Science & Industry

Sometimes I feel there is an unlimited sink of BPOs somewhere ... I made xx billions selling even unresearched BPOs at markup and the demand does not seem to decrease.

I feel that "understanding the market and lots of research" means a **** ton of invested time and effort. Some of us have lives, so I feel it's not 100% accurate/fair to say "too lazy, bad luck". You also need to understand more than one market/item at a time to make any real isk. You also need a nice bankroll to stockpile for when those particular items drop below a nice profit window/price. You also need to know people and source your materials wisely. All of that requires a lot of time and effort yes, and, again, some of us have lives outside of eve. I'm also pretty sure you didn't just acquire your knowledge over night or even a couple of weeks for that matter. Probably spent a considerable amount of hours researching. So it might be true in some cases that people are lazy, but most of the time, people have better **** to do with their time than sit in eve to monitor markets.

Thank you !! lol when i say to lazy, i mean i have work, family, other **** to do, and i cant spend pay for months only to live as a below average eve citizen

They wind up in loss malls, and ALOD articles.

A disturbing number get taken out by my friends in CODE.

Personally I only ever move BPOs in agile ships and even send a scout ahead. I flew a few capital module ME10 BPOs to Jita recently and was extremely careful.

Idiots actually stick these prints in freighters.

James, you should know better. The problem is, those kind of questions are asked over and over again, and there are dozen of quality answers from different people to it in this forum or on reddit, that I don't feel I can add more without revealing trade secrets, which of course I will not do, because my market performance depends heavily on the information advantage.

lol I was feeling frisky and felt like typing :P

What you seem to be saying is that if you are a manufacturer, you need to also be a trader. While I agree there is often isk to be made in both roles, I find some value in figuring out exactly which "steps in the value chain" are most profitable, and even more importantly, which are most enjoyable.

A pure manufacturer would buy materials from market sell orders, and sell finished product to market buy orders. Please note that I am not suggesting pure manufacturing is the best idea for anyone, I'm only trying to separate the steps. If a manufacturer finds that materials can be obtained more cheaply by placing and managing buy orders, s/he has entered the realm of trading. Similarly, if s/he finds that more profit can be made on finished products by placing and managing sell orders, again that's trading.

Now on to the two points I want to make. First, if a manufacturing job is not profitable when buying from sell orders and selling to buy orders, and the manufacturer has to add trading to the mix in order to make a profit, then an important question arises. Is the manufacturing activity necessary or even helpful in making the profit? Maybe the manufacturing step can be skipped altogether, and those raw materials can be sold via sell orders, and the finished product can be obtained via buy orders. The manufacturer has then become a pure trader, which may be more profitable for the amount of effort spent.

The second point is enjoyment. Some players find a great deal of satisfaction in building things, and buying and selling are only a means to allow that satisfying activity to occur. Trading can be boring, and a lot of traders quickly burn out. I, for one, cannot station trade full time because I just do not enjoy it. So if manufacturing does not seem to be profitable, it may be because players find doing it worthwhile, even for little or no profit. On the other hand, lots of other players get their enjoyment from piling up profits, and are willing to focus on the activity that generates the most isk. It's all a matter of how you choose to spend your time.

You swashbuckler, you.

At the time, 800M was probably 25% of my liquid assets....disproportionate purchase but it paid out.

Since that first one, I now have many in low sec.

Swashbuckler Pretender,

Ken

ALOD = Awful Loss Of the Day

While I agree with your accounting method, the benefit of combining both is that you learn a lot about where price changes are coming from.

Let's say you are a pure trader, and one module you deal in is Capital Shield Extender II. You've been buying these at 117m and selling at 130m, and you are happy.

Now assume also that Sustained Shield Emitters fall in price from 55000 per unit, down to 37000 per unit, perhaps due to a game mechanic change that increases supply for Ferrogel.

Surprise! Your buy orders for CSE2 get dumped on hard. Really hard. Prices fall, and you are stuck with 90 modules that you are selling at a loss at 110m.

If you were also producing CSE2s on the side, you'd have seen this drop coming, and you could have taken down your buy orders.