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Monday 31 August 2020

Corporation Set Up: General Commerce and Industry

The time has come to set up a Corporation to make life easier and safer to haul items from Jita to Dodixie.

Now that the items i transport from Jita are approaching 80m isk i have decided to move to Contracts to get them couriered from Jita to Dodixie.

For those that don't know, this means contracting out to a third party to haul my items from Jita to Dodixie.  The hauler puts up collateral in isk to the level i specify  and if the hauler successfully delivers the items they are awarded the fee i offered and get their collateral back.  If the hauler fails then i get the collateral.  So, typically i set the collateral at the cost of the items +10%.

It is a lot safer and not too much cost at all.


At the moment, i am offering 1.5% of the collateral as a Reward.  With 1 day to claim plus 1 day to deliver.  So far, i get the items within an hour or so of setting up the Contract.

Maybe i should reduce the Reward to 1% - i suspect with the trade route from Jita to Amarr closed for now due to the invasion then more haulers will be focusing on the remaining Trade routes.  And my items rarely take up more than 100m3, so a small fast ship can do them very easily.


I already have an alt with no skills based in Jita - so he can have one contract running at a time.

To make this a smooth process i set up a Corporation with both my Main and Alt as members.

The Main at Dodixie will transfer surplus isk to the Corporation.  The Alt in Jita will then buy the items on behalf of the Corporation.

Therefore, neither the Main nor the Alt need ever leave their stations to conduct trading for now.


The Corporation is imaginatively called General Commerce and Industry.

Wednesday 26 August 2020

Upgraded to Omega

After 2 days trading (+2 days training missions), my current wealth is 90m isk.


Seed Capital

The training missions at the start yielded me 10m isk.  That seems not to have changed from the prior two times i started in May 2013 and March 2019.

I started the training missions on Saturday night and finished them on Sunday night.

So, with that 10m isk my trading started.


The initial aims

Me initial aim is not much different from before - i want to use my tried and tested trading strategy to get to a steady state of income with minimal effort.

At that point, instead of pushing on i want to move into other parts of Eve industry to see what it is all about and if i can make it generate good isk.


Trading Strategy

Unchanged.

I will buy direct from Sell Orders in Jita, fly them to Dodixie and post them up as Sell Orders.

Whilst the amounts i buy are below 60m isk at a time, i will transport them myself on autopilot (i will need to check how much i can transport before i become a target).

I will buy slow moving (i.e. low daily sales, 1 sale a day is good for me) items what sell for very high margins.  i.e. buy for 700k in Jita and sell for 2.5m in Dodixie.

Blueprints are a great place to start.

The competition is very sleepy.  The big traders don't play here (the margins are good but at one sale a day the profits are low).  So is a great way to grow the initial capital.

From seed capital of 10m i now have 111m isk of Sell Orders up in Dodixie.

The aim is to keep as much of my isk invested on the market leaving only enough to finance the new Broker Fees to change prices.

Currently i am using 21 Sell Orders.


Alpha vs Omega

The main headwind that Alpha gave me is the limit to place 17 Sell Orders.

By Tuesday, my second day of trading, i was needing more slots so i bit the bullet and upgraded to Omega.  £9.99 spent for 30 days game time.  I am hoping that i can earn sufficient isk to Plex the account from here.  That is a key aim.


Market Changes

Two changes struck me immediately.

Firstly, there is no more 0.01 price changing.

Secondly, the broker fee on price changes is effectively at half normal broker fee rates.  I can reduce this with skills over time.

But, overall, the taxation on market orders has gone up strongly.

At some stage i will write a post on this but i will read up on the subject first to see what effect this has had.


Accounting for Wealth

I plan to use the same process i did before.

My wealth is the sum of ISK, items in cargo and the sum of all Sell Orders less a 20% provision against those Sell Orders.

This 20% provision is a conservative estimate of the price reduction and associated taxes it would take to effectively complete the Sell Orders.

I will need to review how this works out with the new Broker Fees on price changes.  But sticking to the 20% for now.

That said, i see now that EVE gives easier details on Income vs Expenditure and also i think it keeps a track of the initial cost of the Sell Orders i have up.  If that really is the case, then i can start to account for my profits much like a company does.  But i will leave that for later.


Outlook

September will be my first full month, so lets see how it goes

Aims for September:
1) Continue to expand the Dodixie trader sell orders
2) Plex the account


Current wealth is 90m ISK made up from:

  • items for sale 111m ISK
  • less a 20% provision 22m ISK*
  • ISK in wallet 1m 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.

Saturday 22 August 2020

Starting Again - third time

There i was, effectively out of the game with real life / work life very busy and a friend of mine whispers in my ear that he has "retarted Eve Online" and is going to focus on the Industrial side of life.

. . . . . and that was too much for me to resist.

So, lets see how this goes.

I will start again.

Spend strictly no more than 45 minutes per day.

This time i want to explore more than trading but i want trading to create the underlying the cash to be able to play for free and to explore all other expects of the economy.

Hence, i suspect trading will be the focus for a few months before i move onto other matters.

I will also doubtless need to pay for at least the first month.

Downloading the game now . . . .  .

. . . . .though maybe kickoff next weekend.