Science & Industry

btw: i never said it's a bad idea to undercut deep. it makes sense in some situations. but undercutting deep with a sell order that is worth billions and covers multiple days of market volume is.

right now the person in question is selling his stuff at a LOSS (-800k ISK/hr with a good BPO). an even bigger loss if you consider the fact that prices for the intermediate stuff have fallen in the last weeks.

extra material ?

so do i, made a few hundred million ISK that way in the last days. however, i still need enough cash to buy his stock without getting myself trapped in having only a single product on the market. not possible right now.




relisting is not possible, i don't have enough cash and i really don't like owning almost a week worth of market volume for a single product. i get nervous when i own more than a days volume.

reprocessing is not possible.

holding the stock is something i could do but don't like. i very much prefer cash or running industry jobs.

waiting is probably the best way to deal with the situation. time to give the BPO a few extra levels in PE.

My solution has always been move the BPO somewhere I can actually be competitive. Alternatively just ship the goods elsewhere.

In some cases the entire market seems to slip below production costs (P4 PI is a good current example, almost all P4s are way below production cost at all trade hubs at the moment). This is generally either a sign of market manipulation or a sudden influx of new and particularly stupid industrialists of the "if I mine it the mats are free" variety. In which case either stockpile or go diversify into something else.

So reading through the thread as a newbro, tons of great info to chew on here. I can't really add too much to the conversation but will try.

I think it basically comes down to inventory and cost control. If the market fluctuates violently due to market PvP and you don't want to operate in that fashion yourself, then you have to manage your production flow, acquisition and sales properly.

- How can you reduce the cost to build? Better skils and researched BPOs
- How can you reduce the cost of build materials? Buy from different locations, setup deals to buy directly from industrialists, mine yourself
- How can you maintain the proper inventory to ride out the low profit times? This will require a lot of spreadsheet work but can be done
- What do you do when an item isn't profitable? Use the manufacturing slot to build something that is

Just try to think of it as a real world scenario where you are a manufacturer of multiple product lines and have to balance all aspects from sourcing, building and selling all while maintaining a profitable business overall. Once you have the skills and processes in place to manage your inventory control you can ride out any fluctuations and maximize the profit for each manufacturing line you have running full time.