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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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Looking to learn to trade.
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chowdan Orlenard
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2011-11-08 16:52:04 UTC
Hey all,

I'm new to Eve. Im addicted. I want to just continusly play and quit my job. But that would not be economical as after some time iw ould no longer be able to afford eve. BUt onto the subject.

I'm looking to get into the trading scene. I'm new and still on my trail account but when my 2 weeks are up i will upgrade to the full account. I am look for someone to either help me learn the system and learn how to find routes and such or looking for good guides that really break down everything for you. I know the market changes all the time so this would be hard to do, but i think going under someones wing(who ever i shaddow gets to keep 80% of the profits that i make). That way you are making money as well.

I would really love to be apart of a team of traders and laern the system!
Velicitia
XS Tech
#2 - 2011-11-08 17:25:05 UTC
There are no "official" (or hell, published) guides, since once someone says "sell 200mm autocannons" everyone and their alt will do it.

Buy low, sell high.

tutorial completed. I expect 80% of your profits from now on

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Destination SkillQueue
Doomheim
#3 - 2011-11-08 18:10:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Destination SkillQueue
Velicitia wrote:
There are no "official" (or hell, published) guides, since once someone says "sell 200mm autocannons" everyone and their alt will do it.

Buy low, sell high.

tutorial completed. I expect 80% of your profits from now on


This really. The first rule of trading is that you don't talk about the great deals you find. The moment someone opens his fat mouth, is the moment profit decreases on the item. This leads to the one good advice there is, do your research and keep it to yourself. The more people know about it, the less profitable it becomes. Also understand, that it's just a matter of time before the word spreads, so utilize the chances you find fast, because they won't last.

That said there are some general guidelines, that are good to know.


  • Don't fly what you can't afford to lose! It applies to trades too. Don't haul expensive cargo in a beercan. Train cloaking and ships that can use covert ops cloak, if you want to haul expensive items around. If you put hundreds of millions or billions worth of stuff in a normal hauler or any ship with a weak tank, understand that it is a huge gamble on your part. Don't put all your eggs in one basket no matter what.

  • Understand your market and know your trade items. Checking the market history on the item should always be your first step. The one thing that you need to know is the volume of trades. High volume items might not be as profitable as low volume ones, but they exchange hands fast and that will be important. Know what the local hubs are and what people in the area want. If you sell a lot to mission runners, you need to know what mission runners need and what they dump on the market. This allows you to bring in stuff people need, while leaving buy orders to get cheap stuff to sell on other markets. Basicly try to gain as much information as possible from your area of operation and keep your eye out for new info on what is happening. That means knowing what ships/modules different professions need on a constant basis and what items aren't used at all. Reading dev blogs on future developments is a must.

  • It's usually better to make loads of trades that earn you little profit per trade, than it is to try to milk every last .01 ISK out of your trades. The larger profits will seem attractive, but you're usually better off making many trades with smaller profit margin. As a trader you just move an item from one hand to another and get your cut. As long as you make some profit in the trade, you'll get richer with every trade.

  • As a hauler the size(volume) of the items is very important. You want to maximize the profits you get from hauling, so many small items with low profit/item are often preferable to large items with larger profit/item. Also try to avoid traveling with your cargohold empty. Always try to find deals or contracts in your starting area, that sell or are delivered in your destination area. This way you make profits both way.

  • If it is too good to be true, it usually is. There are a lot of scams around there, so if some trade doesn't seem to make sense to you either ask what the deal is or skip it. Scams rely on your greed to blind you from the trap.

  • In the beginning this isn't an issue, but try to widen your portfolio so to speak. After the start it gets harder to invest all your money and money that isn't invested isn't earning you anything. This means you should always have most of your funds tied in trade orders. To this end training the margin trading skill and skills that give you more market orders are of very high priority.



That's all that came to mind right now, but I'm sure there are a load of other generic advice about trading people have.
chowdan Orlenard
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2011-11-08 20:10:18 UTC
Destination SkillQueue wrote:
Velicitia wrote:
There are no "official" (or hell, published) guides, since once someone says "sell 200mm autocannons" everyone and their alt will do it.

Buy low, sell high.

tutorial completed. I expect 80% of your profits from now on


This really. The first rule of trading is that you don't talk about the great deals you find. The moment someone opens his fat mouth, is the moment profit decreases on the item. This leads to the one good advice there is, do your research and keep it to yourself. The more people know about it, the less profitable it becomes. Also understand, that it's just a matter of time before the word spreads, so utilize the chances you find fast, because they won't last.

That said there are some general guidelines, that are good to know.


  • Don't fly what you can't afford to lose! It applies to trades too. Don't haul expensive cargo in a beercan. Train cloaking and ships that can use covert ops cloak, if you want to haul expensive items around. If you put hundreds of millions or billions worth of stuff in a normal hauler or any ship with a weak tank, understand that it is a huge gamble on your part. Don't put all your eggs in one basket no matter what.

  • Understand your market and know your trade items. Checking the market history on the item should always be your first step. The one thing that you need to know is the volume of trades. High volume items might not be as profitable as low volume ones, but they exchange hands fast and that will be important. Know what the local hubs are and what people in the area want. If you sell a lot to mission runners, you need to know what mission runners need and what they dump on the market. This allows you to bring in stuff people need, while leaving buy orders to get cheap stuff to sell on other markets. Basicly try to gain as much information as possible from your area of operation and keep your eye out for new info on what is happening. That means knowing what ships/modules different professions need on a constant basis and what items aren't used at all. Reading dev blogs on future developments is a must.

  • It's usually better to make loads of trades that earn you little profit per trade, than it is to try to milk every last .01 ISK out of your trades. The larger profits will seem attractive, but you're usually better off making many trades with smaller profit margin. As a trader you just move an item from one hand to another and get your cut. As long as you make some profit in the trade, you'll get richer with every trade.

  • As a hauler the size(volume) of the items is very important. You want to maximize the profits you get from hauling, so many small items with low profit/item are often preferable to large items with larger profit/item. Also try to avoid traveling with your cargohold empty. Always try to find deals or contracts in your starting area, that sell or are delivered in your destination area. This way you make profits both way.

  • If it is too good to be true, it usually is. There are a lot of scams around there, so if some trade doesn't seem to make sense to you either ask what the deal is or skip it. Scams rely on your greed to blind you from the trap.

  • In the beginning this isn't an issue, but try to widen your portfolio so to speak. After the start it gets harder to invest all your money and money that isn't invested isn't earning you anything. This means you should always have most of your funds tied in trade orders. To this end training the margin trading skill and skills that give you more market orders are of very high priority.



That's all that came to mind right now, but I'm sure there are a load of other generic advice about trading people have.



Hey thanks for the reply. That’s quite helpful.

As for doing research on items to buy. Do you pretty much just go to a base, open up the market and start looking at each item from top to bottom and take notes on the profit per item and then pick and choose from that?? Is there a station I should go to as a newbie to help start my adventure? I know it changes all the time so its hard to say buy this now sell that there.

And when you trade, are you buying, flying it to another station, and selling there? Like should I go to Jita and transport around that area? Is there a site I can go to the check prices of each market for each station? Or maybe a map or something?
Thank you for all the help everyone!!!
Velicitia
XS Tech
#5 - 2011-11-08 20:39:01 UTC
research on items can be that thorough ... or as simple as "hey, I know a lot of missioners work out of $SYSTEM ... I'm gonna get $AMMO there and profit"

Some trading is done in the buy at A, fly to B, sell. Other trading is Buy low, re-list in the same station.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
malaire
#6 - 2011-11-09 08:24:17 UTC  |  Edited by: malaire
chowdan Orlenard wrote:
As for doing research on items to buy. Do you pretty much just go to a base, open up the market and start looking at each item from top to bottom and take notes on the profit per item and then pick and choose from that?? Is there a station I should go to as a newbie to help start my adventure? I know it changes all the time so its hard to say buy this now sell that there.

And when you trade, are you buying, flying it to another station, and selling there? Like should I go to Jita and transport around that area? Is there a site I can go to the check prices of each market for each station? Or maybe a map or something?
Thank you for all the help everyone!!!

In Gallente area I would suggest Oursulaert as initial trading system. It is minor trade hub and don't have as much competition as Dodixie which is main Gallente trading hub. Oursulaert also has many level 1-2 agents nearby so you can also do missions while trading if you want.

When I started trading in Oursulaert, I looked for modules where there was big difference between best buy order and best sell order AND which were regularly sold at those prices. i.e. market price history shows "low" price near best buy order for several days and "high" price near best sell order.

Then I made buy orders for those items in Oursulaert with small range (often only "Station") and when I got some items I made sell orders in Oursulaert.

After I had learned trading a bit, I started to make region-wide buy orders just to check how that works. To my surprise as starting trader, it worked quite nicely. Most items were sold to me near few central places and it was easy to go through whole region once per week to collect my items. (Essence isn't that big after all.) Sometimes I did need to go to lowsec to get items there so there is some risk in region-wide buy orders.

New to EVE? Don't forget to read: The Manual * The Wiki * The Career Options * and everything else
Keno Skir
#7 - 2011-11-10 04:36:09 UTC
Contact me in-game i'll be happy to sort you a few tips.

Fly safe o7

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