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Hauling - doesn't seem to add up?
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Shou Kaukonen
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-01-08 03:37:04 UTC
I've been learning how to make isk using the market, and have had some success as a small-time station trader. However, the more I research hauling as a way to supplement this, the more skeptical I become.

Basically, the ratio of investment to return just seems mind-bogglingly bad. Whether I'm looking at courier contracts or independent trade runs, the profit margin always seems small enough to demand exorbitant levels of isk in order to make anything on the run. Everything I've seen that had a raw profit that seemed worth trying for requires an investment of hundreds of millions of isk - and that's to reap a profit of, say 10-25 mil. This doesn't hold a candle to what an experienced station trader seems to be capable of, for example.

This leaves me confused. If you have that kind of isk, why are you investing it in an activity that seems to yield a lower profit for the effort than missions, station trading, PI, exploration, manufacturing...well, pretty much literally anything I've tried? The isk/hr and investment/return on every hauling opportunity I've seen so far seems inferior to anything else that a player with that much cash could invest in.
Is there anyone out there who actually does count hauling as a major isk maker who can point out any blatantly obvious mistakes in my thinking, here? Or is hauling just not that profitable, unless you can reliably get that one run in a thousand that seems to be halfway worth it?

Any light my fellow players can shed on this topic, even if it's 'lol, you fail for failing @ hauling' would be appreciated.
Syrk
Caldari Militia Supply Corps
#2 - 2012-01-08 03:41:24 UTC
lol, you fail for failing @ hauling
Syrk
Caldari Militia Supply Corps
#3 - 2012-01-08 03:42:31 UTC
For reals, I don't know why this is so, but this is why I did not do hauling for long in this game, and turned to station trading (for a while) instead.
Abdiel Kavash
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#4 - 2012-01-08 04:22:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Abdiel Kavash
Yes, there are more profitable trade routes. Even in highsec, I woudn't bother with anything less than 10% return per trip. Even 20-30% are not a rare occurence, with the occasional items that you can sell for twice the ISK you bought it for.

Look for secondary trade hubs bordering lowsec or nullsec entrances. Pretty much every border region has one or two. Just look at the market window for any popular item and see which stations are active. Several examples would be Onnamon, Orvolle, Stacmon, or in the south Yuzier. Then figure out the closest major trade hub (Jita, Amarr...) and look for profitable items.

Think about what people use a lot of. A module that is used on all kinds of ships (Invulnerability Field II) will sell better than one which only works on one race or ship class (720mm Autocannon II). Look at the trade volumes over the past few weeks in your target region. You can't see the volume in a particular station, but a week or two of experience will give you a good idea of what part of the regional trade is going on in there. Look for items that give you a good profit, but also sell fast enough. It's better to make 10% return every day than to get a 50% return but need to wait a week for the item to sell.

I usually don't bother with buy orders in the major trade hub, the difference is negligible most of the time. Just buy whatever you want from sell orders, and put your own sell orders up in your destination station.
Shou Kaukonen
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#5 - 2012-01-08 05:38:25 UTC
Thanks for the in-depth reply! That did make me realize a couple blatant errors in my thinking...up to now, I'd been imagining hauling in terms of 'from major hub A to major hub B'. Now I see that a successful hauling trader has to broaden their scope a bit more than that.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#6 - 2012-01-08 08:35:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Vaerah Vahrokha
Shou Kaukonen wrote:
Thanks for the in-depth reply! That did make me realize a couple blatant errors in my thinking...up to now, I'd been imagining hauling in terms of 'from major hub A to major hub B'. Now I see that a successful hauling trader has to broaden their scope a bit more than that.


There's no "hauling trader".

There's arbitrage (buying cheap at station A and selling high at station B) and hauling.

The latter is a time and money cost to factor in the arbitrage gross income.

Also, the more the game gets old, the more money will be required to get profits. That's both due to ISK slowly losing value (new and more money faucets are introduced without the sinks being able to cope) and because of the leverage effect that big amounts do.

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Gatan Hahran
Brukterer
#7 - 2012-01-08 11:42:02 UTC
Its almost guaranteed reward in a somewhat specific timeframe. When trading, the money you make per trade can change depending on market developments and the time it needs to finish the buy-sell cycle is not fixed, if you dont dump to buy orders after a certain timeframe.
Dane El
Negative Density
#8 - 2012-01-08 13:02:05 UTC
I once looked at doing more hauling as part of my trade operation but when I look at the collateral required versus the reward, I quickly decided I'd rather spend more time trading or doing other stuff and pay someone else to do the bulk of my hauling. Even hauling your own goods isn't worth the risk of a gank when the collateral system for contracts gives you a nice vehicle to transfer that risk to whoever picks up the contract. Why they risk losing multiple billions in cargo plus their freighter for a platry tens of millions rewards is beyond me. I pay 1% of collateral for Jita -> major trade hub and that's very generous. I used to do .5% with no problem but that just seemed to mean, even for Eve.
Sizeof Void
Ninja Suicide Squadron
#9 - 2012-01-09 01:23:29 UTC
Courier contracts in high sec are an AFK activity, much like mining. Most of the folks who engage in such activities just want to earn some ISK, with minimal effort, while chatting with their corps mates, or doing something else in RL.

The ratio of collateral to reward is not a big deal, since the entire collateral is returned upon completion of the contract.

As for being ganked, despite the hype, the risk in high sec is minimal. Most of the experienced haulers set limits on the value of goods that they will transport in a single trip, to prevent them from being prime targets for ganking. High sec gankers frequent specific routes, which can be avoided, and are looking for maximum ROI for the guaranteed loss of their ganking ship(s), ie. they are looking for the well-stuffed pinata flown by the clueless noob.

Quite frankly, you have a higher chance of being ganked when flying around in a pimped out mission boat, or mining rocks/ice in a Hulk or Mack (as of Crucible, exhumers now drop T2 salvage - making them somewhat profitable to gank).

Note that I'm not defending hauling as an ISK making activity. I'm merely trying to explain why people are actually doing it.