Market Discussions

greetings all!

i have recently started getting into trading and i have a couple basic questions.

1) from my current understanding, markets are completely regional. does this mean that if i place a buy order at the edge of one region with a range of 40 jumps, that no one in the adjacent region will see it? or do buy orders ignore regional boundaries?

2) i've been placing buy orders with a range of 10 jumps, so all of my product is in this range. for things like modules, i figure i can just sell at range, as i don't really need large stacks to move the items. this probably isn't the case with ammo though, as players buy that in large chunks. i would prefer not to have to truck around and gather it all up, so i figured i could create contracts for it. does anyone here have any experience with low volume, low reward courier contracts? do they get accepted frequently? or is it really only useful if you are moving a large volume of goods?

thanks!
Ras

drats... well i need to provide a suitable enough reward to make the contract lucrative, while not cutting in to profits. it doesn't sound feasible for me at the moment with what i am moving

Speaking as someone who occasionally dabbles in contracted hauling, there's a few things I look for in a contract. First, and foremost, no lo sec travel. Secondly, the reward has to be worth the time and effort. I generally shoot for between 200 and 300k/jump for an entire trip. If that means 10 30k/jump contracts or 1 300k/jump contract, I don't really care. If there are others, I'll do the job for cheaper because it doesn't cost me much extra time to add yours to my trip. Also, make sure you require appropriate collateral, at LEAST the market value of the goods you're shipping, if not a little more. There's nothing stopping the hauler from just disappearing with the goods. I've never stolen a courier order, yet, but if someone puts up something worth 1 billion for shipment for 1 million in collateral, I'm not sure I'd be able to resist the urge to do so. I hope that doesn't make me a bad person, lol.

You'll want to look into training Accounting. Beyond that, raising your standings with major factions (Minmatar if you trade in Rens, Caldari if you trade in Jita) will also reduce your broker fees.