I also had to fund a 1.8bn Plex payment. Hence, i likely generated profits of almost 9bn isk in August which is about 290m per day.
But lets remember that Plex is part of the costs of my game so lets just focus on the 7.3bn isk rise (i.e. the rise in wealth after paying for all costs) - this compares to the prior month of an 16bn isk rise.
Lets not beat about the bush, August turned into a slow month. It started off slow and then i did not log in for the final 10 days as real life took over (and i expect real life to be a dominant taker of time in September also).
Recall last month i said that one of the lessons from back in May still hold true:
1) I need to visit the game once a day to stay competitive - it only takes me 10 minutes to update my orders. It takes another 10 to 20 minutes to decide what to buy and then a final 5 minutes to post them all when they are delivered to me.
I clearly did not follow that rule in the final 10 days and that killed my wealth generation capabilities.
It also meant that as items sold the ISK in my wallet rose and at the end of August i had 11bn ISK to invest and indeed today as i write this i have a total of 15bn ISK sitting in my wallet to invest.
Plex
I now have 700 Plex sitting in my hanger right now - so that is another aim achieved. I wanted to hold surplus Plex rather than have a mad panic to raise the isk and buy the Plex as the monthly deadline to extend the game time drew closer.
Given it is drawing close to the next deadline i will either use 500 of that 600 Plex to extend the game time and then rebuild the Plex levels in my inventory or i will buy 100 Plex a day from now. It will very much depend on how much spare isk i have.
Strategy
No change here - i (try to) stick to 45 minutes a day, perhaps a bit more at the weekends to generate the wealth.
The weekday sessions go as so:
1) reasonably late at night i will update all my orders at Dodixie and Amarr, and move the isk generated from the days sales to the Corporation account. That all takes about 10 minutes.
2) i will consult my spreadsheet and see what items i should buy that will generate margins of at least 20% before fees and transport costs. That all takes 10 to 20 minutes.
3) My buyer in Jita will purchase those items from Jita Sell orders and issue courier contracts to send them to my sellers in Dodixie and Amarr. That takes 3 minutes.
4) I will then log off and come back about an hour later and normally the items have been delivered by then. My sellers in Dodixie and Amarr will then put them up for sale in Dodixie and Amarr. That takes 5 to 10 minutes.
Skills
My Dodixie seller has:
Accounting - Level 5 . . . . therefore pays 2.25% sales tax
Broker Relations - Level 5 . . . . therefore pays 3.48% broker fees
Contracting Level 4
Trade - Level 5
Retail - Level 5
Wholesale - Level 4 . . . . therefore can put up to 129 items for sale
also has Marketing Level 2 though i have no idea how that helps me . . . .
My Amarr seller has:
Accounting - Level 5 . . . . therefore pays 2.25% sales tax
Broker Relations - Level 5 . . . . therefore pays 3.5% broker fees
Contracting Level 4
Trade - Level 5
Retail - Level 5
Wholesale - Level 2 . . . . therefore can put up to 97 items for sale
Profit margin structure (changed under the new tax rates)
Given the tax rises i have increased by target profit margin - in other words, i am passing the cost of the tax rises onto the customer.
I focus on small cargo items (blueprints, implants and boosters) that sell once every 1 or 2 or 3 days and profit margins of over 22%. It used to be 20% but the additional 2% is for the new taxes.
Profit margin. If something costs 78 and i sell it for 100 then the profit margin is (100-78)/100 = 22%. 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 jumps to Jita to buy an item for a lower price. They are willing to pay up to save time (and perhaps the risk).
Cost structure - I have 3 costs to cover:
1) Courier fees = 1.0% of the expected sales price (see below)2) Broker fees = 3.48% of the expected sales price
3) Sales tax = 2.25% of the expected sales price
Hence, my costs are 6.73%.
So, if my target margin is 22% less the costs of 6.73% then my overall profit margin comes out at just over 15%.
In other words, for every 1bn isk of sales i make then my wealth increases by 150m isk (= 1bn x 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
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 26.2bn isk (vs last month at 31.3bn isk). If required, i can still skill up Tycoon to give an additional 32 order slots per level.
Going ok, will be back up to speed in September hopefully.
Amarr Seller
This is newer and currently this character has 57 items up for Sale for a total of 20.9bn isk (compares to 57 items valued at 22.0bn last month)
He can post up to 97 items right now - an increase since the end of June as i grow this Seller.
There is a good chance it gets as big as the Dodixie seller.
Going well, though i will need to find new items to sell in the near future.
Checklist of the aims for August:
The main aim was to increase wealth by 10bn - that was not achieved.
Other aims for August were:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders - failed
2) Plex the account and build up some surplus Plex - done
3) Build up the Amarr trading business - done
. . . . . . . . so, the failure to log in for the final 10 days knocked me off course a bit.
Outlook
Should be easier to do better in September. But lets aim for 10bn increase in wealth at least, after Plex costs to finance the account, given real life will be busy anyway.
Aims for September (same as August 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 50.7bn ISK made up from:
- items for sale 47.1bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 9.4bn ISK*
- Plex held (700 Plex) 2.4bn ISK
- items in storage for sale 0.0 ISK
- ISK in wallet 10.6bn 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.
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