Market Discussions

Hello,
So today I had an interesting experience that I have yet to understand. A trip that should have, if I understand things correctly, resulted in a tremendous profit resulted instead in a staggering loss. If someone would be so kind as to explain what I have misunderstood about the eve market system I would greatly appreciate it. Please be respectful. I will now tell in detail exactly what I did

Up until now I have operated on fairly low ISK endeavors, and am somewhat new to hauling. A short while back I purchased and sold some plex, and with my new found wealth I decided I would try hauling smallish goods for profit. I found myself after making some rather risky hauls shipping holoreels out into lowsec, very far from Jita +20 jumps or so. Now I have about <30km3 in hold space in my mammoth with it all fitted out and filled with containers. So I decided since I was in no hurry to make my way back to Jita slowly picking up goods to sell of when I get there

So what I did was pulled up eve central and set the update to hourly and in each system I would pick up as many small goods as possible that had higher buyers in jita than they were being sold for. I avoided goods that had to be purchased in bulk for profit, ores and such. I also avoided items that the items were low in buy number in Jita, basically if the order was 10 or less i said forget it by the time i get there it will be gone. So here I am buying 90+ 10mn microwarps and large numbers of turrets and other smallish size highish price goods. Got my first contraband bust, that was fun. So plowing through 20+ systems stopping at nearly 1 in 3 stations takes some time. But low and behold I arrive unscathed at my destination filled to the brim. Dock up on moon 4 and start to sell off my goods

Only things do no go as planned. I am looking at the market in eve and start to notice that my goods are not selling at the prices of the highest bidder in the buy orders. In fact many go to bidders not even on the first page, even though all of those bidders are in the same station as me. So I stop, and start to investigate. What exactly is going on?

The first thing I check is if I am selling too many items for the bid. I am below the number in the quantity column. But maybe it takes some time to update. I look at the buyers bid and split my goods into half of the number listed, and sell that. Still the price is way too low. I am filling some other bid. Then I try selling a single item. Still it does not fill the right bid. Maybe there is a minimum quantity. Then I try selling the maximum number for that bid. Still I am getting a much lower bid. Now I am not talking about the tax or broker fee, I mean my ask price. So my next idea is that maybe I am selling to the lowest bidder instead of highest. And I look at who is green on the board in my station, low and behold that is not it either. The top say ten buyers in my station are not showing up, but it is not going to the lowest either. Someone in the middle is getting it. I try adjusting the asking price by hand so that my bid fits exactly one of the bids (not even the highest) on the list that should be in my station. I am told that the broker could not find a match..

As a result I end up selling my goods at a staggering loss to get rid of them before all of the orders disappear. So I lose well over 100 million ISK on the whole affair. To some of you this might not seem like a lot. But to me this is a great deal, and for all my investigation I am still no closer to understanding what exactly went wrong, and as such can proceed no further on making back my losses.

Could please explain how this appears to operate on different mechanics than the trade goods hauling I have been doing thus far, why for example it is that even though there are a dozen orders buying > or = 12k EMP L for < 160 ISK each in the hub in Jita, my 12k of EMP L sells for < 2 ISK?

Were you at the correct station?

Typically it's bad to sell to buy orders. I don't use Eve Central, but most sites tend to show averages, not instantaneous.

For most semi-high volume items in Jita, I just place a sell order for 0.5% above the average and it goes within the day.

I confirmed my station several times, I also confirmed my offline numbers were correct as they were also the numbers I was looking at it game, live as I tried to sell my orders.

Did you try setting one of your items as a "Sell" order with a duration of a week or so? The broker will match buyers and sellers when the prices work out. At the very least, maybe somebody else would buy your items.

Now, before you get another loss, notice how you are ferrying stuff in a toilet paper ship that will die to a bad eyesight.

Therefore don't carry too much valuable stuff in that ship. The cost to kill it is about 4M, if you carry more than say 10M you are in risk, if you carry more then 30M you are very prone to be suicide ganked.