As at the end of July 2023 my wealth is 1.13 trillion ISK after paying 8.2bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for four accounts.
I am an Investor on the Oz Tank and during July i distributed 42.5bn isk to projects that were presented.
Hence, in July i generated profits of 54.0bn isk and distributed 42.5bn isk, therefore my wealth rose by 11.5bn isk.
Technically, my wealth is 1.4 trillion ISK but i always take a 20% provision against Sell Orders to be conservative. Hence i quote 1.13 trillion.
Much like June, July was was a slower month and August is shaping up to be much the same.
Quick Summary of July
A slower month vs June and much more like a summer month. Some days did not happen and some hit the jackpot.
That said, sales actually rose 3% vs June.
But profits fell 12%. For the first time in since November 2021 my item market was below the target 25% at 24.4%.
In the last 12 months i have made sales of 4.4 trillion isk and profits (after everything including Plex but before distributions to the Oz Tank Show) of 732bn isk having spent 84bn on Plex.
And then i distributed 43bn to the Oz Tank Show.
The next goal
For the last 9 months, my daily profits have been around 2.6 billion isk generated by daily sales of over 10bn. From this i need to take the Plex off but i have long left the days of trying to make 10bn profits in a month and then 1bn per day.
We are onto new higher levels.
So the aspiration is now if i can make 100bn profit in a month before Plex and Distributions. That is likely a winter aim when things rack up. But an aim nonetheless.
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.
There are some week days where i don't log in at all if sales are low (summer can be slow) and/or real life time is tight.
Target daily sales required to achieve 2 bn profits per day
In summary, i generally need to make around 15bn 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 60bn ISK per month (=2bn per day) i would need to cover:
- Plex costs of 4 x 500 x 4.7m = 9.4bn
- 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 425bn monthly sales will generate profits, after all costs including Plex, of 60bn isk. = 14.2bn 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 360bn isk of sales (or 12bn per day)
- if Plex rose from 4.7m to 5.0m then then i need to make 430bn isk of sales (or 14.3bn per day)
Review of the July aims
Overall, the aim was to keep sales from falling 20% - same as June
1) Plex the four omega accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to down 20% - achieved, up 49%
3) Hold sales in Amarr to down 20% - missed, down 23%
4) Hold sales in Rens to down 20% - achieved, up 20%
5) Hold sales in Hek to down 20% - missed, down 27%
6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to down 20% - achieved, up 9%
7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to down 20% - achieved, up 4%
8) Ramp up Arnon and Alentene - ongoing
9) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing - achieved, profits up to 1.5bn
On balance, a better month than expected for sales, weaker on margins so on balance a success.
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 and some Station Trading in Jita.
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 1.2 trillion up at the start of July which generated sales of 394bn. In other words, i sold between 1% to 2% of everything i had for sale every day. That 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.
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 (all Omega) 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 Omega four alts sit in Jita and buy 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 July?
Implants, structures and ship equipment did well. Blueprints picked up a bit.
There is still a Blueprint competitor in Dodixie and Amarr who i am fighting. They seem to be on 24/7.
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 quickly 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 1-5 billion or so of investment can take 30 days to sell.
Ship equipment is a staple revenue stream for me. Especially Vorton items. and Deadspace 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
I 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 twelve months into my Manufacturing project. It remains slow and i need to up my game (i know, i said that before).
In July i made 7bn of sales generating an item profit of 1.9bn and so after taxes a profit of 1.5bn.
Still not great. I need to put more time into this and think it through more.
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).
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.
Given my sale at the start of June i currently hold none. When the price falls back to around 4.6m i will start to rebuild stocks.
Analysis of Trading Profits
In total i made 394bn ISK of sales in July which made me item profits of 96bn 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 3% in July mainly due to Dodixie sales rising 49% to 120bn isk.
Amarr sales fell 23% and Hek sales fell 27%. Whilst Rens rose 20% and the other stations rose under 10%.
Sobaseki at 41b overtook Hek to become the fourth best station after Dodixie, Amarr and Rens. I did not expect that but this was mainly due to Hek declining 27%. Even Jita did better than Hek in July.
Sobaseki + Tash murkon did 59bn whilst Arnon + Alentene did 29bn. So both of these Omega accounts are more than justifying themselves.
The item profits of 96bn was an item margin of 24.4% (96/394) vs my target of 25%. That was the first time since March 2022 that the item margin fell below 25%. The miss was due to competitors putting up items for sale at much lower prices and me responding aggressively. It is dangerous to allow a competitor a foothold into my markets.
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 = 7.9bn
Sales tax cost me 13.0bn ISk (=3.3% 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%). Not sure why the tax rate is below the base.
Broker Fees costs me 12.5bn (=3.7% of sales, Dodixie is more competitive so i was changing prices more often). 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 394= 5.9bn and so the Relisting Fee = 12.5-5.9 = 6.6bn which is 1.7% of sales. That shows that i do change prices quite often, bias to Amarr, Jita and now Dodixie.
Manufacturing Job Cost fees were 0.4bn - shows how little i did.
This takes my 'Business Profits' fell to 62bn ISK for July vs 74bn in June. This is what 30-40 minutes a day in July gave me.
So, the post-tax margin is 15.8% (62/394) and so i achieved the 15% target.
The omega charge was then 8.2bn for July.
And, finally, i paid over 42.5bn to the Oz Tank show for projects i agreed to contribute to.
That, therefore, is the road map from 394bn sales to 12bn 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
August will have the same ten conservative aims - summer can be slow. 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 June averaged 12.7bn.
Current wealth is 1.13 trillion ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 0bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 24bn ISK
- Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
- Omega brought forward 25bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 65bn ISK
- items for sale 1.2 trillion ISK
- less a 20% provision 240bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 94bn ISK from which 42.5bn of Oz Tank distributions need to be taken off
* 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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