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.
