Translate this page

Some beautiful music to read the blog with

Tuesday 30 July 2019

Wealth of 42.6bn

The fourth week in July was ok and on track.  Wealth rose by 5.0bn to 42.6bn isk.  A decent week all said and done.

My July aims are all coming in ahead of expectations:
 - i am likely to increase my wealth by more than 15bn isk after all costs
 - the Dodixie trader is expanding
 - the Amarr trader is expanding
 - i have the 500 surplus Plex in he inventory.


That said, in the final few days of the month i don't expect to make any further progress.  I have a number of items up for sale that are being materially undercut by competitors and so i am likely to bite the bullet and move my sell price to the new low.

Also, i intend to buy and equip a ship to travel into low and null sec so that i can pick up some items to sell in High Sec.

That is all going to cost me several hundred million isk to do and so is likely to take up all the profits made in the final days of July.  Maybe even more.

In  situations like this i generally make sure i am the lowest sell price unless the current low is lower than Jita (in which case i consider buying that item and putting it back on to sell at a higher price) or volumes are high enough that i believe these lowly priced items will be quickly bought up.

The Amarr trader is really going for it.  It now has 14bn isk of items up for sale and i am now at a point where i need to find new items for sale.  The only reason it would not get as much up for sale as the Dodixie trader is that margins are not so good given a higher level of competition.

The Dodixie trader keeps plodding along, now regularly over 30bn isk of items up for sale.

I have 600 surplus Plex.  I aim to always have 500 surplus Plex to cover the account costs with out a last minute panic to buy the plex.

Yet again, i report that Manufacturing plans has got nowhere fast - lets just take that as read.


Outlook

I am hoping i can do better in July compared to June.  The aim was to be for 10bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex) - currently i stand at 7.6bn isk therefore it feels fair to say that the 10bn target will be reached with a week to spare.

Other aims for July - all appear to be on track:
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 42.5bn ISK made up from:
  • items for sale 47.7bn ISK
  • less a 20% provision 9.5bn ISK*
  • Plex held (600 Plex) 2.2bn ISK
  • items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
  • ISK in wallet 2.2bn 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.  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.

Tuesday 23 July 2019

Wealth of 37.6bn

The third week in July was ok and on track.  Wealth rose by 2.8bn to 37.6bn isk.  I took a couple of evenings off and the weekend was treated like a normal week day.

Still, i am on track to making July better than expected.  So far in July my wealth has risen by 10.4bn isk, after paying 1.9bn to extend the account by 30 days.

Fast update, so here goes:

The Amarr trader is going for it.  It now has 11bn isk of items up for sale and this is on a rising trend.

The Dodixie trader keeps plodding along, now regularly over 30bn isk of items up for sale.

I often come home to 3bn isk sales made.  Lets assume i make 15% profit on that - see prior posts where i look at my target margin and take off the costs.  Therefore, daily i should be making 450m isk.  If that held then i would be making 13.5bn isk per month less the 2bn Plex costs.  I.e. monthly wealth should rise by 11.5bn isk.

I suspect i will do exactly that this month.

I now have 600 surplus Plex.  I aim to always have 500 surplus Plex to cover the account costs with out a last minute panic to buy the plex.

The 5.4bn isk in my wallet was fully invested in the market before i went to bed.  Well almost.  One of the courier contracts took a few hours to complete - so i posted just before i went to work.

Yet again, i report that Manufacturing plans has got nowhere fast.


Outlook

I am hoping i can do better in July compared to June.  The aim was to be for 10bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex) - currently i stand at 7.6bn isk therefore it feels fair to say that the 10bn target will be reached with a week to spare.

Other aims for July - all appear to be on track:
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 37.6bn ISK made up from:
  • items for sale 37.3bn ISK
  • less a 20% provision 7.6bn ISK*
  • Plex held (600 Plex) 2.4bn ISK
  • items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
  • ISK in wallet 5.4bn 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.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

Wealth of 34.8bn

The second week in July was ok.  Wealth rose by 1.3bn to 34.8bn isk. However, that came after paying 1.9bn to Plex the account for another 30 days.  Hence, isk made in the week was really 3.2bn less the 1.9bn for the Plex.

So, halfway through the month i have made 9.5bn isk before Plex costs.  i.e. wealth has risen by 7.6bn isk in the last two weeks.  July is going better than expected.

The Amarr trader is really coming to life now.  I am finding more items that appeals to the Amarr market.  Lots of cross over with the Dodixie market though it is more competitive.  That said, i find that as long as my item is first to third on the sell order then it generally gets sold at some point given the volume activity in the market.

The Dodixie trader plods on.  Still making good isk.  I am slowly adding new items to sell as i find the,.

I now have 400 surplus Plex.  I aim to always have 500 surplus Plex to cover the account costs with out a last minute panic to buy the plex.

The 1.9bn isk in my wallet was fully invested in the market before i went to bed.

Yet again, i report that Manufacturing plans has got nowhere fast.


Outlook

I am hoping i can do better in July compared to June.  The aim was to be for 10bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex) - currently i stand at 7.6bn isk therefore it feels fair to say that the 10bn target will be reached with a week to spare.

Other aims for July - all appear to be on track:
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 34.8bn ISK made up from:
  • items for sale 39.1bn ISK
  • less a 20% provision 7.8bn ISK*
  • Plex held (400 Plex) 1.6bn ISK
  • items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
  • ISK in wallet 1.9bn 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.

Tuesday 9 July 2019

Wealth of 33.5bn

The first week in July was perhaps my best.  Wealth rose by 6.3bn to 33.5bn isk.

Finally, my trader in Amarr has come to life and started pulling his weight.

Good week during the weekdays and weekend - that's what did it also.

I now have 600 Plex of which 500 will buy 30 days play time - that is the aim.

The 3.3bn isk in my wallet was fully invested in the market before i went to bed.

Yet again, i report that Manufacturing plans has got nowhere fast.

No change to anything else really.


Outlook

I am hoping i can do better in July compared to June.  The aim was to be for 10bn isk increase in wealth (after paying for Plex) - so far, so good.  From the 6.3bn isk increase i will need to pay out about 2bn isk for Plex for my account but i am 40% of the way there in the first week.

Other aims for July:
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 33.5bn ISK made up from:
  • items for sale 36.5bn ISK
  • less a 20% provision 7.3bn ISK*
  • Plex held (600 Plex) 2.3bn ISK
  • items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
  • ISK in wallet 2.3bn 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.

Tuesday 2 July 2019

Month End Update June 2019

At the end of my third month my wealth is 27.2bn isk.  An increase of 11.0bn isk over the month.

I also had to fund a 2.2bn Plex payment, so compared to the prior month's increase of 8.0bn this month my wealth rose 13.2bn before Plex costs.


I had a great final weak to June where my wealth rose by 4.7bn - has to be my best week ever - and all of that was done at the weekend.  During the week i made some sales but i also had to reduce some items by a lot (making a small loss on some sales) given competition coming into these markets.

In my first month my wealth rose 7.3bn (no plex though), last month my wealth rose 5.8bn (which i was disappointed with).  Hence, this month's increase of 11.0bn after plex costs was very satisfying.


The two lessons from May still hold true:

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.

The good news remains that i am comfortably playing one account for free and could happily play 2 accounts easily for free.  That remains the aim.



Plex

I don't have any Plex sitting in my hanger right now - i had hoped to have bought at least 500 Plex by the month end.

My aim is to build a store of Plex such that i don't need that last minute rush to get some Plex together to finance my main account.

Hence, from tomorrow onwards i will buy Plex each day to get to the 500 Plex + the additional 500 Plex i will need to finance the account in mid July.



Strategy

No change here - i stick to 45 minutes a day, perhaps a bit more at the weekends to generate the wealth.

I currently operate my business with three characters who don't undock.

All items are bought from Sell Orders in Jita and then Couriered to the Sellers sitting in Dodixie and Amarr.

The Buyer in Jita will, one day, be my manufacturer . . . . . . i just have not got around to looking into Manufacturing hard enough . . . . . so lets not hope to see a post on this any time soon . . . . . 


Profit margin structure

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).

My Dodixie character is Level 5 in Accounting and Broker Relations to get the costs down

Cost structure:
I have 3 costs to cover:
1) Courier fees = 1.0% of the expected sales price (see below)
2) Broker fees = 2.48% of the expected sales price
3) Sales tax = 1.0% of the expected sales price

Hence, my costs are 4.48%.

So, if my target margin is 20.0% less the costs of 4.48% then my overall profit margin comes out at just over 15%.


Courier Contracts

All items i buy in Jita are couriered by third parties to Dodixie and Amarr.

I have settled on paying a fee equal to 1% of the Collateral.  In almost all cases i get the items delivered within an hour.

It might help that my cargo size rarely goes over 1000m3 and is mostly in the low hundreds m3.

Easy money for some but a great time saving for me.



Identifying items to sell

I used to look up items on Evemarketer to find items to sell.  Today, i have a spreadsheet that pulls the Sales value of items from Jita, Amarr and Dodixie so that i can readily see which items have the margins of over 20%.

Makes life easier though i still lack a daily sales volume measure which would complete the job for me.


Dodixie Seller

The main constraint to wealth generation is the amount of ISK i have to deploy.  I am now regularly making over 2.0bn ISK sales per day.

Working backwards, if my wealth has increased by 13.2bn then that indicates daily profits of 440m isk.

Using my cost structure above then that would suggest i made sales of just over 85bn isk in June.

I have only trained up wholesale and so no change in the maximum orders i can post of 129.  These days i have around 100 sell orders posted.  Currently valued at 25.3bn isk (vs last month at 16.4bn isk).  If required, i can still skill up Tycoon to give an additional 32 order slots per level.


Amarr Seller


This is newer and currently this character has 24 items up for Sale for a total of 8.3bn isk (compares to 9 items valued at 3.2bn last month)

He can post up to 65 items right now - that did not change though i suspect i may need to train up some related skills in July.

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.

The Amarr seller started off slowly but is now doing well.  I don't yet have a feel as to the daily sales and profits so that is something to work out perhaps over July.

Costs are a worse 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.


Thank you to those who suggested fit outs for flying covert in low-sec to buy blueprints and other very small cargo space items.


Checklist of the aim for June:

Aims for June were:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders - done
2) Plex the account and build up some surplus Plex - not built up surplus plex

3) Build up the Amarr trading business - done



Outlook

It may be hard to do better in July.  But lets aim for 10bn increase in wealth at least, after Plex costs to finance the account.

Aims for July (same as June really):
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 27.2bn ISK made up from:
  • items for sale 33.6bn ISK
  • less a 20% provision 6.7bn 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.