A review of my business model

I am reviewing the costs of operating my Business Model (see below for a description) which have risen strongly recently.

This is driven by the Broker Relisting Fees which for me normally trundle along at an average of 2.7% of revenues in a month but in September spiked to 8.0%.  And given i aim to make a profit margin of 25% before all these costs then this uplift is material.

This is down to 2 main matters.

1) Competition has entered the Blueprint market across my main trade locations.  This has been building for a few months now.  Every day i am updating the Sell Order for my blueprints but these are items that barely sell at all.  Hence, a lot of relising fees are being spent for no sales benefit.  This is a fight for the market.

2) In the Jita Station Trading i tend to focus on items selling for 15-30 billion isk.  They have also become competitive at a time when sales have fallen to almost zero.  Hence, a lot of relising fees are being spent for no sales benefit.  And a daily relisting on items for sale for 15-20 billion a shot gets costly very quickly.

This is the key chart that shows the costs of each fee/tax as a % of the monthly revenues:

The Broker Listing fee is rock solid stable.  The Courier Fee wings around a bit but this is a feature of how i calculate it here - i offer 2% of collateral as a fee to everyone but this chart looks at the cost divided by revenues that month.

The transaction tax is generally stable at the going rate.

The main volatility comes in the relist fees which rise if i see more competition - and they have been rising all through 2025 and then spiked last month.  They are not an issue if the relisting is leading to sales - but in this case it is not.  For both me and my competition.

Blueprint Competition

This seems to be one player who has entered my main markets of Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek.

They update their blueprint orders daily, like i do.

I am very loathe to drop out of this market and therefore much more willing to accept ongoing relisting costs.  A fight to the death, you might say.  Market PVP.

Station Trading Competition

This is two or three players and we are all updating our Buy and Sell Orders daily.

If i stop for a few days the other players continue to compete.

I am reviewing my future in this market.

I have very little capital tied up in the market, once i buy something it is put up for sale immediately and i tend not to put up another Buy Order until what i have for sale is sold.

My Trading Business Model

My Trading business model is quite simple

I buy from Sell Orders in Jita and have the items couriered by third parties out to my sales locations elsewhere in High Sec (all the usual places Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek and others) where i put them up for sale.

I focus on slow moving and therefore low competition and so highly profitable items.

And, to make it worth while, i only aim to sell items that sell for at least 500 million.  I am reviewing that also.

In Jita i also do some Station Trading = buying and selling items within the station without transporting them onwards.

The competitive advantage

The beauty of this business model is i don't mind if it takes 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 days for an item to sell.  That puts 99% of the player base off who want faster sales and don't want to tie their capital up.

I dont have these markets to myself but the competition tends to be slower to update, if at all.

What this means, though, is if new competition comes in i have to be serious and ensure my item it the cheapest on the daily basis.  That is always enough effort to force the new entrant to give up.