Month end update - January 2021

At the end of my fifth full month, my wealth is 38.2bn ISK after paying 1.3bn to upgrade Omega for another 30 days.  My wealth increased by 10.3bn in January.

Not as good as i hoped.  January started strongly on the back of a good December but really slowed in the final two weeks.

And so far, February has crawled to a halt.

Review of the January aims

1) Plex the account - done

2) Increase sales in Dodixie (- this may be tough) - missed

3) Increase sales in Amarr - done

4) Expand further into Invention - missed

5) Investigate reducing 'costs of sale' - missed

Onwards to the next aim

This time in Eve, i don't want to purely focus on trading by having characters in each trading hub.  I want to experience as many of the isk making ventures in Eve that i reasonably can.

So, the aim with trading is to get to 10bn monthly income after buying the Plex to extend the Omega account.

That was achieved in December and again in January.  Not sure if it is sustainable but i will take it as a sign to advance onto another venture.

Invention

More posts to come but i have decided to try my hand at invention - i decided last month but to be honest i got nowhere in January.

I need to look into it more to work out where to start.  I like the look of it: low click rate; looks like an inefficient market; so if it works out it would really be a low time consumption source of income - not quite passive, but close.

Lets see how it goes.

Reminder of my Current Business.

I operate with one account with three alts.

The main alt is a seller in Dodixie and the other alt is a seller in Amarr, two of the main trade hubs in Eve Online.

The third alt sits in Jita and buys from Sell Orders, has these items couriered to the alts in Dodixie and Amarr who then put them onto these markets for sale.

I focus on slow moving but high margin items.

For this side of my business, lets call it Merchanting, i want to generate income of 10bn isk per month after paying to Plex my account.

Analysis of Trading Profits

Explaining the journey of sales of 70.6bn to the increase in wealth of 10.3bn . . . . . 

In all, i made sales of 70.6bn isk (vs 78.3bn in December) which created income of 11.6bn (1.3bn was used to buy Plex, 11.0bn was invested back into the market) vs 13.4bn in December.

Hence, sales fell 10% overall.

Dodixie sales were 42.4bn (vs 53.7bn in December) whilst Amarr sales were 28.2bn (vs 24.6bn in December).

So, it was the 21% sales decline in Dodixie that caused my profits to fall where as Amarr grew sales by 15%.

Purchases of items from Jita cost 50.1bn isk (vs 55.8bn in December), so my item margin was 29.0% ((70.6-50.1)/70.6) vs 28.8% in December.  Respectably above the 25% item margin target but down on the elevated 32.2% in November.

Of course, i need to take a whole series of costs off before i get to my Business profits:

Courier Fees: i aim to pay 2% of sales value to the Courier = 2% x 70.6 = 1.4bn

Sales tax cost me 2.0bn ISk (=2.8% of sales), as expected given i am Level 4 Accounting Skill on both characters.

Broker Fees costs me 5.4bn (=7.7% of sales).  Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 3.78% (because i am Level 4 Broker Relations on both characters) and therefore the rest is the cost of changing the price which is 1.14% a shot.

So, i know the listing fee = 3.78% x 70.6 = 2.7bn and therefore the price change fee is 2.7bn (5.4 - 2.7). This 2.7bn is 3.9% of sales.  This is higher than December and reflects a more competitive environment in January which meant i had to change my prices more often.

This takes my 'Business Profits' to 11.6bn isk for January vs 13.4bn in December.  This is what 45 minutes a day in January gave me.

So, the post-tax margin is 29.0% - 2.0% - 2.8% - 3.8% - 3.9% = 16.5% (=11.6/78.3).

Fees and Taxes take 12.5% off my margins (2.0+2.8+3.8+3.9).  That is a big hit.  I can take action to reduce this which i may investigate in the medium term (needless to say, i did not get round to investigating this in January).

16.5% is respectable, i would normally aim to get a respectable 13 to 15%.  i can improve on it if i train Accounting and Broker Relations  / Advanced Broker Relations to level 5 . . . . . which is on the "to do" list . . . . .and which i have started now on my Dodixie character.

And then from those 'Business Profits' i buy Plex for 1.3bn isk to extend the Omega by 30 days.

That, therefore, is the roadmap from making 70.6bn of sales and seeing my wealth increase by 10.3bn as a result.

Dodixie Seller character

This remains my main character and is the biggest seller.

The skills relevant to Trading that i have are (made three change):

Accounting: Level 4; means i am charged 2.80% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 5%

Broker Relations: Level 4; means i am charged 3.78% to list an item for sale

Advanced Broker Relations: Level 5; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale. I decided by train this rather than go all for Plex.  With no skill i would be charged 1.89% to change every price.  Level 5 has brought this down to 0.94%.

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 (increased by two levels in January); increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level

Marketing: Level 3 (increased by one level in January); 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 and level 5 wholesale, i am able to post 145 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (5x16)).  With no Trading skills you can post up to 5 sell orders

As i write this i am using 116 sales slots up.

Items i am selling in Dodixie (and Amarr)

I sell blueprints, skill books and ship equipment.  There is still no change here.

But, the markets are slowing down so i have had to move back to selling items i buy from Jita for 10m to sell for 35m.

For blueprints and skill books i focus on items that are not seeded in Dodixie (or Amarr for the Amarr seller).  It is a nice source of sales, varying from 100m to a few billion on a really good day - players will pay up to avoid travelling to Jita to save isk to buy that blueprint or skillbook.

Ship equipment makes up the rest, typically it is the same items each time though i find i make a few sales then need to let that item rest and the price reset upwards before i revisit.

Rigidly sticking to the 25% margin target.  I have to given courier fees and taxes take a whopping 12% of that to leave me with 13%.  This is the one line i can't really cross.  If i took the margin down to 20% then after costs i am looking at 8% profits which leaves no room to change prices too often!

Similar story in Amarr, some items are the same but the main groups are all the same: blueprints, skill books and ship equipment

Amarr Seller character

Started in November and has grown very quickly.  I gave my initial views in a prior post.

The skills relevant to Trading that i have are:

Accounting: Level 4; means i am charged 2.80% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 5%

Broker Relations: Level 4; means i am charged 3.78% to list an item for sale

Advanced Broker Relations: Level 4; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale.th no skill i would be charged 1.89% to change every price.  Level 4 has brought this down to 1.1%.

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 2; 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 2, i am able to post 93 items for sale (5 + (4x4) + (5x8) + (2x16).

As of right now, i have 46 items up for sale.

Courier Contracts

Each night, i get home from work and determine what i need to sell in Dodixie and Amarr.  I tend to focus on one location per night unless i need to courier over 1bn isk of items to both locations.  So Dodixie one night, Amarr the next.  Keeps my time on Eve to a manageable 45 minutes once i have added in a bit of looking into Invention.

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 2 to 5bn isk of items from Jita.  The total cargo volume is 100-250m3 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.

in the last 10 days or so of January and into the first week of February, i have not been making my target 2.5bn sales per day.  Hence, i have been having items couriered once every two or three nights as a result.  Market really slowed down at the end of January.

Eve Economy Data Charts

Nothing, yet, todo with my Eve Business ventures but just noting that in December 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.

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.

Looking forwards to the December data given the recent battle.

Outlook

February will have five aims to it.

1) Plex the account - aim number one all the time

2) Increase sales in Dodixie - this may be tough given the slow market

3) Increase sales in Amarr - this may be tough given the slow market

4) Expand further into Invention

5) Investigate reducing 'costs of sale'.

The daily sales in December averaged 2.35bn.

If i assume i need to make 10bn + 1.4bn income per month (=11.4bn) and i assume i can achieve 15.0% margin then i need to make monthly sales of 76bn and so daily sales of 2.5bn.

January was my second month of achieving the 10bn after Plex costs.

Current wealth is 38.2bn ISK made up from:

• items in hanger for sale 1.3bn ISK
• Buy orders on the market 0.2bn ISK
• items for sale 45.1bn ISK

• less a 20% provision 9.0bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 0.7bn 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.

Month end update - December 2020

At the end of my fourth full month, my wealth is 27.9bn ISK after paying 1.4bn to upgrade Omega for another 30 days.  My wealth increased by 11.3bn in November.

A good month, i thought.  Helped by the Christmas holidays - i did good trading around that time.

Will be interesting to see if January can keep up with what has been a strong November and December which were boosted by holiday periods.

Review of the December aims

1) Plex the account - done, this is the number one aim

2) Increase sales in Dodixie - done

3) Increase sales in Amarr - done

4) Start a new venture - done, see below, will be Invention

Onwards to the next aim

This time in Eve, i don't want to purely focus on trading by having characters in each trading hub.  I want to experience as many of the isk making ventures in Eve that i reasonably can.

So, the aim with trading is to get to 10bn monthly income after buying the Plex to extend the Omega account.

That was achieved in December.  Not sure if it is sustainable but i will take it as a sign to advance onto another ventue.

Invention

More posts to come but i have decided to try my hand at invention.

It has a low click rate so, if i can make it work, it should be a low effort way to make isk.

Lets see how it goes.

Reminder of my Current Business.

I operate with one account with three alts.

The main alt is a seller in Dodixie and the other alt is a seller in Amarr, two of the main trade hubs in Eve Online.

The third alt sits in Jita and buys from Sell Orders, has these items couriered to the alts in Dodixie and Amarr who then put them onto these markets for sale.

I focus on slow moving but high margin items.

For this side of my business, lets call it Merchanting, i want to generate income of 10bn isk per month after paying to Plex my account.

Analysis of Trading Profits

Explaining the journey of sales of 78.3bn to the increase in wealth of 11.3bn . . . . . 

In all, i made sales of 78.3bn isk (vs 54.6bn in November) which created income of 13.4bn (1.4bn was used to buy Plex, 10.2bn invested back into the market and 0.7bn isk was spent on a cloaky ship) vs 10.8bn in October.

So, over 40% sales growth in both Dodixie and Amarr.  I suspect Dodixie will always be my best seller, Amarr is much more competitive.

Dodixie sales were 53.7bn (vs 38.0bn in November) whilst Amarr sales were 24.6bn (vs 16.6bn in November).

But good to see Dodixie back to growth after a flat November - that was one of the December aims.

Purchases of items from Jita cost 55.8bn isk (vs 37.0bn in November), so my item margin was 28.8% (78.3-55.8)/78.3 vs 32.2% in November.  Respectably above the 25% item margin target but down on the elevated 32.2% in November.

The reduction in item margin is due to two things.

Firstly, November was elevated by strong sales in Disintegrator Skill books which came at margins often over 100%.

Secondly, at the end of December i cleared down my book of business to reduce prices to lowest on the market, which meant reducing prices by 1.5bn isk in total which in effect meant reducing the value of my total orders by 5%.  I should always aim to keep my Sell Orders the most competitive, i had just let things drift over November and December.

In all, it still feels though that item margin is a little high and likely benefitting from the Christmas holidays where players just want to play rather than fly to Jita to buy an item cheaper.

Of course, i need to take a whole series of costs off before i get to my Business profits:

Courier Fees: i aim to pay 2% of sales value to the Courier = 2% x 78.3 = 1.6bn

Sales tax cost me 2.2bn ISk (=2.8% of sales), as expected given i am Level 4 Accounting Skill on both characters.

Broker Fees costs me 5.4bn (=6.9% of sales).  Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 3.78% (because i am Level 4 Broker Relations on both characters) and therefore the rest is the cost of changing the price which is 1.14% a shot.

So, i know the listing fee = 3.78% x 78.3 = 3.0bn and therefore the price change fee is 3.0bn (5.4 - 2.2). This 3.0bn is 3.1% of sales.

This takes my 'Business Profits' to 13.4bn isk for December vs 10.8bn in November.  This is what 45 minutes a day in December gave me.

So, the post-tax margin is 28.8% - 2.0% - 2.8% - 3.8% - 3.1% = 17.1% (=13.4/78.3).

Fees and Taxes take 11.7% off my margins (2.0+2.8+3.8+3.1).  That is a big hit.  I can take action to reduce this which i may investigate in the medium term.

17.2% is respectable, i would normally aim to get a respectable 13 to 15%.  i can improve on it if i train Accounting and Broker Relations  / Advanced Broker Relations to level 5 . . . . . which is on the "to do" list . . . . .

And then from those 'Business Profits' i buy Plex for 1.4bn isk and this month i bought a cloaky ship for 700m isk which allows me to travel around low sec and null sec to buy those lowly priced Blueprints and other items.

Dodixie Seller character

This remains my main character and is the biggest seller.

The skills relevant to Trading that i have are (unchanged on last month):

Accounting: Level 4; means i am charged 2.80% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 5%

Broker Relations: Level 4; means i am charged 3.78% to list an item for sale

Advanced Broker Relations: Level 5; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale. I decided by train this rather than go all for Plex.  With no skill i would be charged 1.89% to change every price.  Level 5 has brought this down to 0.94%.

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 3; 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 113 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (3x16)).  With no Trading skills you can post up to 5 sell orders

It would take me 18 days to train Accounting and Broker Relations to Level 5.  And i still have to train Wholesale and Tycoon to increase the number of Sales Orders i can have up

As i write this i am using 99 sales slots up - a large increase on the last month of 55 orders at the time of writing my review.  

Items i am selling in Dodixie (and Amarr)

I sell blueprints, skill books and ship equipment.  There is still no change here.

For blueprints and skill books i focus on items that are not seeded in Dodixie (or Amarr for the Amarr seller).  If i can get a sales value of 100m or over then i am interested.  It is a nice source of sales, varying from 100m to a few billion on a really good day - players will pay up to avoid travelling to Jita to save isk to buy that blueprint or skillbook.

Ship equipment makes up the rest, typically it is the same items each time though i find i make a few sales then need to let that item rest and the price reset upwards before i revisit.

Rigidly sticking to the 25% margin target.  I have to given courier fees and taxes take a whopping 12% of that to leave me with 13%.

Similar story in Amarr, some items are the same but the main groups are all the same: blueprints, skill books and ship equipment

Amarr Seller character

Started in November and has grown very quickly.  I gave my initial views in a prior post.

The skills relevant to Trading that i have are:

Accounting: Level 4; means i am charged 2.80% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 5%

Broker Relations: Level 4; means i am charged 3.78% to list an item for sale

Advanced Broker Relations: Level 4; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale.th no skill i would be charged 1.89% to change every price.  Level 4 has brought this down to 1.1%.

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 2; 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 2, i am able to post 93 items for sale (5 + (4x4) + (5x8) + (2x16).

As of right now, i have 58 items up for sale.

Courier Contracts

Each night, i get home from work and determine what i need to sell in Dodixie and Amarr.  I tend to focus on one location per night unless i need to courier over 1bn isk of items to both locations.  So Dodixie one night, Amarr the next.  Keeps my time on Eve to a manageable 45 minutes once i have added in a bit of looking into Invention.

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 2 to 5bn isk of items from Jita.  The total cargo volume is 100-250m3 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, todo with my Eve Business ventures but just noting that in December 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.

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.

Looking forwards to the December data given the recent battle.

Outlook

January will have five aims to it.

1) Plex the account - aim number one all the time

2) Increase sales in Dodixie - this may be tough

3) Increase sales in Amarr

4) Expand further into Invention

5) Investigate reducing 'costs of sale'.

The daily sales in December averaged 2.61bn.

If i assume i need to make 10bn + 1.4bn income per month (=11.4bn) and i assume i can achieve 15.0% margin then i need to make monthly sales of 76bn and so daily sales of 2.5bn.

December was my first month of achieving this.

Current wealth is 27.9bn ISK made up from:

• items in hanger for sale 1.1bn ISK
• items for sale 31.3bn ISK

• less a 20% provision 6.3bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 1.8bn 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.

Plodding on

I am back from a week away from Eve again.

Not much to report.

During my week away, my wealth rose by 2bn ISK - somewhat less than i hoped but still not bad for a full 6 days without updating any orders.

I have done some tidying up.  All items i am selling that make a profit of less than 5m ISK are now put in a folder called "small deals".  I will monitor those items but i am unlikely to sell them going forwards - i want to focus on the greater ISK profit items.

Now in Amarr: Amarr looks like a good place to sell my manufactured items as well as in Jita, Dodixie and Hek.  Hence my manufacturer is now producing the items at full speed and i expect to be having them all hauled to Amarr in the next day.

My next plan is to start the final alt on my second account and place it in Rens to sell my manufactured items as well.  Perhaps this will be in place before the end of the year.

Starting Invention: I also need to look more into Invention.  My invention alt is perhaps as good as trained enough to get me started - but my knowledge is very thin on the ground.

But to start, i will copy one of the blueprints i have just to see how it all works.  I will try to invent a Viator by using a Nereus blueprint copy.  In all, this will likely take me 3 days to get all done.

Renting a Corporation Office: And, to allow me to easily swap blueprints between my manufacturer and my inventor i have decided to rent a Corporation office in Lonetrek for 6m ISK per month (though i suspect this will start to rise given there are very few offices left in this station to rent).

The first thing i noticed is that whilst Invention Slots are not hard to find, Copying slots are very thin on the ground!

A week away - not too much of a dent

I came back from a trip that kept me away from Eve for 5 nights and my wealth had increased by 1.6bn ISK (=183m ISK per day) to 32.3bn ISK.  I considered that a good result.

Good sales came from across my alts in Dodixie and Hek (my Regional traders) and my manufacturing alt sitting in Jita.

My Manufacturing Alt is expanding its operation.  It can now have 11 items in production at any one time and it is selling 26 items for good profit margins.  As an experiment I am looking into selling into new Regions to see how that goes.  I am now training this alt up on Space Ship command.  I suspect in time this will be the alt I use to transport items around where I am unable to use third parties.

My Research Alt in Jita, which currently acts as my buyer for my traders in Dodixie and Hek, is moving towards the end game in getting up to speed to start Invention.  To be honest, I could have gone down this route 3 weeks ago but RL is taking up too much time.  This alt is now learning Mechanics 5 and will then learn CPU Management to level 5 (the old Electronics skill) before seeking a place to call home to do Invention.  I expect to do that towards the end of November or early December.  And of course I have purchased another Plex to finance this account for a further 30 days.

In readiness for that day I am starting a new alt - given I will be away for several periods during November it could take a while for me event to complete the starter missions!

Whilst I have found some more expensive items to sell via by traders in Dodixie and Hek my biggest issue remains that I have almost 9bn uninvested ISK in my wallet which is acting as a drag to my growth in wealth.

I only spend 30 to 45 minutes per weekday on Eve - hence I am looking for new items to sell or projects that can use up this ISK for a good return with minimal effort on my behalf.