Trading from secondary locations

My main trading locations are Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek.  Jita i occasionally sell from but is not a main focus.

In December 2021 i started to expand and sell out of other locations in Highsec.

The strategy was simple: find other locations that could see decent trade; use alpha accounts to start off with (so 17 Sell orders maximum); and see if i could generate enough sales in two of the locations at a time to justify upgrading to Omega.

The attraction of this strategy is that those locations have no competition and so maintaining them would take very little time.

as a rule of thumb, i needed two of the alpha alts to be able to do a combined 10bn isk of sales per month to justify upgrading to Omega.

Progress to date:

Firstly, i was right on the competition - there is practically none.  It literally takes me a minute per account to maintain.  I don't need to go through each item to see if i need to update the price.  All i need to do is watch for sales and replace them with items from Jita.

Secondly, two of the alts in the Regions of Lonetrek and Tash-Murkon have managed to generate sufficiet sales to be upgraded to Omega.

Thirdly, the Sales story is more mixed.  The data below shows the sales of each region for December 2021, January 2022 and February 2022:

January was great, February less so.

The omega account in Lonetrek / Tash-Murkon only just justified itself in February.

So far, i would say, average marks awarded for this venture.

Ramping up the locations

I know that if a location does not work i will just look for another System to see if i have better luck in attracting buyers.

That is important to remember for me - this is a project where i will iterate to the optimal solution.  I use third party apps such as Adam4Eve to try and find the best trading station in a Region as a starting point.

I am sticking with the Omega account in Lonetrek / Tash-Murkon for now.  I feel it should work and i am slowing ramping up the items for sale.

The data below shows the value of items i have for sale in each region:

for what i am selling, an alpha account can get around 10bn of items for sale spread over its 17 Sell Orders.

Lonetrek and Tash-Murkon are expanding slowly and can go much further given they are now an Omega account.

In total, a third everything i have for sale is across these nine secondary locations.  i.e. as at the end of February i had 368bn isk of items for sale across Eve of which 109.7bn was in these secondary locations.

Summary:

positives: takes no time at all to maintain each location; two of the regions have justified an Omega account.

negatives: very poor returns given a third of everything i have for sale is over these locations.

to do: open up in other Regions with additional alpha accounts; iterate in my current Regions to find better stations to sell from; expand Lonetrek and Tash-Murkon further.

The current state of play of my business

Aim

My aim is to make monthly profits after all costs of at least 10bn isk with a further aspiration to make 1bn isk profit per day (so 30bn per month).

I started This venture in September 2020 having played twice for a few years in the past.

Strategy

Currently, i operate an inter-regional trading venture.  I am a Merchant.

I buy in Jita and sell elsewhere.  Almost all items are purchased in Jita from sell orders, couriered by third parties to the trading locations around Eve and put up for sale typically at a 33% mark-up.

I focus on items that may only sell once every 10 days - there is very little competition and the margins are good.  If i can sell 3% of everything i have on offer then that would be c10bn sales per day which would be 1.6bn profits per day.

I have 18 alts selling out of 13 stations mostly in highsec and 5 alts in Jita doing the buying.  3 of the accounts (9 alts) are omega, the other 3 (9 alts) alpha.

Daily Operations

Each evening i log on to all the 15 trading alt, update prices to ensure i am the lowest and work out what i need to buy.

The main trading alts in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek can take several minutes each.  The other alts typically take no more than 3 minutes, or none if it is obvious no sales have been made.

I then log onto my Jita alts, but the required items from Jita Sell orders and have them couriered to the trading location.

Each day anything between 6-16 bn isk of items are couriered from Jita which represents the daily sales reinvested back into the business.

Before i go to bed i log back onto the trading locations when the items have normally arrived and put them on to sell.

Results

Over the last 12 months (March 2021 to February 2022) i have made 1.7 trillion ISK of sales generating an increase in wealth of 254 billion ISK after paying 27bn ISK to omega accounts.

So far, that is 22bn ISK per month of profits after all costs.  The last few months have typically been around 30bn ISK.

My current wealth stands at 301bn ISK.

Month end update - February 2022

As at the end of February 2022 my wealth is 301bn ISK after paying 5.6bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for three accounts (i put 2 Omega times on the new upgraded account).  My Wealth increased by 31bn in February.

This has been by far my third best month on record.  The best was in December 2021 where my wealth rose by 50bn followed by January 2022 where my wealth rose by 41bn.

Clearly, i am still benefitting from the new changes in Eve though the market does feel like it is normalising down.

The top level summary of February was that i made sales of 227bn ISK which were sold for a 58bn ISK profit and after 21bn of taxes and fees and the 6bn Plex the increase in my wealth was 31bn ISK.

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 11 / 18 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 7 months.

Things i talk about below:

 - summary of my activity

 - the 1bn daily profit target which i achieved in February

 - Review of the aims i had for February which were on balance met

 - reminder of how i do this

 - manufacturing efforts being nil this month

 - Alts in other secondary locations inluding the new omega account

 - normal discussion on Sales in my main trading hubs of Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon Prime and a quick review of the alpha alt accounts

 - the Outlook and Aims for March

Activity

I continue to come on once a day to update Sell orders and replace items sold.  About 30-45 minutes.

February was a bit like January - the main focus was on my four main trading locations Dodixie, Amarr, Hek and Rens whilst slowly expanding the new omega secondary locations of Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon Prime.  The tertiary locations (non-omega secondary locations) were maintained but nothing more - Arnon (Essence), Motsu (The Citadel), Agil (Khanid), Alentene (Verge Vendor), Orvolle (Placid), Delve (NPC station)

Manufacturing was nil- i did not have enough time to devote to it.

In all, i did an average of 8.1bn sales per day making 1.3bn isk per day before buying the Plex.

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 February i kept to the target.  Hence, i have achieved an average of 1bn profits per day in October, November, December, January and now February.

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, January and February 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 and in February i had three.  I was hopeful of getting over 20bn sales in one day in February but i merely achieved 18bn that day!

Review of the February aims

1) Plex the three omega accounts - achieved

2) Increase sales in Dodixie - missed

3) Increase sales in Amarr - achieved

4) Increase sales in Rens - achieved

5) Increase sales in Hek - missed

6) Ramp up Sobaseki - achieved

7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime - achieved

8) Expand manufacturing further - missed

9) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega - missed

In all, the February aims were half achieved but overall sales declined.

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 three omega accounts (paid for with plex) with nine alts.

The main Trading alts sit in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek.  Rens and Hek are still slowly ramping up.  I have also omega alts in the new Trading locations of Sobaseki (in Londtrek) and Tash-Murkon Prime (in Tash-Murlon).

The other three alts sit in Jita and buys from Sell Orders, has these items couriered to the alts in Dodixie / Amarr and Rens / Hek and Sobaseki / Tash-Murkon Pime who then put them onto these markets for sale.

The Jita alts also serve to sell items that i can no longer sell in my trading locations  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.  So far the Sobesaki and Tash-Murkon alts made the grade and were upgraded in one account.

The other regions so far are: Essence; 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 and February was nil.

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 my trading locations or i can sell it for lower prices and still make my 25% target margin.

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 6 other locations up and running over February 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.

That said, February was a poor month for these secondary locations.

Sobesaki and Tash-Murkon Prime only did sales of 11.4bn which barely covered the cost of the Plex.

The other secondary trading locations made combined sales of 11.8bn.  OK for next to no work but nothing to write home about.

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!  In the three months i have been operating there my sales back been 5.1bn with 1.5bn in February.

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 February (and December / January) 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 227bn ISK of sales in February which made me item profits of 58bn 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 15% in February which reflects big declines in Hek, Jita, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon.  In part offset by a nice rise in Amarr and a strong 42% rise in Rens to a new record of 45bn sales.

Still, sales were up 10% on the next best month of November 2021.

Over the last 12 months i have now done 1.7 trillion ISK of sales.

The best performing location was Amarr (first time in 7 months) followed by Dodixie then Rens then Hek.

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 only 4bn - so seeing an ongoing decline.  I don't make much of an effort in Jita, it is not my natural hunting ground for Sales.

From all these sales i made item profits of 58bn.

This therefore was an item margin of 25.4% (58/227) vs my target of 25%.  So, remain on track with profitability.

Manufacturing sales were nil.

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 227= 4.5bn

Sales tax cost me 8.6bn ISk (=3.79% of sales) - the Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek characters are level 5 in Accounting (=sales tax of 3.6%), the new omega accounts are in the process of taking the skill to level 5 and of course all the alpha alt accounts are only Level 1 (=sales tax of 8%).

Broker Fees costs me 8.2bn (=3.6% 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 227= 3.4bn and so the Relisting Fee = 8.2-3.4 = 4.8bn which is 2.1% of sales.  That reflects the higher competition in Amarr, i suspect.

This takes my 'Business Profits' to 36.2bn isk for February vs 43.8bn in January.  This is what 20-30 minutes a day in February gave me.

So, the post-tax margin is 16.0% (36/227) is down from the 20s when the tax rates were lower but remains above the 15% target.

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 5.6bn isk to extend the Omega by 30 days for three accounts (i bought one extra omega time for the new omega account).

That, therefore, is the roadmap from making 227bn of sales and seeing my wealth increase by 31bn 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.  As are implants.  Mining equipment is slowing.

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.

Ship Equipment does ok though the mining equipment sales have clearly slowed as it has become more competitive and demand does not feel as strong anymore.

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; increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level

Marketing: Level 3; 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.  Rens was a very strong market in February vs Hek 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.

New omega alts: Lonetrek, Tash-Murkon

I am slowly building up the items for sale and trading skill levels.  Will take at least 2-3 more months to complete.

In terms of items for sales, in Rens and Hek i have c50bn vs c27bn in each of Sobaseki (Lonetrek) and Tash-Murkon Prime.  So more to go.  It is slow work trying to work out what will sell.

alpha alts: Essence, Citadel, Khanid, Verge Vendor, Placid and Delve

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.

Eve Economy Data Charts

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.

The data inputs changed a bit in February so i need to redo the code . . . . 

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

March will have nine aims - and i am going to be more realistic.  I feel the market is slowing so i want to aim to hold my sales levels.

1) Plex both the accounts - aim number one all the time

2) Hold sales in Dodixie

3) Hold sales in Amarr

4) Hold sales in Rens

5) Hold sales in Hek

6) Ramp up Sobaseki

7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime

8) Pause Manufacturing for now

9) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega

 

The daily sales in February averaged 8.1bn.

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, January 2022 and February 2022.  I started in August 2020.

Current wealth is 301bn 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 341bn ISK

• less a 20% provision 68bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 16bn ISK

When i add up my wealth, 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 or are used to generate isk that can be readily resold back onto the market.  Any ships or skills or fittings etc i buy are counted as expenses in that month.

* 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.

Current Markets in Eve

With the real life events in Ukraine i had wondered how this would affect what i see in Eve Online:

I had expected to see the markets slowdown given the potential withdrawal of players from the game.

What i have seen is the market weaker in places but stronger in others.

Weaker sub-markets

For example, mining equipment sales for me have fallen away.  In part, because this market has become more competitive so i can't make the 25% profit margin i like.

I still make some mining equipment sales but the days of this being a noticeable part of daily sales since the changes in Eve in October 2021 is no longer the case.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, mining related blueprints are also not really selling for me.

Stronger sub-markets

That said, i am seeing good sales in ship equipment used in battles.  It feels that this has increased.

I am seeing better sales in some manufacturing items.

Shortage of supply

This is a trend that has been going on for a while but there is a shortage of supply of many of the items i sell.  It is quite common for me to be buying out all the items in Jita just to replace sales i have made across my trading locations.  These are not commonly used items but they do have nice sales rates - so being in short supply will be noticed.

These items range from mining related equipment to equipment used in battle.  I don't really deal in low value consumables so i don't have an insight into whether these shortages extend elsewhere.

As an aside, i rarely undock to carry out by business ventures so i don't have a feel to how many people are camping gates etc either.

Overall

Lets see how March turns out but so far the weaker markets have been replaced by the stronger markets.

I have had one or two days of weak sales but i have also already had three days in March where sales were over 10bn ISK and indeed one of those days came close to 20bn ISK.

It is not uncommon that one of my main trading locations does not need to be re-stocked for a day whereas since October i was always restocking each of my main locations daily (i only re-stock if the value to transport is over 1bn isk).  Maybe that suggests the markets are a little weaker.  Lets see.