Month end update - July 2022

As at the end of July 2022 my wealth is 447bn ISK after paying 5.8bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for three accounts.  My Wealth increased by 33bn in July.

I had thought that July would be a weak month and so was surprised to see that my wealth rose by 33bn, in effect therefore by over 1bn a day.

Part of the reason was similar to June - the item margin i was making was 30% against my normal target of 25%.  That is, the difference between the Sales Price and the Cost Price divided by the Sales Price was 25% (buy something in Jita for 750m, sell it in Dodixie for 1bn is therefore 250m profit and 25% item margin).

The other explanation was the surprisingly strong sales in Dodixie which rose by 94% to almost a record high of 84bn.

I suspect the item margin was again helped by the lower competition over the summer months due to less players being around.

I can't explain the strong sales in Dodixie.

It still feels like we are in a slow summer like last year.

In the last 12 months i have made sales of 2.4 trillion isk and profits (after everything including Plex) of 360bn isk having spent 45bn 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 16 / 23 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 12 months.

Things i talk about below:

 - summary of my activity

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

 - Review of the aims i had for July which were mixed but positive

 - reminder of how i do this

 - manufacturing efforts starting again

 - Alts in other secondary locations

 - 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 August

Activity

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

July felt slow and much less competitive than normal.

Sales rose 27% to 194bn: in my main trading locations sales were down everywhere except Dodixe, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon (so down in Amarr, Rens and Hek); in the Alpha accounts sales rose around 26% to 18bn in total driven by Delve, Arnon and Alentene.

For the alpha account locations - Arnon (Essence), Motsu (The Citadel), Agil (Khanid), Alentene (Verge Vendor), Orvolle (Placid), Delve (NPC station) - there now perhaps a sign that i could make Arnon and Alentene a new Omega account.

I did a little Manufacturing - in all made profits of 1.2bn having invested 7bn in it.

Planetary Interaction was also nil - no time to really start it.

In all, i did an average of 6.3bn sales per day making 1.3bn isk per day before buying the Plex.

I had one day where sales were over 10bn in July.

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.  I suspect i will be sure if it is a realistic aim by the end of the year.

It was a surprise to me that i achieved the 1bn daily profit target in July.  I don't think this will be achieved in August - summer is slow.

Target sales to achieve 1bn profits per day

In summary, i generally need to make 7.3bn sales per day assuming my item margin is 25%

On the new taxation levels to make 30bn ISK per month i would need to cover:

 - Plex costs of 1.4 x 3.9 = 5.5bn

 - 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 assuming i make my 25% profit margins then 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 55bn and assuming i make a 25% margin then sales of 220bn.  Or, in other words, daily sales of 7.3bn are needed.

Review of the July aims

1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved

2) Hold sales in Dodixie to at least 90% of June - achieved

3) Hold sales in Amarr to at least 90% of June - missed, sales fell 16%

4) Hold sales in Rens to at least 90% of June - missed, sales fell 28%

5) Hold sales in Hek to at least 90% of June - missed, sales fell 27%

6) Ramp up Sobaseki to at least 90% of June - achieved

7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime to at least 90% of June - achieved

8) Develop the alpha alts to see which can be upgraded to Omega - achieved

 

In all, the July aims were mixed but where they were successful they were very successful.

Reminder of my Current Business.

For now i do inter-regional trading - buying from Jita to sell elsewhere.

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.  given i now have six Omega alts in Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon i am hoping that this 10bn aim will be easily achieved.

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.

But, the latest evolution of the business model is that i aim to make a minimum item profit of 100m isk.  i.e. if i buy an item for 70m then i aim to sell it for at least 170m isk.  This makes sure i don't waste my time on making low absolute profits and so preserves the 45 minute rule.

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.  I have also omega alts in the new Trading locations of Sobaseki (in Lonetrek) 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 2021 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: Placid; Verge Vendor; Essence; Citadel and Khanid.  And i am in an NPC station in Delve and Outer Ring.

Manufacturing

In November 2021, i started down the manufacturing path.  I invested 12bn into it and made profits of 1.2bn after all taxes and costs.  Since then, i let it drift to nil.

I spent more time focusing on the Trading business given it was going so well.

However, i want to start it up again.  There is a danger that trading will start to get boring and a grind.

Hence, in July i invested 7bn in it, made sales of 3.5bn over 8 items and was left with 4.4bn of items to sell.  So, profits were 1.2bn (sales + closing stock less costs).

I don't do this systematically but rather keep a look out on items i can manufacture and still make a 25% profit margin selling in Jita.  So, like trading, i am going for the low volume items.

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 April whilst May was ok also.  June was poor but July bounced back nicely.

Tash-Murkon Prime sales rose from 7.7bn ISK to 11.5bn ISK whilst Sobaseki rose from 8.0bn ISK to 13.9bn ISK given total sales in July of 25.4bn iSK which i estimate generated profits of 4.2bn ISK which was therefore sufficient to cover the cost of the Plex.

The other secondary trading locations made combined sales of 17.6bn which is up on the June sales 14.0bn.

I am starting to become more comfortable that the locations at Arnon and Alentene could become my next Omega account locations.

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 - but has improved.  In July there was only 3.5bn sales.  Over the last eight months there have been 12.9bn sales in total.

I may have to rethink this.

Plex

For now, I buy enough Plex to upgrade to 3 omega accounts per month.  At current prices that is 5.9bn ISK per month.  I buy enough Plex per month to finance the next month.

I also aim to hold enough Plex to see me through some weak trading months.  In all i now have 4300 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 now.

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 194bn ISK of sales in July 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 rose by 27% in July which reflects slower markets in most areas except for Dodixie, Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon and the alpha accounts.

The best performing location remains Dodixie, followed by Amarr then Hek and then Rens.  So not much change there.

Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon are about at the level i want in terms of items to be sold.

Jita, which is where i sell items that won't sell in the Regions i now also sell some Blueprints in.  In addition i sell my manufactured items here also.  Trade is slow and competitive - so sales were only 4.6bn but i don't mind that.

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

This therefore was an item margin of 29.6% (58/194) vs my target of 25%.  This is one of my strongest ever item margins and certainly the second strongest in the last 12 months.

There were less players around in July which meant less competition so i was able to charge higher prices and so get higher margins.  The surprise was the strong sales in Dodixie which were at almost record levels of 84bn.

Manufacturing sales were 3.5bn, all in Jita.

My trading margins had been in the 25-27% range since April 2021 having before that been in the 28-32% range.  So July (and June) was an outlier to the upside.

From this I then need to take a whole series of costs off before i get to my Business profits (and notice how they are more related to Sales rather than costs):

Courier Fees: i aim to pay 2% of sales value to the Courier = 2% x 194= 3.9bn

Sales tax cost me 7.8bn ISk (=4.01% of sales) - the Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon 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 6.5bn (=3.3% of sales).  Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 1.5% (because i am Level 5 Broker Relations on all Omega 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 197= 2.9bn and so the Relisting Fee = 6.5-2.9 = 3.6bn which is 1.8% of sales.  That shows that i do change prices quite often, bias to Amarr.

This takes my 'Business Profits' to 39.1bn ISK for July vs 29.0bn in June.  This is what 20-30 minutes a day in July gave me.

So, the post-tax margin is 20.1% (39/194) and so i achieved 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 bought Plex for 5.8bn isk to extend the Omega by 30 days for three accounts.

That, therefore, is the roadmap from making 194bn of sales and seeing my wealth increase by 33bn as a result.

Items i am selling in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon

I sell blueprints, skill books, implants and ship equipment.

Blueprints are making a steady come back - they are lumpy sales and slow, but thats how i like it.  They can also be my slowest selling items and the items most likely to go 90 days without being sold.

Mining equipment is slowing as more traders enter this market but is still making decent profits.

Implants are doing ok and tend to be the most competitive - 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 2bn ISK.  They don't sell well but when they do i tend to get a whole family sold at a time.  Again, that's how i like it.  A billion or so of investment can take 30 days to sell.

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 9% of that to bring me to a theoretical 16%.

Dodixie Seller character

This remains my main character and has regained its slot as the largest seller.

I have 116bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market over 153 items (so average sales price of 758m)

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

Tycoon Level 3; increases the number of items i can list by 32 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, level 5 wholesale and level 3 Tycoon , i am able to post 241 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (5x16) + (3x32)).  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 65bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market over 79 items (so an average sales price of 823m per item).

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:

I have 70bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 111 items (so an average sales price of 630m).

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 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 5 Trade, level 5 Retail and level 3 Wholesale, i am able to post 129 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (4x16)).  That is plenty for now but i am still trying to expand the number of items for sale.

In Hek:

I have 65bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 101 items (so an average sales price of 643m).

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 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 5 Trade, level 5 Retail and level 3 Wholesale, i am able to post 129 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (4x16)).  That is plenty for now but i am still trying to expand the number of items for sale.

New(ish) omega alts: Lonetrek, Tash-Murkon

I feel this locations are now in the optimal level range.

In Lonetrek (Sobaseki) I have 46bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 60 items (so an average sales price of 767m).

In Tash-Murkon (Tash-Murkon Prime) I have 78bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 90 items (so an average sales price of 867m).

The Sales in these two locations do more than enough to justify being Omega and the competition is practically zero - though the returns are very low.  That is, for total items of 125bn ISK i make sales of 16bn ISK to 30bn ISK.

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 164m 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!

The two best sellers are Alentene in Verge Vendor and Arnon in Essence.  Combined they are doing around 11bn ISK of sales but i need 16bn to justify upgrading to Omega.  That said, i think i am getting close to giving it a shot.

My next step is to ensure that in each of those Regions i am in the best location.

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, to do 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

August will have nine conservative aims - I feel the market is slowing.

1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time

2) Hold sales in Dodixie to at least 90% of July

3) Hold sales in Amarr to at least 90% of July

4) Hold sales in Rens to at least 90% of July

5) Hold sales in Hek to at least 90% of July

6) Ramp up Sobaseki to at least 90% of July

7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime to at least 90% of July

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

9) Increase the investment and profits in Manufacturing

 

The daily sales in July averaged 6.3bn.

For the 10bn profit target: If i assume i need to make 10bn + 5.9bn income per month (=15.1bn) and i assume i can achieve 15.0% margin then i need to make monthly sales of 100bn and so daily sales of 3.3bn.

So far i have achieved this in December 2020, January, March, April, August, September, October, November, December 2021, January 2022, February 2022, March 2022, April 2022, May 2022, June 2022 and July 2022.  I started in August 2020.

Current wealth is 447bn ISK made up from:

• Plex held as an investment 18bn ISK
• Items in hanger for sale 3bn ISK
• Buy orders on the market 0bn ISK
• items for sale 523bn ISK

• less a 20% provision 105bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 8bn 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.