Business is no longer growing - i need to sort this out

There are two ways to grow my wealth under my current business model: 1) grow sales; 2) grow profit margins (i.e. each unit of sale makes more profits than it used to).

A great visual way to watch a business growing year after year is to look at the annual cohorts showing monthly cumulative growth for each year.

This allows you to get a instant sense of how a year is going vs prior years and what to expect (or need to do) in the coming months.

Cohort charts of my Eve Online Business

I mainly do Regional Trading.  I buy from Sell Orders in Jita and put the items up for Sale in other Regional Trading Hubs.  I limit myself to 45 minutes a day doing this.

On the charts below, the y-axis is billions.

So take the first chart below "Cumulative Sales".

Firstly it shows for each year how the sales build through the year.

Secondly it shows the rise in total sales as the year goes by for each year from when i re-started in 2020 to the current year 2025 to end of May.

For the Sales chart three things stand out.  1) the growth years were 2021, 2022 and 2023.  2) growth tends to accelerate in the second half of the year; and 3) 2024 and 2025 are not showing any real growth vs 2023.

If i want my business to grow then this is a problem.  And i need to diagnose it.

My item profits in 2024 started to grow on 2023 from around August.  Item profits are the simple Sale price less purchase price of the items i trade (so before taxes and courier costs).

Likewise, my pre-distribution profits grew on 2023 from around August.

I put this growth in profits down to the 2-for-1 MCT / Omega sale last June which meant i entered the Skill Farming industry and i effectively bought 12 months of Omega for free.  I think that explains the no real growth in Sales vs the step up in profits.

The step down in profits for 2025 in recent months is in part slightly lower sales vs 2024 but also a rise in competition in Blueprints in four of my trading locations.  So growing relisting fees.  I get that and i am not complaining.

So, it seems a problem with Sales

I need to grow sales.

I may have run into the maximum i can make with the time available.

One thing i did do was move my focus to items selling for at least 500 million isk to help me manage my time better.  That may be a headwind to sales growth - i will look into this.

Actions taken so far to grow sales again

I have started manufacturing.  Only 1 month in, so no useful observations to make.

What i have noticed is that i now have 7 Omega Accounts with all but three of the characters in High Sec.  That's 21 characters in total.  When i get the time i will set up Planetary Industry again and set the extraction to 14 day cycles.  Lets see if that generates any profits - it will, the question is how much vs time taken.  Lets see what 21 x 6 = 126 planets doing PI mostly in highsec can get me!  Or lets see if i burn out!

I need to set up trade locations in null sec or low sec.  From what i hear from other traders, this can be lucrative.

Increasing the sales price lower limit

As my wealth rose i moved up the price scale.  For example, right at the start of all this in 2020 i was buying Missile Blueprints for 600k and selling them for 2 million and feeling like a hero.  Then i was buying items for 1 million and selling them for 3 million.  Then buying for 10 million to sell for 30 million.

The point is, as my wealth rose, to move the dials i needed to sell higher priced items.

Remember, i go for low volume so i can' t reply on the low priced items selling like hot cakes.

Until recently, the rule was that for each sale i needed to make at the higher of 100 million profit or 25% profit margins.

I have now changed that to only dealing in items what sell for at least 500 million isk.  In other words, the cost is at least 375m isk.  I may just shift that to being the cost must be 500 million isk.

The exception is implants where i will still aim to sell the entire family.

The other exception is my foray into manufacturing where i am just exploring the methodology for now.

So, now gone are the days of selling mining lasers, mining upgrades, small sized ship equipment items, etc.

But what i am trying to do here is also control the time i spend on my business. And one way to do that is to cut out selling the lower priced items and focus on the big hitting items.  I want to focus on getting 

I also need the time to focus on manufacturing.

The Profit Margin Structure

If you sell an item for 1m isk do you know what profits you will make and when?  And how do the cash flows compare?

Lets assume you have a business model like mine which is to Buy from Sell Orders in Jita, courier the item to a regional Trading Hub and put the item up for sale.

Step 1 - buying the item, no additional costs

Lets assume i buy the item for 750k from a Sell Order in Jita

So far so good, there are no additional costs.  The 750k is spent and the item is in my inventory.  My wealth has not changed.

Step 2 - couriering the item, first additional cost

I don't courier my items from Jita to the Trading Huh.  That is done by third party couriers.

For Courier Contracts i markup the cost by 20% and then offer a fee of 2% of this.  So, 750k is collateralised at 750 x 1.2 = 900k.  Apply the 2% fee (which is always accepted no matter how long the journey and if it is high / low / null sec).

2% fee costs 18k isk.  So my wealth is now down by 18k.

Step 3 - once it arrives at the Trading Hub put it up for sale

I am Level 5 all the relevant skills to take my tax rate to the lowest possible.

This page at Eve University takes us through all the Eve Online tax rates and their formulas.

The Broker Listing fee for me is 1.5%.

I aim to make a 25% item margin.  That is, i want the Sales Price less Cost Price to be 25% of the Sales Price.

For my 750k item, that means the Sales Price needs to be 1m isk, the cost price is 750k and so the item profit is 250k which is 25% of the Sales Price.

Therefore, the listing fee is 1.5% x 1m = 15k.

My wealth has technically risen by 250k, less the 18k courier costs and the 15k listing fee.  However, i also take a 20% provision for every item for sale which means i reduce my wealth by 200k.  Therefore, my wealth is up by 17k (=250-200-15-18).

But my cash is down by 783k.  That is important to know - in this game, as in real life, profits often come before cash.  Cash comes in through the door at the end.  There are exceptions to this where businesses charge in advance (online classifieds) or businesses that pay their suppliers after the customers pay their cash (retailers).

Step 4 - i may need to change the price due to competition coming in with a lower sales price

Take that as read, i will always ensure my item is the lowest price.

Step 5 - i sell the item and so pay transaction tax

Lets assume i did not need to change the price, i sell the item for 1m isk and pay the transaction tax of 2 (=20k isk).

Finally, cash comes in.  Profits and Cash match = 197k.

The Margin structure of all that

Sales = 1m.

Cost of purchase = 750k

Item Profit = 250k

Item Margin = 25%

Courier Fees = 18k

Listing Fees = 15k

Transaction tax = 20k

therefore, sales & distribution costs = 53k

Profit = 197k

Profit Margin = 19.7%.

What does that mean?

At its simplest this means that for every 1m sales i make 197k isk.

it also means:

if i push the margin up from 25% to 30% then the bottom line profits goes up 35%.  Let that sink in.

if i decrease the margin from 25% to 20% then the bottom line profits fall 31%.

That margin is everything.

If any of the other costs such as Courier Costs or Transaction Taxes or Listing Fees rise by 1% then the bottom line profits fall by 5%.

If i increase volumes by 10% then the bottom line rises by 10%.

Basically, if i can raise the margin then that gives me the best bang for my bucks.

Also, from a cash flow point of view - to do a 1m sale i need to spend 783k first.  I do 300bn in a month which means i have spent 235bn getting to that point.

Eve Excel Addin and the transformation of by Eve business

The summary of the below is that the use of the Eve Excel Addin is transforming my business activities: it is now quicker to update my orders each night; it is quicker to find new items to sell; and 4 characters are about to be freed up to do something else.

How i used to operate

Each of my 6 omega accounts has one character in Jita that buys the items from Sell Orders on the Jita market to be couriered out the other two characters that sit in Trade Hubs to put these items up as Sell Orders.

I use third party couriers.

The Daily Mechanics of all that

I had got the mechanics of this down to a fine art.  Each of the two Selling characters had the items they were selling in their quickbar and each night i would run through these items and update any where they had been undercut by competition and move any that had been sold into another folder on the quickbar.

For the items sold i would check via EveTycoon if it was profitable to buy them from Sell Orders in Jita to relist and I would also cycle through other items that i had listed in other folders on the quickbar to see if they would be profitable to be sold using EveTycoon.

The Jita Character would then buy everything in that folder to be couriered.

That all took me 45 minutes to cycle through half my business and the next night i would cycle through the the other half.

And a lot of using arrow keys and clicking.

And so it went on

How i operate now

All of that is gone.

I have a number of spreadsheets which almost all use the the Excel Addin to do all that, and more.

The "Sales Orders to update" spreadsheet: by being able to list what sell orders a character has up and by being able to compare to the minimum selling price in the Region i can now instantly get a list of sell orders that have been undercut.  I can then copy that list to the quickbar and quickly cycle through them and update the prices.

The "replace and add more" spreadsheet: by being able to list what items have been sold by my character i can determine if it is profitable to buy them again from Jita Sell Orders to sell again at the sales hub.  I can also look at a list of around 2000 items to see if it is profitable to also buy from Jita Sell Orders to sell at the sales hub.  I just keep a temporary list of items on a spreadsheet that i can then use the simple mechanic of copying from spreadsheet to Market Quickbar to allow one character in Jita to do all the buying.

The "put up the sell orders" spreadsheet: by listing what i have bought recently and increasing the purchase price by 4/3 (that gives me the sales price) i can instantly see what price i need to list an item for sale that has been couriered from Jita.

The "monitoring the skill farm" spreadsheet: for all my characters involved in skill farming i can see where all my Skill Extractors and Skill Injectors are located + therefore how many of each i have  + which skill injector Sell Orders have been undercut + last few days of Skill Injector sales + Skill queues so that i can tell who needs skills points extracted.

This means two things

Firstly, i can go through my entire business in 30-45 minutes.  It is fast and accurate.

Secondly, because i am not relying on the Quickbar in the client which is shared by characters in the same account - i don't therefore need a buyer in Jita for every account.  I just need one buyer in Jita.  Therefore, this will free up 4 high skilled characters in Jita to go elsewhere.

. . . . and i suspect they will start in the Manufacturing business.

My Ground Rules of Pricing an Item for Sale

Worth saying straight away that this is specific to my strategy of focusing outside of Jita and on slow moving items that have little competition.

The golden rule is to achieve a 25% item profit margin: what this means is if i buy something for 750m then i will put it up for sale for 1bn.  Therefore the profit before taxes should be 250m which is 25% of the 1bn sales price.  This is driven by my tax, courier costs, some sort of estimate of relisting fees coming to around 9% of sales price (i need to update this given the recent tax changes) leaving me with a 16% overall margin (=25-9).  I.e. for every 1bn of sales i make 160m of profit to go towards plex / omega.

Price relative to competition: if your target price to achieve the 25% profit margin is, say, 410,000,000 isk but competition is pricing at 620,000,000 then put your order in at 599,900,000.  It looks a good deal and is clearly better than the 25% margin target.

Price relative to last Sale: again, if your target price to achieve the 25% profit margin is, say, 410,000,000 isk but the last sale was done very recently at 520,000,000 and there is no competition then put your order in at 499,900000.  It achieves the 25% margin target but still looks a good deal at the higher price.

Price one tick below the round number: if the target Sale price is, for example, 350,000,000 then put the Sell Order up for 349,900,000.  This is common retail practice.  It gives the impression that you are offering a deal, have thought about the price and that you are active.

In the Trade Hubs of Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek you do not need to compete with Sell Orders outside those Stations:  If the lowest sale price for an item is 205,000,000 in the station where as there is a Sell Order for the same item 1 jump away for 190,000,000 the you are good to price your item at 204,900,000.  Players will not travel even one jump outside a Trade Hub to buy a cheaper item.

Pricing for items that sell in 2s or more (i.e. mining lasers sell in 2s and mining drones sell in 5s): if someone is undercutting your item here for a large amount with a single item of theirs then there is no need to undercut them.  Given these items sell in 2s or more then a Buyer will look at the total cost of the bundle and therefore the competitor undercutting will merely be making the bundle look cheaper.

Always undercut competition: everyday you must update your orders and undercut the competition.  You must always give the impression that you are there every day and will always undercut.  Competition will eventually get tired and go after easy targets.  In my time in Eve Online there is only once i have been forced out of the market.

Don't buyout a cheap competitor sell order: unless it is below the Jita Buy Price; you never know if the competitor has a lot more where that came from.

Make sure you don't go to a discount to Jita Sell Orders: i use the Eve Online Excel Addon for this but over time Jita prices will rise or a competitor will try and take the price below Jita prices.  If Jita prices rise then i dont really mind, i will still be making a good profit on my purchase price.  But if a competitor is trying to take the price below Jita prices then i wont follow.

Jita - my central distribution warehouse

I would say 90% of what i sell is bought from Sell Orders in Jita.

10% of what i sell i buy outside of Jita.  These are typically Blueprints that come from NPCs in other Regions.

How this worked historically

If one of my Trade locations needed one of those Blueprints that are not found in Jita to sell i would Buy it at source from the Sell Order and have it couriered.

That was quite a tedious mechanical operation requiring my spreadsheet to remember where these items could be sourced from.  And made for tedious couriering of say one item for 500m collateral from the back of beyond and so only 10m of fees,

Jita is now the central warehouse

The aim now is for 100% of all items to leave from Jita.

This is much easier to manage and avoids all the issues of multiple clicking to open to characters to buy these items.  Loads of clicks.

Therefore, what i now do is buy up a stock of these non-Jita items and courier them to Jita to sit in inventory and wait to be couriered to the eventual Trade location to be sold.

So, every so often i buy up several billion isk worth to courier to Jita.

Of course, these items are couriered twice in their life cycle vs once for items sourced in Jita.  I typically pay 2% courier fees.  Therefore, what i do is add this 2% to the cost of the item so that when i sell it i recover the cost of this additional courier leg.

But it is well worth it.  Life is much easier now.

The downside is that i have isk tied up in inventory.

. . . .  . . i may be mistaken but i think this is the business model FedEx fall into which worked so successfully.

Christmas tidy up

Over the year i make some mistakes on couriering items and find myself with a blueprint or two and a ship equipment item or two in my trade locations sitting in inventory that wont be put up for sale any time soon.

And then there are a truck load of items redeemed from daily rewards.

All making the place look a bit untidy.  Even when i tuck them away in containers.

And then this all adds up as inventory that is locking up isk and therefore making my business inefficient and increasingly so.

This is an important point - items in inventory was once isk.  The longer the item sits in inventory it deprives me of using the isk it could become to invest in the market to make more isk.  This is call "opportunity cost" or think of it as an interest cost or cost of storage.

Jita is my central warehouse

More on this in a coming post but . . .  . .

. . . . my main chance of moving this inventory on and converting it into isk is to courier it back to Jita to use as my central warehouse to be distributed elsewhere as required.

Therefore, i am just in the process of having all this couriered back to Jita to be thrown in more containers for their fate to be decided.

But one thing is for sure, storing everything in Jita will mean i can convert it into isk very quickly (price may not be great) or more easily have it there to courier to another trade location to sell.

Ships cluttering up the place

Not sure what i will do with all the spare ships in hangers - and i bet i find the odd Thunderchild to sell (when ships are delivered by courier they go into the Corporate Delivery Hanger but when moved to Inventory they quietly get put in the Ship Hanger, so easy to forget about).

Cost of this tidy up

I suspect i will spend about 1bn in courier fees on all this once it is done.  So, yes. about 50bn of items are lying around my hangers in my Trade Locations and need to be dealt with.

Eve Excel Add In - a run through of my sheet to calculate my wealth, Part 2

This is the second part on my series looking at the spreadsheets which use the Eve Online Excel Add-in to calculate my net wealth.

This sheet focuses on the assets i hold in hangers and is quite annoying in that i have not yet managed to work out how i can do this in one line per character.

i.e. in the prior sheet for each character it only takes one line to calculate the total Sell Orders for example.

For the assets in hangers i need to list them all out and then make sure i am not counting Blue Print Copies.

The basics of the Spreadsheet is that for each character i list out all the assets in the hangers and then value them off Jita prices.  This will also capture all Blueprint Copies which i need to eliminate.  I then list all the Blueprints and if they are a copy i add them all up and take them away from the first list.  All will be clear on the spreadsheet below.

I also do something similar for the Corporate which captures everything in Corporate Hangers.  I.e. items delivered from courier contracts.

Lets go through the first character:

Cell D4 picks up the character ID from the list i input in column D.  See the prior post in where to get the character IDs.  There are two ways.

Cells E4, F4 and G4 get the character name, system and Region:

=EVEONLINE.CHARACTER(D4),  =EVEONLINE.SOLARSYSTEM(MODE(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ASSETS(D4).final_location.solar_system_id)).solar_system_name,  =EVEONLINE.REGION(MODE(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ASSETS(D4).final_location.region_id)).name)

The real work starts in cell D9 with the formula =EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ASSETS(D4)

This lists all the assets held in hangers for the character where D4 is the cell containing the character ID.  It will form a list.

Column E will then take each item in column D and get the quantity =D9.quantity

Column F will then get the minimum Sell Price in Jita for each item in Column D =EVEONLINE.MARKET_ORDERS_STATS(10000002,D9.type.id).sell.min

10000002 is the id for The Forge which is the Region where Jita is.

The way this formula works is to bring up all the type.id for each asset item, and then gets the enter market order book in The Forge for this item, and then at the end gets the Sell prices only and then only the minimum.

Column G then multiplies these Columns together to get the value of each asset and then this is all summed up in Cell G7.

But we must now eliminate the value of all Blueprint Copies (which are given the Blueprint Original price).

So, Column I lists all the Blueprints owned by the character =EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_BLUEPRINTS(D4)

Column J then shows how many runs are left for each Blueprint =I9.runs.  If the runs left are -1 then that is a Blueprint Original, otherwise it is a Copy.

Column K then lists the value of only the Copies which in this case instead of multiplying the columns together i just used a new formula =IFERROR(IF(J9<>-1,EVEONLINE.MARKET_ORDERS_STATS(10000002,I9.type.id).sell.min,0),0)

Cell K7 then sums all these Blueprint Copies.

And therefore the sum of all the assets owned is Cell G7 - Cell K7.

Finally, look carefully at how it is done for the Corporation Hangers in columns GB onwards.

Eve Excel Add In - a run through of my sheet to calculate my wealth

I have been using the excel Add-In since it came out to calculate my wealth.

The aim of the excel sheet is to avoid making lists of all the Sell Orders and Buy Orders i have but to try and get as much of it into a one line formula if possible.

Using the Add-In is much quicker than the old days and quite easy to use, though with a reasonably steep learning curve.

Knowledge of excel is a must.

The Spreadsheet

Below is my Excel Spreadsheet (as at the point in time i posted it) and I explain the formulas used.  It is the formulas that count and how they are put together more than anything else.

I will assume that everyone knows how to get the add-in up and running.  If not, a suitable explanation is given by Oz in a youtube video.

In the Sheet itself, every Add-In formula i use is written above the column it is used it.

Items in yellow is data you need to input yourself.

The way to update this sheet if you have it in excel is ctrl + shift + alt + F9

Going through the columns on the main part

Column B - Character ID:

Every character in Eve Online has its own ID.  There are two ways to find this out.

1) Look at your character (or Corporation) on Eve Who and in the URL is your character ID

2) use the formula <=EVEONLINE.ACTIVE_CHARACTER().id> which will list all the ID's of characters you have on the addin.

Either way, we need these character IDs to run the spreadsheet.

Column C - name:

This is an easy formula of <=EVEONLINE.CHARACTER(B9)> where B9 is the cell with a character ID in it.

This will give the name of the character.

<=EVEONLINE.CORPORATION(B14)> gives the name of the Corporation where B14 is the Corporation ID.

Column D - solar system:

Ignore for now, not important and there may be a simpler way.  I will deal with this at the bottom of the post.

Column E - region:

Ignore for now, not important and there may be a simpler way.  I will deal with this at the bottom of the post.

Column F - wallet:

For characters the formula is <=EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_WALLET_BALANCE(B9)> where B9 is the cell with a character ID in it.

For the corporation, you still have to link it to a character with access to the bank accounts (linking it to the corporation will not work).  Also for Corporations there are various parts of the wallet, so they all need to be added up.

So, this is where is gets interesting and we start to use the Excel functionality.

I could use a formula to list out all the balances in all the Corporation accounts which would be <CORPORATION_WALLETS(B9).balance>.  This would list out all the bank balances in the corporation.

But i want one number which is the sum of these hence, the formula is <=SUM(EVEONLINE.CORPORATION_WALLETS(B9).balance)> where B9 is the cell with the ID of a character with access to the Corporation bank accounts.

Note we now have the Excel function <SUM> come in which sums up the list that was produced before into one line.

Column G - Sell Orders:

This is where we really start to use the functionality of the Add-In.

The formula i use to get the sum of all the Sell Orders for a character is <=IFERROR(SUM(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B8).volume_remain) - SUM(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain),0)>

B8 is the cell with the character ID in it.

Lets break this down.

<=EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9)> will list all the Sell and Buy orders for a character including the price and quantity initially put on and what is left.  That is no use - we need to isolate the quantity left to sell, the price and whether it is a Buy or Sell order.

<EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price> will list the price that the Sell or Buy order is listed at

<EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain> will list all the remaining quantity to Sell or Buy.

And this is the beauty of the Add-In and Excel, the formula <=EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain> will list the value of all the Sell and Buy orders.  It will be a list that multiples the price of each order by the remaining quantity.

Therefore, i can use the Excel SUM function to get the total value of all the Sell and Orders on one line by doing <SUM(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain)>

However, this is the combined value of the Sell and Buy Orders.

The Add-In only gives us the ability to isolate the Buy Orders and so i need to take this total value and take away the value of the Buy Orders.

the formula <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order> gives a True or False for each Order if it is a Buy or Sell Order.

Therefore, i can use the same formula as before but Add-In this bit to give me a list of all Buy Order Values <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain>

and as before i can use the Excel SUM function to get the total value on one line <SUM(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain)>

So, i only now need to take one SUM away from the other to get the total Sell Orders.

And add an IFERROR function at the beginning to give the answer "0" if there are not and Buy or Sell Orders.

Column H - Buy Orders:

<=IFERROR(SUM(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain),0)>

This is merely the SUM of the Buy Orders we used above.

The Add-In gives us the ability to isolate the Buy Orders by using the formula <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order> which gives a True or False for each Order if it is a Buy or Sell Order.

I also can list the price of each Buy Order <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price>.

and i can list the quantity that remains to be bought <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain>.

and so combining these altogether i can get a list of the Buy Orders value per Order <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain>

and as before i can use the Excel SUM function to get the total value on one line <SUM(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).price * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).is_buy_order * EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ORDERS(B9).volume_remain)>

and then wrap it into an IFERROR function to default to 0 if there is an error.

Column I - Inventory:

This is taken from another workbook and will be in a following post.  So far i am unable to nail the value of the inventory held by each character in a one line formula.  Hence i use another workbook to do the calculations.

Column J - Provision vs Sell Orders:

this is merely me taking a 20% provision against each sell order to recognise i will need to pay Transaction Tax when the sale goes through + i may need to list it at a lower value to get it sold.

So nothing to do with the Add-In.

Column K - Contracts outstanding or in progress:

<=IFERROR(SUM(FILTER(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9),(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="in_progress") + (EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="outstanding")).collateral),0)>

where B9 is the character ID.

Lets break this down.

I can list all the contracts i have that are "outstanding" and "in progress" and " finished" using the formula <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9)>.

But what i am interested in are only those "outstanding" or "in progress".

The Add-In allows me to show the status of each contact using ".status".  So <EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status> will list the status of each contract.

Therefore, i can use the Excel FILTER function to isolate only those that are "outstanding" or "in progress".  The FILTER function works a bit like COUNTIF.  <FILTER(list, condition)>.

I can use multiple conditions and in my case i was either "outstanding" or "in progress".  "+" is the equivalent of "OR".

Therefore, to list only these contracts that are "outstanding" or "in progress" i use the formula <FILTER(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9),(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="in_progress") + (EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="outstanding"))>

And then to get the contract value i use ".collateral" to make the formula <FILTER(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9),(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="in_progress") + (EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="outstanding")).collateral>.

And of course i want this on one line so i use the SUM function to add it all up <SUM(FILTER(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9),(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="in_progress") + (EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_CONTRACTS(B9).status="outstanding")).collateral)>

And wrap it in an IFERROR function to return "0" if there is an error.

Column L - Items in Corporate Delivery Hangers:

This is taken from another workbook and will be in a following post

Column M - Plex:

The Add-In can't access the Plex Wallet - so i have to manually input the quanity.

But the Jita minimum Sell price is the formula <=EVEONLINE.MARKET_ORDERS_STATS(10000002,44992).sell.min>

where "10000002" is the ID of The Forge region and "44992" is the ID of Plex.

Column D and E - System Location and Region Location:

These columns list the System and Region each character is in.  There must be na easier way of doing this but for now i cant work it out.  So i have looked for the location for each character where most of their assets are and used that as the assumed location of the character.

so, for System: <=EVEONLINE.SOLARSYSTEM(MODE(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ASSETS(B9).final_location.solar_system_id)).solar_system_name>

where B9 is the cell with the character ID.

and for Region: <=EVEONLINE.REGION(MODE(EVEONLINE.CHARACTER_ASSETS(B9).final_location.region_id)).name>

where B9 is the cell with the character ID.

2023 Wealth, Sales, Profits and distributions. Trillionaire.

For 2023 i generated profits after all costs of 702 billion isk and from that i paid out 261 billion isk to the Oz Tank Show (well, 1 billion went to another twitch show dangerous_d666).

Therefore, my wealth rose by 441 billion isk from 736 billion isk to 1.2 trillion isk.

So on 2023 i became a trillionaire.

The Basic Numbers

I made sales of 4.0 trillion isk which generated profits of 1.2 trillion isk.  So a nice profit margin of 29.7% and therefore ahead of the 25% i target.

Sales tax of 140 billion + Broker listing fees 60bn + Broker relisting fees 96 billion + courier fees 85bn + Manufacturing taxes 6 billion meant the costs of doing business were 387 billion isk.

Therefore, the profits from by business were 808 billion isk which is a nice 20% margin and higher than the 15% i target.

From which i spent 94 billion on Omega (either directly via plex or through New Eden Store deals) and other costs of 12 billion (moving trading locations when player stations in high sec got nailed and implants for some of the Omega alts).

That therefore left me with profits of 702 billion isk.

Charts

The first chart shows how my wealth has increased since i started on that say in August 2020.  Rising nicely before flattening around July 2023 which is when i started giving my monthly profits to the Oz Tank Show.

That said, there is no hiding the fact that my monthly profits are now actually starting to be below last year.  In September and November 2023 my monthly profits before making any distributions were below the same months in 2022.  The only reason October and December 2023 were higher than the same months in 2022 was due to skill farming on the back of a couple of MCT deals in the New Eden Store.

In part this is due to a decline in average daily sales since around November 2022.  Seems the markets i operate in are just getting quieter - or maybe they are super normal busy at the end of 2022.

And this is reflected in my average daily profits (before distributions) which used to be over 2 billion isk per day but had fallen back to almost 1 billion isk by November 2023.  The spikes in October 2023 and December 2023 are due to the skill farming mentioned above.

I am hoping my average daily profits will stick around 1.5 billion isk.

A few more metrics

Asset turnover, which measures the proportion of assets that were sold in the year, was 5.5x.  In other words, over 2023 i sold all the asset i had up for sale on 1 January 2023 over 5 times.

My profit margin was 20.1% (thats profits before Omega and distribution costs) which means the Return on Capital Employed was 110% which is huge compared to real life companies.

Taking the Omega costs out pulls the Return on Capital Employed to 95% which is still huge.

The large Return on Capital Employed reflects the fact that i need very little additional assets to make my business work.  I don't need factories, stations or ships.  I use NPC stations and third party couriers transport my items.  The only assets i need are the items to sell themselves.

This is a high margin, asset light business with a good asset turnover.  What is not to like?

The cost of moving trading locations

Well, we will all have seen the news CCP not allowing Extra Large Structures being anchored in High Sec followed by the Tranquillity Trade Consortium closing down and their main station being taken down.  Strange Net covered in a video.

The next domino to fall?

Not too much of a leap to be concerned that iChooseYou stations could also be attacked.  Indeed, it seems every corporation and their dog war dec'd iChooseYou. 

For me, i had two Trading Locations in iChooseYou stations - one in Sobesaki and one in Alentene.

To be fair, nothing has happened and things may be happening in the background yet but i decided to move anyway.

The cost of it all

Between the two locations i had 226bn ISK of Sell Orders up.

A bit too much to courier so i put them into Asset Safety before the stations were attacked.

So, i had to delist every order (it seems Sell Orders only go into Asset Safety if the station is under attack, not before), move them to Asset Safety, wait 5 days, move that to a new Station and then relist them all.

Cost of Asset Safety was 0.5%.

Cost of relisting was 1.5%.

Hence, the numbers: the cost of Asset Safety and relisting was 4.2bn isk.

The difference between the sum of the Sell Orders at the iChooseYou and the new locations was 1.4bn.

Hence, the total cost of all this was 5.6bn isk and 5-6 days lost sales.

Thoughts going forwards

I chose those locations because they had the best trade volumes in their areas - not for the lower taxes.

Whilst the cost was not onerous (around 15-20% of my normal monthly profits) it was tedious.

Hence, from here on in i plan to stick to NPC stations.

The current 3 month Omega deal (36% discount) is fantastic

As at the time of writing there is another Omega sale going on that is much better than the normal sale.  Firstly, the one month Omega is going for 400 Plex rather than the normal 500 Plex.

The question is - should we go for it.

The summary of the below is the 3 and 6 months look good.  The 12 and 24 months less so.  In fact the 24 month deal is very poor.

It is all a question of what is the return your business makes.

To not go for the 3 month deal if you can afford it means your business needs to make a monthly return of more than 72%.

What are the discounts on offer?

The table below summarises them all and adds some analysis.

It is a busy table but lets focus on the 6 month Omega to explain what is going on.  The cost of Plex does not alter any of the outcomes.

So, looking at the 6 month line:

The normal cost is 14.7bn (=500 plex x 6 months x 4.9m per plex = 3000 Plex x 4.7m)

CCP gives a 44% discount meaning instead of costing 3000 Plex it costs 1680 Plex.  Therefore, the actual cost is 8.2bn isk and so saving 6.5bn isk.  Over 6 months therefore this saving is 1.1bn isk per month.

The return technically made is 6.5 / 8.2 = 79%.

By Buying this 6 month deal you effectively save on 2.6 months (you pay the full price for 3.4 months and get 6 months).

So far, this all looks really appealing.

But we need to think of the alternative

Sticking to the 6 months, the alternative is that we take the 8.2bn isk and instead of buying the 6 month Omega we invest it in our business and pay the normal monthly Omega.

The question there is what monthly return must our business make to justify this course of action rather than taking the deal.

In other words, for the 6 month calculation, we take the 8.2bn isk we would have used to buy the deal but instead invest it into the business, reduce it by 2.5bn to buy a 1 month Omega, invest the rest for a month making a return of X%.  Then reduce that enlarged amount by another 2.5bn to buy the next months Omega and invest what's left to make that return of X% and so on for 6 months.

As it happens for this 6 month period, and it does not matter what the market price of Plex is (assuming it does not change), to make it more attractive to buy the Omega each month then your monthly return (i.e. X%) must be at least 31.7%.

If you can't make 31.7% then buying the 6 month Omega deal is better.

And that is what the final column on the table shows.

It shows the monthly return required to do better than buying the deal.

The longer time deals are poor

The 3 month deal is the best.  You would need to make a monthly return of 71.9% to mean that buying the 1 month Omega each time is a better idea.

The 24 month deal is the worst - you only need to make a monthly return of 9.0% to mean that investing the 25.9bn isk into your business and paying each month for a 1 month Omega is a better idea.

What does it mean for me?

I currently make a monthly return of 10-11% on my business (i.e. for every 100bn invested i make 10-11bn).

Therefore, assuming i knew i was going to play Eve for the next 6 months then i should buy the 6 month Omega deal rather than pay each month for the monthly Omega.

Example of the 6 month calculation

The below table shows how i worked out the required 31.7% return:

Start at time 0 and invest 8.2bn isk.  buy a 1 month omega for 2.5bn leaves 5.8bn, make the 31.7% return increases that to 7.6bn.  Start of the second month reduce it by 2.5bn to 5.2bn for the 1 month Omega, increase that 5.2bn by 31.7% to 6.8bn and so on.  By the start of the month 6 you are left with 2.5bn to buy that final months Omega.