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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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So this trading stuff is harder than I anticipated.
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Julian D'Sol
#1 - 2012-01-14 04:05:40 UTC
I learned about EVE from an old flatmate I ran into a few weeks ago. As an enthusiast of all gaming oddities I was immediately drawn in by his description of an almost entirely player-driven market economy. I got through my trial period buzzing about in a newbie ship and attempting to make heads or tales of the market tab and fortunately enough I found good guides for this on google and here in the forums.

My only question is, what kind of saturation do you veterans reckon has been reached in the popular areas of space? I have spent some time scouring my immediate regions for places to trade with wider margins where my low skills are not much of a hindrance, but the volume is so low I end up waiting days to see any kind of turnover. Perhaps I haven't been creative enough or failed to take something into account, but looking at a large hub like Jita or Dodixie I don't see a lot of places where someone with weak tax skills and little reputation with the local corporation can make much of an entrance.

If anyone could advise me on where to look or how to look at this in a more appropriate way, I would love to hear it.
kla samon
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2012-01-14 04:17:40 UTC
There are plenty of opportunities in the major hubs. Just keep in mind that in the beginning you are looking for short term prospects.

I'll give you an example.

A few weeks ago I sat in Jita with a new trade alt I'm skilling up and browsed through ship mods to see if there were any margins wide enough to trade. I started with what I knew were high volume items. Cargo Expander II, Nanofiber II, stuff like that.

When I got to the cargo expanders I noticed that at the time there was about a 75k per expander profit spread. I also noticed that 11 jumps away someone was selling a few hundred of them for under the buy price at jita. So i went and bought as many as I could hold in my frigate and headed back to jita to sell em.

Soon I had enough money to put in a buy order at Jita as well as pick up more 11 jumps away.

I don't remember how much money i made off the cargo expanders but it was a good return on investment. Over the next couple of days the margins on cargo expanders went south and I moved on to other items.

Just a small example of what anyone can do. As an experiment a ways back i turned 1 mil to 100 mil in a week doing exactly the same thing. You just have to be observant and keep an eye out for special situations that you can take advantage of.

Start with one item and expand as your money grows.

Good Luck
Jarnis McPieksu
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-01-14 06:28:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Jarnis McPieksu
You have to realize that the vast majority of EVE trade happens in Jita so volumes elsewhere are low. I don't have the numbers at hand but I believe Jita total volume is more than all other hubs combined. The reason why the price levels elsewhere are higher is because, well, nobody competes because nobody buys... non-hub stations are not a good place to sell stuff at.

In fact, I'd venture a guess that all other systems in EVE, in total, have volume that is probably a fraction of the total volume of top 8 or so market hubs. People trade where the selection and prices are good and in market hubs active traders ensure that everything is available and competition tends to drive down the price.

So most trading that turns a profit involves either...

- Buying things from non-hub stations that are listed as sell orders at a price that is below a market hub price level. Someone can't be bothered to haul it, you might think otherwise.

- Buying things from Jita and exporting them to other hubs where the price level is higher. Being the guy that supplies lesser hubs with goods. Requires careful examination of trade volumes and competition in the items you trade.

- Exploiting any temporary price imbalances between hubs - should price spike a lot, it usually spikes first in Jita and other hubs follow with a short delay. In such cases the freighters flow from lesser hubs to Jita, exploiting the market lag and balancing out the price across major hubs. Study the market when doing this, or you may burn yourself if the spike turned out to be a short-lived market manipulation attempt!

- Exploiting changing raw material prices; at times the market has goods that would cost considerably more to manufacture than they sell for. The trade is naturally to buy these up and relist them at a price that reflects their "true" manufacturing cost. This involves lots of spreadsheet warrioring and may involve reprocessing the item back to minerals and selling them instead (which requires good reprocessing skills and standings with a station where you do the reprocessing).

Any trading that involves selling things at non-hub stations tends to run into the problem that the volumes are non-existing.

Major hubs include Jita, Amarr, Rens, Dodixie and Hek. There are also some lesser trade hubs - almost every region has one station that can be considered as a minor hub. Smaller the hub and further away from Jita it is, more you can potentially add "lard" on top of the Jita market price - just watch for the volumes (or lack of) and consider the effort needed when hauling.

Also note that some goods are simply not traded elsewhere than Jita. A good example would be moon goo - while complex reaction materials do get shipped to other hubs for sale to local small time builders, moon minerals themselves almost never trade outside Jita. Research what you are trading and figure out who is buying it (and in what volume) before trading.

If you go with a hauling trader route, also always pay attention to the value of any cargo you haul. A Tech 1 hauler carrying 500 million ISK worth of goods is an "accident" waiting to happen. Players can and do gank ships in high sec when they consider the potential loot drop to be more than they lose when their ship gets popped by CONCORD. CONCORD does not prevent shooting in high sec - it only provides consequences for doing so. Once your hauler loads start to get pricy, consider not putting all your eggs in one basket. Always trade with the fact in mind that the ship you are flying may die and you may lose all cargo. If that instantly would bankrupt you, you are potentially doing it wrong.

Also a word of warning; stay away from buy orders that list a "minimum number of items" that you must sell at once. Especially ones that seem too good to be true. Google "EVE Margin Trading Scam" for more. If you do not heed this warning and get greedy, you will lose ISK. Lots of ISK.
Grakulus Silmaril
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2012-01-14 06:43:43 UTC
Jarnis McPieksu wrote:
Y.[/i] Players can and do gank ships in high sec when they consider the potential loot drop to be more than they lose when their ship gets popped by CONCORD. .

A question on this aspect - is this what is known as suicide ganking? and if CONCORD comes in and destroys the aggressor, how can he be there to salvage the loot? Will the loot remain there protected longer than the CONCORD aggression timer?
KrakizBad
Section 8.
#5 - 2012-01-14 07:08:29 UTC
Grakulus Silmaril wrote:
Jarnis McPieksu wrote:
Y.[/i] Players can and do gank ships in high sec when they consider the potential loot drop to be more than they lose when their ship gets popped by CONCORD. .

A question on this aspect - is this what is known as suicide ganking? and if CONCORD comes in and destroys the aggressor, how can he be there to salvage the loot? Will the loot remain there protected longer than the CONCORD aggression timer?


He will have an alt or friend to pick it up.
Surfin's PlunderBunny
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2012-01-14 07:13:44 UTC
KrakizBad wrote:
Grakulus Silmaril wrote:
Jarnis McPieksu wrote:
Y.[/i] Players can and do gank ships in high sec when they consider the potential loot drop to be more than they lose when their ship gets popped by CONCORD. .

A question on this aspect - is this what is known as suicide ganking? and if CONCORD comes in and destroys the aggressor, how can he be there to salvage the loot? Will the loot remain there protected longer than the CONCORD aggression timer?


He will have an alt or friend to pick it up.


Or he's one of those people that just want to watch the world burn...

<,<

"Little ginger moron" ~David Hasselhoff 

Want to see what Surf is training or how little isk Surf has?  http://eveboard.com/pilot/Surfin%27s_PlunderBunny
Jarnis McPieksu
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2012-01-14 07:43:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Jarnis McPieksu
Grakulus Silmaril wrote:
Jarnis McPieksu wrote:
Y.[/i] Players can and do gank ships in high sec when they consider the potential loot drop to be more than they lose when their ship gets popped by CONCORD. .

A question on this aspect - is this what is known as suicide ganking? and if CONCORD comes in and destroys the aggressor, how can he be there to salvage the loot? Will the loot remain there protected longer than the CONCORD aggression timer?


Confirming that this is suicide ganking.

Some suicide ganks are just motivated by "lulz" and the pilot doesn't care what he loses. Might not even loot your wreck. All he wants is carebear tears on local chat and the killmail. These are fairly rare, but do happen.

Some suicide ganks are profit-motivated. In these cases someone has scanned the target ship, noted that the loot is valuable enough that a "business transaction" is most likely going to be profitable.

Said business transaction generally goes like this (ships used depend on the target, even Freighters can get ganked if the loot is worth enough, even if it takes a small fleet of high alpha battlecruisers or battleships to do the deed before CONCORD retaliates)

- A ship with cargo scanner sets up in a high traffic area. Jita undock or Jita system gates are popular. They make note when they find a haul that is very valuable compared to the probable tank of the ship carrying it. They also note which way the target ship warps to and if the direction is correct for these "entrepreneurs", others that are standing by are notified of the target. Targets that appear to be autopiloting are potentially more interesting as they are much easier to catch.

- High alpha tech 1 ship(s) with throwaway modules are waiting at a gate for the target to jump through. Could be destroyers but often battlecruisers or battleships.

- Target jumps through the gate and begins to align on the other side for next warp. Tackle, pew pew, boom. CONCORD goes "whoop whoop, space police" and wtfpwns the offender(s), causing additional boom(s). Key aspect is that this is over in a flash, any shield boosters or armor reppers are irrelevant; the only thing that matters is the EHP (effective hit points) of your ship - or "how much pew does it take for it to pop instantly".

Another pilot in a large capacity hauler comes and loots the spoils (including any leftover modules from the ships lost to CONCORD), then retreats to a station. Looted goods get sold at the local hub. As long as the looted cargo that survived the "transaction" is worth more than it cost for these guys to fit the ships that CONCORD blew up, they go "PROFIT!".

Only permanent damage to the attackers is their loss of security status which can be counteracted by doing missions or belt ratting.

Now since there is way more cargo traffic than suicide gankers, getting even scanned for potential is not common and getting hit is even less common but if you repeatedly fly a ship that is carrying "too much", you will become another statistic in this bloody business.

Here are some extreme examples;

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12050127
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12065271
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12055751 (carrying PLEXes anywhere is not advisable under any circumstances)

Note that this even applies to combat ships in extreme cases. Like this one;

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=8975336

Yes, that is an estimated value of 74 BILLION isk lost (21 billion of that was lootable)

There is no tank you could fit that would protect that kind of bling from suicide gankers...
Ursula LeGuinn
Perkone
Caldari State
#8 - 2012-01-14 08:35:32 UTC
Jarnis McPieksu wrote:
Note that this even applies to combat ships in extreme cases. Like this one;

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=8975336


All that Nightmare was missing was a drop kit, hydraulics and a set of spinner rims.

"The EVE forums are intended to provide a warm, friendly atmosphere for the EVE community." — EVElopedia
malaire
#9 - 2012-01-14 10:21:45 UTC
Julian D'Sol wrote:
My only question is, what kind of saturation do you veterans reckon has been reached in the popular areas of space? I have spent some time scouring my immediate regions for places to trade with wider margins where my low skills are not much of a hindrance, but the volume is so low I end up waiting days to see any kind of turnover. Perhaps I haven't been creative enough or failed to take something into account, but looking at a large hub like Jita or Dodixie I don't see a lot of places where someone with weak tax skills and little reputation with the local corporation can make much of an entrance.

I would suggest Oursulaert as starting point for aspiring Gallente trader. That is were I started. It is smaller trading hub and volumes are small, but you should still find items which gives upto 100% profit (or even more) without too long wait.

Look for items where lowest sell order is much higher than highest buy order in Market Detail window. Then switch to History tab and check that
- item is selling daily ("Quantity" column is 10-100 or even more)
- "Low" column price is near highest buy order price daily (which means that buy orders are getting filled)
- "High" column price is near lowest sell order price daily (which means that sell orders are getting filled)

Now that you have found an item, make buy order with slightly higher price than highest buy order. When someone sells item to you make sell order from it with price which is slightly lower than lowest sell order and wait for someone to buy it. Occasionally check that your order is still best, and if not right click your order in wallet > my orders, and change its price.

With 50%-100% profits per item your skills aren't so important. Granted you wont be selling that many items in smaller trade hub, but potential losses are also smaller incase something goes wrong (e.g. you cant sell your items because of too high competition.)

Also as a small bonus, there are level 1-2 agents in Oursulaert so you can do missions while waiting for items to sell, if you like doing them.

New to EVE? Don't forget to read: The Manual * The Wiki * The Career Options * and everything else
Toshiro GreyHawk
#10 - 2012-01-14 15:04:24 UTC


Just wanting to point out that there are real disadvantages to trading in hubs.

If you are selling items - you won't get as much as you could at a more distant station. People will pay not to have to travel to the trade hub for what they want. Mostly - they don't have Price Check Alts in the trade hub unless they are traders - which means that they don't know what the price at the hub is.

What the trade hubs have going for them - from the sellers perspective - is, as mentioned Volume. If you have a LOT of goods to sell - then you can make more money in a shorter amount of time (potentially) by selling at a hub - you just won't get as much per item.

So - the question is - what is the volume of your acquisitions? if you are pulling in tons and tons of stuff - for whatever reason - then you need to sell tons and tons of stuff. If you are NOT pulling in tons and tons of stuff - then you don't need that kind of volume and may well be better off at a more distant station where you get a better price for what you are selling.

Another factor - besides distance from the trade hub - that can increase the price you get for your goods - is proximity to where the goods are being consumed. Some goods, such as ammunition, are used at higher rates in some areas than in others.

If you go to the map - you can sort by many things. One is Pilots in Space - another is ships destroyed. If there are routinely a lot of ships being destroyed in a certain area - then selling the things that are being destroyed there can be profitable - but - you have to watch out that you don't get destroyed too.

The chief disadvantage to trading in hubs is - competition. Competition is not only what makes the prices lower - but - can prevent you from getting any sales. Low Bid gets the sale. if someone puts up a bid that is .01 ISK lower than yours - he will get the sale and you will not. .01 ISK wars are more common in hubs - where there are people who monitor those prices such that immediately after you change your price to under cut his - he changes his to under cut yours. If you don't want to spend the day sitting in the trade hub ISKing down your prices - and paying some fees each time you do - then the level of competition there and the experience of your competitors may make the entire experience futile. Remember - if you lower your price to much - he'll just buy you out and add your goods to those he is already selling at a higher price.

Now - if someone is doing that - buying you out - then you can feed them until the choke on it and make some really good money in the bargain - IF - you have an unending supply of goods you can continually under bid him with while still maintaining a profit.


Everything here is a question of what is going on ... what your goals are and what you have to work with. You have to pay attention to what's happening and understand it. This takes time and experience. Usually, people start off small with some goods that they understand. You know where your source of supply is - what you're paying for it - and what you need to get out of them to make what your doing worth while.

As with anything - anytime - anywhere - what is a good idea for one person - may be a really bad idea for someone else. So - you need to know yourself and your goals - then change them if you like - but understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. Understanding when to stop doing something is as important as understanding when to start doing it.


One thing you can do, if you are in a bidding war with some one - is to buy one of their items - so you get their name. Then, you can add them to your list of contacts with a watch on their character to see when they log in and log out. Get a feel for when this guy is on. Most people play about the same time on week days and about the same time on weekends. Once this guy logs off - then go in and under bid him - that way - you'll get all the sales that come until the next time he logs on. Of course - you should expect that he will do this to you.

Anywhere there are a goodly number of Pilots in Space - shown on your map as orange blobs - is a potential market.



So - evaluate who you are in the scheme of things - as opposed to who your competitors are. What is their experience (do a show info on their character to see how long they've been playing)? Watch what they do with their sales - do they know what they are doing? Do they know more than you? Do you really want to compete with them for this market - or would you be better off going somewhere else?

How much do you like doing this?

For myself - I make almost all my money trading. I prefer mining - but - I don't get to play as much as I used to so passive income - where I can just set up sell orders and let the money come - is more important to me than it was when I was more active in the game. I actually don't really like trading. If I did - I'd make a lot more money at it - but I don't so ... *shrug* ...


Only you can judge what is best for you. Listen to what others say - but understand that what they are saying may be oriented to a certain play style - most of what people say is. Then - judge how much of what you've read or heard that you want to apply to your own play. If you're unsure - try things out on a small scale and see how it goes.

Be aware - that just as with ship fittings - things often work well because they are working in combination with certain other things. For some things - you can pick and choose - for others ... if you leave out an important element the things that are dependent on that factor can fail and you with them.

Don't leap into anything with everything you've got ... that's just asking for trouble. Always keep a reserve. Always judge anything you're going to do by how much it's going to cost you if things go south - and then decide if it's worth the risk.


.
Julian D'Sol
#11 - 2012-01-14 18:20:19 UTC
Cheers.

I'm working a smaller hub now and managed to find an item or two with enough volume that I'm not bored stiff. I think the key at this point is short-term goals, right now mine is to dominate this little mission hub. Hopefully by the time my accounting skills finish I will be ready to tackle Dodixie. Then perhaps, months onward, with much more isk, I can make my residence in Jita where the high rollers move the universe.