As at the end of January 2022 my wealth is 270bn ISK after paying 2.8bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for two accounts. My Wealth increased by 41bn in January.
This has been by far my second best month on record. The best was in December 2021 where my wealth rose by 50bn, the next best was in October 2021 where my wealth rose by 30bn. So this is a clear second best.
Clearly, i am still benefitting from the new changes in Eve and the market still feels strong. Lets see how long it continues.
The top level summary of January was that i made sales of 268bn ISK which were sold for a 69bn ISK profit and after 25bn of taxes and fees and the 3bn Plex the increase in my wealth was 41bn ISK. Two of my exploratory locations did enough sales to be converted to an Omega account.
Sales of 268bn were a new record and the fifth time over 100bn. The rampant market in January really helped.
The overall aim of what i do is to increase my wealth by at least 10bn per month. So far i have beaten that in 10 / 17 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 6 months.
Things i talk about below:
- summary of my activity
- the 1bn daily profit target which i achieved in January
- Review of the aims i had for December which were mostly med
- reminder of how i do this
- manufacturing efforts being slow this month
- Alts in other secondary locations, upgrading an another account to Omega and Plex
- normal discussion on Sales in my main trading hubs of Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek, and a quick review of the alpha alt accounts
- the Outlook and Aims for February
Activity
I continue to come on once a day to update Sell orders and replace items sold. About 30-45 minutes.
January was all about doing the best i could in my four main trading locations of Dodixie, Amarr, Hek and Rens whilst getting the secondary locations up and running to see which can do enough sales to be upgraded to Omega (Sobaseki (Lonetrek), Arnon (Essence), Tash-Murkon Prime (Tash-Murkon), Motsu (The Citadel), Agil (Khanid), Alentene (Verge Vendor), Orvolle (Placid), Delve (NPC station)).
Manufacturing was slower - i did not have enough time to devote to it.
In all, i did an average of 8.6bn sales per day.
Target 1bn profits per day after all taxes and plex costs
I have been talking about this aim though in the back of my mind i need to be sure i am not merely benefitting from elevated market activity following the changes made last year.
So far in January i kept to the target. Hence, i have achieved an average of 1bn profits per day in October, November, December and now January.
On the new taxation levels to make 30bn isk per month i would need to cover:
- Plex costs of 1.4 x 3 = 4.2bn
- Courier costs 2% of sales (i.e. = purchase cost + collateral)
- Broker Listing fees 1.5% of sales
- Broker re-listing fees 0.3% of sales (lets assume all sales changed at least five times per month)
- Transaction Taxes 3.6% of sales
Bottom line is that each 1bn of sales creates profits of 164m and these go towards buying Plex for the Omega accounts and whatever is left is reinvested in the business.
So, 30bn increase in wealth means i need to generate item profits for 50bn and assuming i make a 25% margin then sales of 200bn. Or, in other words, daily sales of 6.7bn.
I have achieved this sales target in November, December and January though the market was been exceptionally strong given the changes in Eve.
I now am trading in the five trade hubs, ramping up in two secondary locations and continuing to trial other highsec locations so the 1bn profits a day is not not impossible but still a tall order.
In December, it was not uncommon to have days where sales were over 10bn ISK and indeed on one day i had 10bn sales from one alt alone. In January i had two such days towards the end of the month.
Review of the January aims
1) Plex both the accounts - aim number one all the time - done
2) Keep sales in Dodixie flat - missed, sales fell 32% in Dodixie
3) Keep sales in Amarr flat - missed, sales fell 15% in Amarr
4) Increase sales in Rens - achieved, sales rose 5%
5) Increase sales in Hek - achieved, sales rose 53%
6) Expand manufacturing further - missed.
7) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega - achieved, see below
In all, the January aims were half achieved but on balance it was a success.
Reminder of my Current Business.
For now i do inter-regional trading - buying from Jita to sell elsewhere.
I have expanded the business into other high sec regions.
My main business is operated with two omega accounts (paid for with plex) with six alts.
The main Trading alts sit in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek. Rens and Hek are still slowly ramping up
The other two alts sit in Jita and buys from Sell Orders, has these items couriered to the alts in Dodixie / Amarr and Rens / Hek who then put them onto these markets for sale.
The Jita alts also serve to sell items that i can no longer sell in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens or Hek. Sort of clearance sales.
I also started in December to place alpha alts in other regions to see how it goes. I just need two of them to demonstrate that they can combine to justify an Omega account. Also, they need to take up very little of my time.
The regions so far are: Lonetrek; Essence; Tash-Murkon; Citadel and Khanid. And i am in an NPC station in Delve.
I focus on slow moving but high margin items. That keeps me away from fierce competition and i only need to sell an item once every 10 days to make good income.
For this side of my business, lets call it Merchanting or inter-regional trading, i want to generate income of 10bn isk per month after paying to Plex my account. As i ramp up my Rens and Hek alts i would hope to see this 10bn comfortably beaten. The addition of the alpha alts should help as well.
My business model evolves over time. As my wealth increases i focus on higher value items. I had evolved to only buying items in Jita for over 100m isk but this restricted the items i could sell so now i am going back to 70m isk.
Manufacturing
In November, i started down the manufacturing path. I invested 12bn into it and made profits of 1.2bn after all taxes and costs. December was slower and January even slower.
In January i only invested 3bn ISK, made sales of 4.3bn ISK and after all fees profits of 1.1bn. Shabby. But i was barely trying.
As was the case in December i spent more time focusing on the Trading business given it was going so well.
So far i am manufacturing high value items in Jita that have little of no competition and then putting them up for sale in Jita. It is opportunistic for now - the items i focus on quickly see new entrants come in and close the profit potential.
The other side of manufacturing i am looking at is if i can manufacture an item for closer to the Jita Buy price rather than the Jita Sell price. Therefore, i will make a better margin when i sell it in Dodixie / Amarr / Rens / Hek or i can sell it for lower prices and still make my 25% target margin.
I will keep trying to make this work in February - unless Trading remains relentlessly goof.
Other High Sec Trading Locations
I don't want to spend all my time on Eve doing Regional Trading (buying from one region, mainly Jita, to sell to another) but i do want to see if i can find really low competition but stable revenue streams of trading.
I had 8 other locations up and running over January and as i wrote in a prior blog post i have upgraded an account containing two of the alts to omega.
More details in that post but the alt in Tash-Murkon Prime made 15bn ISK of sales and my alt at Sobaseki made 16bn ISK of sales. At full trade skills that would make me 5.1bn isk so easily cover the cost of a Plex. Hence, these were upgraded to Omega.
I will now be buying enough Plex to upgrade to 3 omega accounts per month. At current prices that is 4.2bn ISK per month.
Delve
I want to experiment with selling in null/low Sec. Hence, i have found an NPC station in Delve and started experimenting with items to sell.
Lets see how it goes. So far, very slowly!
I may give up on Delve and look elsewhere.
Plex
I have started to invest in Plex. In all i now have 4000 Plex. I did not invest in January (and December) given all my efforts were focused on the regional trading which was doing so well.
My rule is to buy Plex on the day it is needed to continue with the Omega account and that i will continue to do.
That said, i like to store Plex for a rainy day or unless i take a break. I really need 6 months buffer. So, to cover 3 accounts for 6 months is 9000 Plex required
Analysis of Trading Profits
In total i made 268bn ISK of sales in January which made me item profits of 69bn ISK.
(item profit is the simply difference between sales done vs costs spent buying products, so before fees and taxes. Because i don't yet invest in items other than Plex i don't make any allowance for items still in stock - in part because i don't track the cost per item spent).
Overall, sales fell by 5% in January which reflects big declines in Amarr and Dodixie, increases in Hek and Rens, and the ramp up of the secondary locations under alpha accounts.
Still, sales were up 30% on the next best month of November 2021.
Over the last 12 months i have now done 1.5 trillion ISK of sales.
Interestingly, Hek was the best performing location followed by Dodixie then Amarr and then Rens.
The items for sale in Dodixie rose from the 65bn they had stalled at to 80bn whilst Amarr continued its slow decline to 37bn. Rens was flat at 48bn whilst Hek continued to rise to 52bn.
Going forwards, i will focus on ramping up Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon Prime but i would like to grow Dodixie, Rens and Hek. Amarr is too competitive to try and expand.
Jita, which serves to fire sale items i can't sell elsewhere as well as the odd item and the manufacturing items made sales of 20bn - so seeing an ongoing decline. I don't make much of an effort in Jita, it is not my natural hunting ground for Sales.
The alpha alt accounts, including Delve, did sales of 42bn vs 19bn in December. Given they are alpha alts the tax rates are higher and so profit from that 19bn will be lower than normal. Within that 42bn, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon Prime did 31bn and are therefore in an account upgraded to Omega. No other alts came close to making 10bn sales.
From all these sales i made item profits of 69bn.
This therefore was an item margin of 25.7% (69/268) vs my target of 25%. So, remain on track with profitability.
Manufacturing sales were low and came in with a 28% item margin, so a little enhancing to the overall margins. I suspect once i get manufacturing up and running then the margin will be lower.
This continues the trend of my trading margins being in the 25-27% range since April 2021 having before that been in the 28-32% range.
From this I then need to take a whole series of costs off before i get to my Business profits:
Courier Fees: i aim to pay 2% of sales value to the Courier = 2% x 269= 5.4bn
Sales tax cost me 11.6bn ISk (=4.33% of sales) - the Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek characters are level 5 in Accounting (=sales tax of 3.6%) and of course all the alpha alt accounts are only Level 1 (=sales tax of 8%).
Broker Fees costs me 7.8bn (=2.9% of sales). Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 1.5% (because i am Level 5 Broker Relations on both main characters and lets to make the sums easier and include all the alpha alts) and therefore the rest is the cost of changing the price which is 0.30% a shot (i may have that 0.30% completely wrong!).
So, Listing Fee = 1.5% x 269= 4.0bn and so the Relisting Fee = 7.8-4.0 = 3.8bn which is 1.4% of sales.
This takes my 'Business Profits' to 43.8bn isk for January vs 53.0bn in December. This is what 20-30 minutes a day in January gave me.
So, the post-tax margin is 16.4% (44/269) is down from the 20s when the tax rates were lower but remains above the 15% target.
During February i will start to train the Trade Skill up in the two alts i upgraded to Omega.
The rest of the alpha alts will be high tax payers until i decide which to Omega.
And then from those 'Business Profits' i buy Plex for 2.8bn isk to extend the Omega by 30 days for two accounts.
That, therefore, is the roadmap from making 269bn of sales and seeing my wealth increase by 41bn as a result.
Items i am selling in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek
I sell blueprints, skill books, implants and ship equipment. Blueprints are making a steady come back. Though it is a slow and steady revenue maker with low competition.
Implants are still doing ok - i am slowly expanding into more types and moving up the ISK value curve. I used to focus on implants selling for at least 150m isk but now have pulled that back to 75m. Can be competitive at times and a very slow moving market. I have been known to see an item not move for 90 days and so i need to repost it (i should watch for this and just change the price slightly with 2 days to go to make for lower fees).
Skill books are a low income generator for me but there are still a few nice sellers. I suspect skills books are now my lowest income generator and feels like it was less in January.
Ship Equipment is picking up again and well helped by the mining changes and remains a more opportunistic market for me. If it looks like making a decent profit, i put it up for sale otherwise i leave it.
Rigidly sticking to the 25% margin target. Courier fees and taxes now take 7% of that to bring me to a theoretical 18%.
Dodixie Seller character
This remains my main character and has regained its slot as the largest seller.
I have now trained all the relevant skills to Level 5. The skills relevant to Trading that i have are:
Accounting: Level 5; means i am charged 3.6% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 8%. The base used to be 5% and i used to be able to get it down to 2.25% - so Sales Tax (Transaction Tax) has gone up.
Broker Relations: Level 5; means i am charged 1.5% to list an item for sale vs the normal 3.0%. The base used to be 5% and i used to be able to get it down to 3% - so the Broker Listing fees have gone down.
Advanced Broker Relations: Level 5; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale. With no skill i would be charged 1.5% to change every price. Level 5 has brought this down to 0.30%.
Trade: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 4 per level.
Retail: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 8 per level
Wholesale: Level 5 (increased by two levels in January); increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level
Marketing: Level 3 (increased by one level in January); this allows me to set up Sell Orders in stations other than the one i am in; it also allowed me to look to increase my Contracting skills which i will need to sell my BPO copies from invention
Given the level 5 Trade, level 5 Retail and level 5 wholesale, i am able to post 145 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (5x16)). With no Trading skills you can post up to 5 sell orders
Amarr Seller character
This is the most competitive location but the sales and profits remain good.
I have now trained all the relevant skills to Level 5. The skills relevant to Trading that i have are:
Accounting: Level 5; means i am charged 3.6% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 8%. The base used to be 5% and i used to be able to get it down to 2.25% - so Sales Tax (Transaction Tax) has gone up.
Broker Relations: Level 5; means i am charged 1.5% to list an item for sale vs the normal 3.0%. The base used to be 5% and i used to be able to get it down to 3% - so the Broker Listing fees have gone down.
Advanced Broker Relations: Level 5; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale. With no skill i would be charged 1.5% to change every price. Level 5 has brought this down to 0.30%.
Trade: Level 4; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 4 per level.
Retail: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 8 per level
Wholesale: Level 4; increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level
Marketing: Level 2; this allows me to set up Sell Orders in stations other than the one i am in; i don't use this really
Given the level 4 Trade, level 5 Retail and Wholesale Level 4, i am able to post 125 items for sale (5 + (4x4) + (5x8) + (4x16).
Rens and Hek characters
I still think of these two locations as really the same - but i am finding they have different dynamics. Hek was a very strong market in January vs Rens which was ok.
In Rens:
Accounting: Level 5; means i am charged 3.6% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 8%.
Broker Relations: Level 5; means i am charged 1.5% to list an item for sale vs the normal 3.0%.
Advanced Broker Relations: Level 4; means the relist fee is just over 0.3%
Trade: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 4 per level.
Retail: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 8 per level
Wholesale: Level 3; increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level
Marketing: Level 2; this allows me to set up Sell Orders in stations other than the one i am in; i don't use this really
Given the level 5 Trade, level 5 Retail and level 3 Wholesale, i am able to post 113 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (3x16)). That is plenty for now but i am still trying to expand the number of items for sale.
In Hek:
Accounting: Level 5; means i am charged 3.6% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 8%. The base used to be 5% and i used to be able to get it down to 2.25% - so Sales Tax (Transaction Tax) has gone up.
Broker Relations: Level 5; means i am charged 1.5% to list an item for sale vs the normal 3.0%. The base used to be 5% and i used to be able to get it down to 3% - so the Broker Listing fees have gone down.
Advanced Broker Relations: Level 5; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale. With no skill i would be charged 1.5% to change every price. Level 5 has brought this down to 0.30%.
Trade: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 4 per level.
Retail: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 8 per level
Wholesale: Level 3; increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level
Marketing: Level 2; this allows me to set up Sell Orders in stations other than the one i am in; i don't use this really
Given the level 5 Trade, level 5 Retail and level 3 Wholesale, i am able to post 113 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (3x16)). That is plenty for now but i am still trying to expand the number of items for sale.
alpha alts: Lonetrek, Essence, Tash-Murkon, Citadel, Khanid, Verge Vendor, Placid and Delve
The Lonetrek and Tash-Murkon alts were made Omega at the end of the month.
The only relevant skills i can train are Broker Relations to Level 5 and Trade to Level 3.
Therefore, i can post 17 items for sale and pay Transaction Taxes of 8%, Listing Fees of 2.4% and re-listing fees of 1.2%.
Now, so far there is no competition so no re-listing fees. hence, my costs of sale are the courier fees of 2% + 8% transaction fees + 2.4% Listing fees = 12.4%.
Assuming i stick to my 25% item margin target then my bottom line profit margins are 12.6%. i.e. every 1bn sales generates 126m profits vs 180m for the Omega accounts. That is, 70% of Omega levels. And i am limited to 17 sales slots - so at best they are alts that are trying out to see if they are good enough to be upgraded to Omega!
Courier Contracts
Each night, i get home from work and determine what i need to sell in all the locations.
The time is taken changing prices were necessary (especially Amarr given it is competitive) and then figuring out what to sell with the ISK made from the prior 24 hours sales.
I have a list of items that feature regularly and i add to this list as time goes by. So is a case of checking Jita prices vs current location prices.
It takes a minute to check all the alt accounts.
To look up prices in Eve I am using Eve Tycoon which seems to have more of the latest items in its market browser. I used to use evemarketer but i just got used to Eve Tycoon.
Each night i courier about 5 to 15bn ISK of items from Jita. Used to be 2-10bn but things are better these days. The total cargo volume is 10-250m3 per shipment. So small but valuable items. But this allows the couriers to use small, fast ships with much less chance of being ganked. So there is always someone willing to pick up the contract quickly.
I pay a generous 1.5 to 2.0% of collateral as fees. I am more interested in getting my items onto the market quickly than penny pinching on distribution costs.
Nothing, yet, todo with my Eve Business ventures but just noting that i set up a website site eveeconomy.com which takes the monthly economic data provided by CCP and visualises it in chart form.
Loads of charts and more i can add.
I need to work out how to render the charts faster - right now they are accessed from a google drive given that is the way i have worked out how to update multiple charts at once quickly.
Let me know what you think and what else i should add.
Outlook
February will have nine aims - and i am trying to do better vs January which assumes the market does not slow.
1) Plex both the accounts - aim number one all the time
2) Increase sales in Dodixie
3) Increase sales in Amarr
4) Increase sales in Rens
5) Increase sales in Hek
6) Ramp up Sobaseki
7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime
8) Expand manufacturing further
9) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega
The daily sales in January averaged 8.6bn.
If i assume i need to make 10bn + 4.2bn income per month (=14.2bn) and i assume i can achieve 15.0% margin then i need to make monthly sales of 95bn and so daily sales of 3.2bn.
So far i have achieved this in December 2020, January, March, April, August, September, October, November, December 2021 and January 2022. I started in August 2020.
Current wealth is 270bn ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 12bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 1bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 0.0bn ISK
- items for sale 295bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 59bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 22bn 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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