As at the end of October 2022 my wealth is 597bn ISK after paying 3.7bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for three accounts. My Wealth increased by 57bn in October.
This is my second best month ever. The best being last month.
Worth noting that September benefitted form 9bn of Plex profits so the underlying profit in October was my best ever.
Quick Summary
Much like September, i was pleasantly surprised how strong October was. I am often seeing daily sales of over 10bn (which is daily profits before Plex costs of over 1.6bn).
Overall sales were down 4% to 341bn but still the second best i have done - in part i am definitely benefiting from inflation. There is a reasonable chance the volume if items i have sold is down but pricing is up a lot.
Blueprints were noticeably strong in October.
My item margin was a nice 27.1%. So above the target 25% though a bit below the 28-30% being hit recently. I suspect the pull back in margin was due to the higher than normal sales of Blueprints which tend to come in at 25% margins exactly.
Hard to explain the market dynamics. Competition feels lower but i am seeing sales of items indicating that players are returning.
In the last 12 months i have made sales of 2.9 trillion isk and profits (after everything including Plex) of 445bn isk having spent 53bn 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 19 / 26 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 15 months.
Activity
I continue to come on once a day to update Sell orders and replace items sold. About 30-45 minutes. Getting closer to 45 minutes these days.
I am experimenting with Manufacturing and Planetary Interaction.
Over 95% of my sales and profits still come from Regional Trading. So far 3% comes from Manufacturing and 1% from Planetary Interaction - more on those two below.
Target 1bn profits per day after all taxes and plex costs
I have now achieved this aim for the last four months. Was not expecting to. If history is a guide, the last three months of the year are normally the strongest. So i should be getting profits after plex of over 30bn isk for October, November and December.
Target daily sales required to achieve 1bn profits per day
In summary, i generally need to make 7.5bn sales per day assuming my item margin is 25%
As the cost of plex rises then my daily sales requirement also rises.
On the new taxation levels to make 30bn ISK per month i would need to cover:
- Plex costs of 3 x 500 x 4.7m = 7.1bn
- 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
That all works out at 225bn monthly sales will generate profits after all costs including Plex of 30bn isk.
Or, in other words, daily sales of 7.5bn are needed.
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.
Looking at some sensitivity analysis
- if my item markets were 28% instead of 25% then i need only make 192bn isk of sales (or 6.4bn per day)
- if Plex rose from 4.7m to 5.0m then then i need to make 228bn isk of sales (or 7.6bn per day)
Review of the October aims
1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to at least 70% of September - achieved
3) Hold sales in Amarr to at least 70% of September - achieved
4) Hold sales in Rens to at least 70% of September - achieved
5) Hold sales in Hek to at least 70% of September - achieved
6) Ramp up Sobaseki to at least 70% of September - achieved
7) Ramp up Tush-Murkon Prime to at least 70% of September - achieved
8) Increase the investment and profits in Manufacturing - failed, profits fell
9) Continue to investigate Planetary Interaction - achieved
In all, the October aims were almost entirely achieved. A good month.
Reminder of my Current Business.
For now 95% of what i do is inter-regional trading - buying from Sell Orders in Jita to sell elsewhere. The rest is made up from Manufacturing and Planetary Interaction.
For Trading 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. Therefore, i try also to stick to the rule of making a minimum of 100m profit per item sold. 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. Arnon and Alentenne are getting close.
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. I have just started in Venal.
Jita
I am starting to sell items purposely in Jita now. I suspect some players have left and so allows me to operate a small side show in Jita. In October i made sales of 31bn isk which equates to 5bn of profits.
I will stick with it.
Station Trading
Also in Jita i have started station trading. Sticking to my normal items - so little competition and slow moving. It is a slow a steady income stream. I will stick with it for now. May expand to my other omega trading locations.
Manufacturing
I am now four months into my Manufacturing project.
My strategy is similar to Trading - that is, i target slow moving but highly profitable items.
I manufacture and sell in Jita - so higher cost manufacturing and competitive sales environment.
The table below shows my Sales, Item Profits and post cost profits since July.
Unlike in September, i did not make enough in manufacturing to afford an omega account. But it is within reach so i am sticking with it.
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.
I want to keep ramping this up and also move into manufacturing items in Jita and then courier to my other Trade locations.
Planetary Interaction
I am still experimenting for now, getting to understand it all.
I have abandoned the idea of extracting from planets in High Sec - i just could not extract enough to make it work. At best with three alts operating six planets each i could make 1bn isk per month for the cost of an extra 45 minutes every three days.
I am now experimenting with factory planets only. So buying the raw materials, shipping them to the planet and then taking away the finished product.
So, for now i will keep on experimenting and see where i can take this.
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.
The current alpha account regions so far are: Placid; Verge Vendor; Essence; Citadel and Khanid. And i am in an NPC station in Delve, Outer Ring and now Venal.
The alpha trading locations made combined sales of 16.5bn which is down from the 17.2bn made in September.
This has really gone nowhere for a number of months - so once i nail down Manufacturing and Planetary Interaction i will need to revisit this.
The good news is that it takes barely any time to maintain.
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 - sometimes threatens to improve but then fall back again. In October there was only 1.8bn sales. Over the last ten months there have been 17.6bn sales in total. Hopeless. There must be a way to crack low/null sec . . . . . but i have yet to find it.
Plex
I am aim to store up to 6 months of Omega for each of the Omega accounts which would mean buying 9000 Plex.
Following the Omega offer in September i used the Plex i had to buy Omega stated up to the end of the year and then sold the rest. Following the end of the offer, when Plex went back to more normal prices i bought 3000.
Over time, i will buy another 6000.
A minor accounting point
In September bought 3 months worth of Omega accounts (i.e October - December) for 14.9bn (usual cost would have been 20.3bn).
The way i account for this is to consider than 14.9bn an asset for September. In October i expensed a third of it and so hold 9.9bn as an asset, and then 5.0bn in November.
Therefore, in my accounting i recognise a cost to omega my accounts of 5bn per month. The normal cost would be 6.6bn.
The alternative accounting treatment would have been to recognise the 14.9bn as a cost in September and then no cost in October to December.
Analysis of Trading Profits
In total i made 341bn ISK of sales in October which made me item profits of 92bn 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 4% in October which reflects a decline in my main trading location of Dodixie and the absence of the one off Plex sales in Jita in September.
Dodixie remains the best sales location though Amarr was almost equal. Jita remains in fifth place behind Rens and Hek though is catching up given some nice Blueprint sales and the manufacturing efforts.
From all these sales i made item profits of 192bn.
This therefore was an item margin of 27.1% (92/341) vs my target of 25%. This is another good month for margins.
My trading margins had been in the 25-27% range since April 2021 having before that been in the 28-32% range. So September (and June / July / August) was an outlier to the upside. October returned to this range.
Manufacturing sales were 10.2bn, all in Jita, which is down almost 50% in September but the upward trend remains in place.
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 341= 6.8bn
Sales tax cost me 13.0bn ISk (=3.81% of sales) - the Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon and Jita 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 10.2bn (=3.0% of sales). Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 1.5% (because i am Level 5 Broker Relations on 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 341= 5.1bn and so the Relisting Fee = 10.2-5.1 = 5.1bn which is 1.5% of sales. That shows that i do change prices quite often, bias to Amarr.
This takes my 'Business Profits' to 61.6bn ISK for October vs 66.1bn in September. This is what 30-40 minutes a day in October gave me.
So, the post-tax margin is 18.1% (62/35441) and so i achieved the 15% target.
The omega charge was then 5.0bn (see above in Plex section)
That, therefore, is t57bn 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 and this continued into October - they are lumpy sales and slow, but that's how i like it. They can also be my slowest selling items and the items most likely to go 90 days without being sold. I generally sell one blueprint at a time though i am seeing the odd occasion where someone comes along and buys all the same type out at once.
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. I am seeing more instances of whole family's of implants being sold at once.
Skill books are now my lowest income generator for me but there are still a few nice sellers.
Ship Equipment 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 makes the most sales in most months.
I have 139bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market over 178 items (so average sales price of 781m)
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 107bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market over 117 items (so an average sales price of 914m 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 93bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 117 items (so an average sales price of 795m).
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)). I am in the process of training Wholesale V and then Tycoon to increase this.
In Hek:
I have 71bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 91 items (so an average sales price of 780m).
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.
Lonetrek and Tash-Murkon Characters
I feel this locations are now in the optimal level range.
Both alts are now fully skilled in Trading.
In Lonetrek (Sobaseki) I have 59bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 85 items (so an average sales price of 694m).
In Tash-Murkon (Tash-Murkon Prime) I have 96bn ISK of Sell Orders on the market, over 119 items (so an average sales price of 807m).
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 for sale of 155bn ISK i make sales of 16bn ISK to 30bn ISK. September was an outlier where i made sales of 56bn isk and October another outlier where i made 48bn isk. Lets see if this remains the case in November.
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 8-11bn ISK of sales but i need 16bn to justify upgrading to Omega. This is proving very tough to achieve.
Therefore, my plan is to focus on Manufacturing and Planetary Interaction for now.
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.
Outlook
November will have nine very conservative aims - I don't think i can grow my sales at the moment
1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to flat
3) Hold sales in Amarr to flat
4) Hold sales in Rens to flat
5) Hold sales in Hek to flat
6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to flat
7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to flat
8) Increase the investment and profits in Manufacturing
9) Continue to investigate Planetary Interaction
The daily sales in September averaged 11.0bn.
For the 10bn profit target: If i assume i need to make 10bn + 7.1bn income per month (=17.1bn) and i assume i can achieve 15.0% margin then i need to make monthly sales of 106bn and so daily sales of 3.5bn.
So far i have achieved this in every month since December 2020 except February 2021, May 2021 and June 2021.
Current wealth is 597bn ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 14bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 7bn ISK
- Omega brought forward 10bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 10n ISK
- items for sale 661bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 132bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 27bn 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.
<3
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