles will do the trick.
Outlook
I am hoping i can do better in June. The aim has to be for 7bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex).
Aims for June:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders
2) Plex the account and build up some surplus Plex.
3) Build up the Amarr trading business
Current wealth is 16.1bn ISK made up from:
- items for sale 19.8bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 4.0bn ISK*
- Plex held (0 Plex) 0.0bn ISK
- items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
- ISK in wallet 0.3bn 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. 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 the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold. In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.
