As at the end of May 2023 my wealth is 1.07 trillion ISK after paying 8.2bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for four accounts. My Wealth increased by 69bn in May.
Technically, my wealth is 1.300 trillion ISK but i always take a 20% provision against Sell Orders to be conservative. Hence i quote 1.07 trillion.
After April this is another pleasing month into what is normally a slower month after winter. Much like April, i don't think this is any more complicated than i have 1.2 trillion worth of items for sale on the market vs 0.4 trillion in May 2022.
The Next Chapter
1 trillion was always the aim. The question i am asking myself is what to do now?
Not sure i have the patience to go for 2 trillion using the same process. Over the last 12 months i have made 680bn profits after all costs including Plex. So it would take 12-18 months to generate another trillion.
One dream is to increase my wealth by more than 100bn in a month. I think that can be done this winter but is a big push for the summer months.
But, when i started this journey back in August 2020 i wanted to experience more of the Eve ISK making avenues.
I do a bit of manufacturing on the side - i want to do a lot more of that.
Tried Planetary Interaction - it worked but was tedious and took too long.
Tried Invention - will give it another go.
There must be so much more that i can do in Trading. I do a bit of station trading in Jita - that is going well. I have not tried investing (buying, holding for a while and then selling).
So, lets see what i come up with.
Quick Summary
For me, the market took off in May with sales up 32% to 415bn. heavily biased to the weekends.
That said, my profits only rose 6% and that was because my item margin fell from 33.2% in April to 26.8% in May. 26.8% is perfectly acceptable and above the 25% target. April was the outlier.
Record sales in Dodixie of 145bn. The new Omega account in Arnon and Alentene made sales of 16bn - and so justified their Omega status.
Sales were up over 20% in all locations except Hek and some of my Alpha account locations.
In the last 12 months i have made sales of 4.0 trillion isk and profits (after everything including Plex) of 680bn isk having spent 80bn 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 26 / 33 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 22 months. If i get to 24 months then i will drop this as a target to whitter on about.
A year or so ago the dream was to be making more than 1 billion profits a day including Plex costs to Omega the accounts. That has been achieved for each of the last 11 months. If i get through the summer and into the autumn and am still achieving this then i will stop talking about this one also.
For the last 7 months, my daily profits have been around 2.4 billion isk generated by daily sales of over 10bn.
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 spent less time this month looking for new products to sell. Time was tight.
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 current 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. = 7.5bn daily 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.
Looking at some sensitivity analysis
- if my item margins 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 May aims
1) Plex the four omega accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to down 20% - achieved, up 28%
3) Hold sales in Amarr to down 20% - achieved, up 30%
4) Hold sales in Rens to down 20% - achieved, up 26%
5) Hold sales in Hek to down 20% - achieved, down 14%
6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to down 20% - achieved, up 30%
7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to down 20% - achieved, up 273%
8) Ramp up Arnon and Alentene - achieved
9) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing - achieved, sales and profits up
A very positive month. All aims achieved.
Reminder of my Current Business.
For now 99% of what i do is inter-regional trading - buying from Sell Orders in Jita to sell elsewhere. The rest is made up from Manufacturing.
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. In other words, i don't really care if an item sells once every 10 or 20 days, if have many hundreds of items for sales across Eve and so each days a few items will sell and that generates all my income.
To put this in perspective. I had Sell Orders of 1042bn up at the start of May which generate sales of 415bn. In other words, i sold between 1% to 2% of everything i had for sale every day. The is slow and i like it. Not for me the cut and thrust of high volume low margin world. Slow and easy for me. Tortoise and hare stuff.
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 eight Omega alts in Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon Arnon and Alentene 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 four omega accounts (paid for with plex) with twelve 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), Tash-Murkon Prime (in Tash-Murkon), Arnon (in Essence) and Alentene (in Verge Vendor).
The other four 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 and Arnon / Alentene 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 / Tash-Murkon alts and Arnon / Alentene made the grade and were upgraded in two accounts.
The other regions so far are: Placid; Citadel and Khanid. And i am in an NPC station in Delve and Outer Ring. I have started in Venal.
I am struggling to make the Low Sec locations work.
What do i sell?
I sell blueprints, skill books, implants and ship equipment.
I am trialling selling structures like jump gates, stations, station modules and other infrastructure items. This is doing better than i expected.
What was selling in May?
Blueprints did very well - and given i sell them at a strict 25% margin that can bring my margin down nearer 25% when Blueprints sell well. There is a Blueprint competitor in Dodixie who i am fighting.
Implants are still doing well and tend to be the most competitive - i am slowly expanding into more types and moving up the ISK value curve. And rolling them out to all my Trade Hubs. They don't sell well but when they do i tend to get a whole family sold at a time (alpha, beta, delta, epsilon, gamma, omega). Again, that's how i like it. A billion or so of investment can take 30 days to sell.
Ship equipment is a staple revenue stream for me. Especially Vorton items.
Mining equipment is making a comeback of sorts but is competitive.
Skill books are now my lowest income generator - very few sales now. Barely happening at all.
Jita
Traditionally i never sold anything in Jita unless it was being transported back from one of my trading hubs because i could not sell it and so to be sold at Jita prices to get some isk back.
The Ship Blueprint seller went absent from November to February in Jita and i made out like a bandit. But the seller has now returns and seems to be on 24/7 - so i have been forced out of the Jita Blueprint market. At its peak this was making sales of 100bn.
I also do station trading in Jita (that is - put Buy Orders up in Jita and then when those Buy Orders are executed i then put the item up for Sale in Jita at a higher price). I stick to the slow moving items again. That said, i don't actually know how much this earns me but i know it is getting better. The margins are huge. I am buying items for 500m and selling them for 1bn.
Also, in JIta, i manufacture items and sell them in the Jita market.
Manufacturing
I am now ten months into my Manufacturing project. It remains slow and i need to up my game (i know, i said that before).
In May i made 10bn of sales generating an item profit of 2.3bn and so after taxes a profit of 1.8bn.
Getting better but needs to be much better.
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; Citadel and Khanid. And i am in an NPC station in Delve, Outer Ring and now Venal.
My alts in Arnon and Alentene were upgraded to Omega during January.
In these alpha accounts i am winding them down. I don't want to convert anymore to Omega.
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.
As with my other alpha accounts i am letting it wither away on the vine.
I am rethinking how to make low/null sec work.
Plex
I am aim to store up to 6 months of Omega for each of the Omega accounts which would mean buying 12000 Plex (= 6 x 4 x 500).
I now have 4500 in stock - so no change during May. I don't plan on buying any Plex in the near term given my surplus isk is going into stocking up on the Arnon and Alentene trading locations.
That said, CCP are changing their attitude to Omega prices and there is a permanent sale on that gives a discount to the Plex required for longer periods of Omega purchases.
A minor accounting point (again)
Similar to back in September 2022, i have to think how i account for buying three months of Omega for each Omega account (4 accounts). I repeated this in December and again in February.
Hence, in the December deal and in February i spent 26bn and 18bn respectively buying 3 month Omega deals for Plex.
The way i account for this is to hold the entire amount as wealth and reduce this "asset" by a month at a time.
The alternative accounting treatment would be to count the 26bn and 18bn as costs in the month they were expensed which means December and February would look week but January, March and April stronger.
It all adds up to the same number just the timing of recognising the cost is different.
Analysis of Trading Profits
In total i made 415bn ISK of sales in May which made me item profits of 111bn 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 32% in May which was all Trade Hubs up except Hek.
Dodixie was the best selling Trade Hub at a record 145bn followed by Amarr at 91bn. Rens was 48bn and Hek 33bn. Sobaseki + Tash murkon did 53bn whilst Arnon + Alentene did 16bn.
Jita did sales of 34bn, the first increase since November 2022. This was driven by my Station Trading.
The item profits of 111bn was an item margin of 26.8% (111/415) vs my target of 25%. This is another good month for margins but down on the April level of 33.2%
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 = 8.1bn
Sales tax cost me 12.8bn ISk (=3.09% of sales) - the Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon, Arnon and Alentene 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 15.2bn (=3.7% of sales, Dodixie is more competitive so i was changing prices more). 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 415= 6.2bn and so the Relisting Fee = 15.2-6.2 = 9.0bn which is 2.2% of sales. That shows that i do change prices quite often, bias to Amarr, Jita and now Dodixie. Someone is taking me on in Dodixie. Will need to be crushed.
This takes my 'Business Profits' to 77bn ISK for May vs 73bn in April. This is what 30-40 minutes a day in May gave me.
A number of my Couriers got ganked and so the surplus collateral that flows to me added 2.2bn to profits.
So, the post-tax margin is 18.5% (77/415) and so i achieved the 15% target.
The omega charge was then 8.2bn (see above in Plex section)
That, therefore, is the road map from 415bn sales to 69bn increase in wealth.
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 increasingly Dodixie) 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.
The Rens, Hek, Sobaseki, Tash Murkon, Arnon and Alenetene markets take less than 2 minutes each to check.
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 10 to 50bn ISK of items from Jita. Used to be 2-10bn but things are better these days and i have more items up for sale. The total cargo volume is 10-250m3 per shipment though more recently often over 10,000m3. 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
June will have ten conservative aims - it will be amazing if i could match May's sales but i doubt i will. Hence, the aims will be:
1) Plex the four omega accounts - aim number one all the time
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to down 20%
3) Hold sales in Amarr to down 20%
4) Hold sales in Rens to down 20%
5) Hold sales in Hek to down 20%
6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to down 20%
7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to down 20%
8) Ramp up Arnon and Alentene
9) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing
The daily sales in May averaged 13.4bn.
Current wealth is 1.07 trillion ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 21bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 17bn ISK
- Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
- Omega brought forward 11bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 42bn ISK
- items for sale 1156bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 231bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 42bn 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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