As at the end of April 2022 my wealth is 369bn ISK after paying 4.2bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for three accounts. My Wealth increased by 35bn in April.
Perhaps surprisingly, April came in better than March (34.5bn vs 33.4bn increase in wealth) though it did feel like April was slowing down towards the end. Anyway, April 2022 is now my third best month and another month where the daily profits after all costs except Plex have exceeded 1bn ISK per day.
The best was in December 2021 where my wealth rose by 50bn followed by January 2022 where my wealth rose by 41bn.
The top level summary of April was that i made sales of 217bn ISK which were sold for a 60bn ISK profit and after 21bn of taxes and fees and the 4bn Plex the increase in my wealth was 35bn ISK.
In the last 12 months i have made sales of 2.0 trillion isk and profits after everything including Plex of 295bn isk having spend 33bn on Plex.
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 13 / 20 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 9 months.
Things i talk about below:
- summary of my activity
- the 1bn daily profit target which i achieved in April
- Review of the aims i had for April which were mostly missed
- reminder of how i do this
- manufacturing efforts being nil this month
- Alts in other secondary locations including 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 May
Activity
I continue to come on once a day to update Sell orders and replace items sold. About 30-45 minutes.
April was technically a slower month across the board compared to March. Sales fell 9% and were down or flat in every location except Tash-Murkon Prime (a new omega account location) and Alentene (an alpha account location).
In each of my four main trading locations Dodixie, Amarr, Hek and Rens sales fell on average by 15% vs rising overall in Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon Prime overall as i build these locations up.
The tertiary locations (non-omega secondary locations) rose slightly but there is always a limit on what 17 Sell Orders per location can get - Arnon (Essence), Motsu (The Citadel), Agil (Khanid), Alentene (Verge Vendor), Orvolle (Placid), Delve (NPC station). Still no sign of combining any of these two locations to create a new Omega account though.
Manufacturing was nil - i did not have enough time to devote to it. I suspect it will remain this way until i stop expanding into my current trade locations.
In all, i did an average of 7.2bn sales per day making 1.3n 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 April i kept to the target. Hence, i have achieved an average of 1bn profits per day in October, November, December, January, February, March and now April.
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 are needed.
I have achieved this sales target in November, December, January, February, March and April. Interestingly, i benefitted from the strong markets after the changes in Eve but more recently the markets are less biased to mining equipment but i am still managing to make over 1bn ISK profits per day. So perhaps this target is achievable more consistently.
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 and may no longer be seen as 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, in February i had three, in March two and in April i had four. I was hopeful of getting over 20bn sales in one day in February but i merely achieved 18bn that day!
Review of the April aims
1) Plex the three accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved
2) Hold sales in Dodixie - missed, sales fell
3) Hold sales in Amarr - missed, sales fell
4) Hold sales in Rens - missed, sales fell
5) Hold sales in Hek - missed, sales fell
6) Ramp up Sobaseki - achieved though sales flat
7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime - achieved
8) Pause Manufacturing for now - achieved
9) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega - ongoing
In all, the April aims were mostly missed. The slower market prevented my from expanding my sales at the main trading locations.
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-Murkon).
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 profits 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, February was nil as was March and April.
I spent more time focusing on the Trading business given it was going so well.
Hence, for now, Manufacturing is on hold.
It seems i am addicted to the allure of making profits of 1bn ISK per day and so that leaves no time to focus on activities outside of Inter-Regional trading. That may prove to be a mistake if it leads to grind / burnout.
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 have 6 other locations up and running and as i wrote in a prior blog post i have upgraded an account containing two of the alts to omega at the end of January.
These two locations: Tash-Murkon Prime and Sobaseki did have a poor February but a much better March and again in April,
Tash-Murkon Prime sales rose from 8.1bn ISK to 14.9bn ISK whilst Sobaseki was flat at 14.9bn given total sales in April of 30bn iSK which, once full skilled, would generate profits of 4.9bn ISK which is more than enough to cover the 1.5bn cost of the Plex. And the competition here is very low that the time required to maintain these locations is minimal.
The other secondary trading locations made combined sales of 13.0bn which is slightly up on the March sales 12.2bn.
So far, no sign of any other two locations looking like they may be upgraded to Omega. I don't mind that. At some stage i may open up in other High Sec Regions and / or try and relocated to better places in existing High Sec regions.
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. (actually, it will be 30% higher now).
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.
It is not going well. In April there have been no sales. Over the last five months there have been 6bn sales in total.
I will have to rethink this.
Plex
I have started to invest in Plex. In all i now have 4000 Plex.
That said, given how well my Trading is going i am investing everything back into the market leaving nothing to buy surplus plex for the last four months.
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 217bn ISK of sales in April which made me item profits of 60bn 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 9% in April which reflects slower markets in my main trade hubs of Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek.
The best performing location remains Dodixie, followed by Amarr then Rens and then Hek.
i am still ramping up Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon.
Jita, which is where i sell items that won't sell in the Regions i now also sell some Blueprints in. Trade is slow and competitive - so sales were only 8bn but i don't mind that. I rarely have more than 5 items for sale in Jita these days.
From all these sales i made item profits of 60bn.
This therefore was an item margin of 27.6% (60/217) vs my target of 25%. So a good result.
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 217= 4.3bn
Sales tax cost me 8.2bn ISk (=3.78% 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 8.7bn (=4.0% 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 217= 3.3bn and so the Relisting Fee = 8.7-3.3 = 5.4bn which is 2.5% of sales. That shows that i do change prices quite often, bias to Amarr.
This takes my 'Business Profits' to 38.7bn ISK for April vs 37.6bn in March. This is what 20-30 minutes a day in April gave me.
And interesting to note that despite sales being down 9% profits are up because my margins are better.
So, the post-tax margin is 17.8% (39/217) 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 4.2bn isk to extend the Omega by 30 days for three accounts.
That, therefore, is the roadmap from making 217bn of sales and seeing my wealth increase by 34bn 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 and ship equipment. Mining equipment is slowing as more traders enter this market.
Implants are still doing ok - i am slowly expanding into more types and moving up the ISK value curve. I now keep to implants costing over 100m ISK and up to 1.5bn ISK.
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 is doing well though the mining equipment sales have clearly slowed as it has become more competitive and demand does not feel as strong anymore. But equipment that related to general PVE/PVP is doing well.
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.
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 - perhaps longer, i am taking my time and being careful.
In terms of items for sales, in Rens and Hek i have c60bn vs c35bn 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.
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
May will have ten aims - and i am going to be more realistic as i was in April. I feel the market is slowing so i want to aim to hold my sales levels.
1) Plex the three omega 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 Planetary Interaction
10) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega
The daily sales in April averaged 7.2bn.
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, February 2022, March 2022 and April 2022. I started in August 2020.
Current wealth is 369bn ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 13bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 1bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 0.0bn ISK
- items for sale 428bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 85bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 12bn 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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