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Where are the margins?
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Hal Morsh
Doomheim
#1 - 2017-05-22 17:33:13 UTC
So I have materials and blueprints but I can't figure out how to properly build anything.

I set out figuring that if I buy the materials i'll never be able to sell low enough for profit. Again once I set to build with what I gathered myself I figure i'll have to be willing to sell for much lower than my build price because it'll be undercut, and buy orders on materials wont ever work because someone will always set theirs .01 isk better than mine if there's even any profit to be had with the material buy prices.

So next I go to build some T1 items but then realize there are buy orders for literally 1,000 isk that go by the hundreds. So even if I did build and sell a quarter of the build cost there's those bought at 1,000 isk sitting in stockpile to still undercut me, and a buy order slightly above wouldn't work because I can still be undercut by the previous buy orders let alone they could dump unsellable items on me at their own profit.


So where the hell are the margins?

Oh, I perfectly understand, Hal Morsh — a mission like this requires courage, skill, and heroism… qualities you are clearly lacking. Have you forgotten you're one of the bloody immortals!?
Skorpynekomimi
#2 - 2017-05-22 17:51:17 UTC
EVEconomics For Dummies, huh? Okay.

- RESEARCH
A few days to a few weeks per blueprint will take 10% off the material costs. Often, my margins are slimmer than that.
- BASIC ECONOMICS
Buy minerals on buy orders, not sell orders.
- KNOW THY MARKET
Know what's shifting off the market where you are. Know where prices are higher and lower
- PATIENCE
Don't play the 0.01ISK game if there's plenty of volume. It will sell.
- PICK YOUR BATTLES
Know what you can make at a profit. Ships? Not likely. Ammo? Very likely.
- DIVERSIFY
Don't just make one thing. Make lots of things. Rigs, fuel blocks, whatever.
- CONSUMABLES
What do people use a lot? What do they LOSE a lot?
- REALLY DIVERSIFY
Hauling stuff to Jita? See what's lower where you are than it is there, and fill your cargo hold with it.
- TANK YOUR MOTHERFUCKING HAULER
Or you'll get blown up as an easy target.
- DON'T CARRY TOO MUCH VALUE IN SOMETHING THAT CAN'T TAKE A POUNDING
For example, skill injectors in a barely-tanked T1 industrial.
- DON'T GO INTO LOWSEC UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED TO LOSE YOUR SHIP, CARGO, AND IMPLANTS
No, really. You will get gatecamped.
- EVE-CENTRAL
https://eve-central.com/
- SPREADSHEETS
If you don't know how to use them, either learn or stop trying to industry. You will not prosper without one.

Economic PVP
Messenger Of Truth
Butlerian Crusade
#3 - 2017-05-22 18:09:05 UTC
Not every item is profitable all the time - the market tends to get flooded, and people want their money back now so undercut to get their money as quickly as possible.

At any one time though, there are a lot of profitable items that sell at a good rate.

You will need to do some investigation to find which items might be worth building.

Trade Hub Price Checker: stop.hammerti.me.uk/pricecheck

Visit "Haulers Channel" in game for all matters courier-related.

Structure name/system API: stop.hammerti.me.uk/api
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#4 - 2017-05-23 07:55:41 UTC
For a new industrialist, the best thing you can do is stay away from Jita. It's a good place to buy but a terrible place to sell if you want margin.

Most T1 items are only used as input for T2 manufacturing. Meta modules drop as loot and tend to be better and cheaper than T1. This will change once module tiercide is complete and Meta modules are player built.

Look for T1 items where there is no meta variant and, ideally products that are consumable or not reusable. Stuff like rigs, ammo and charges.

A couple of examples:
https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/?typeid=42830
https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/?typeid=31716

Research your blueprints. This will reduce your material cost by up to 10% You'll also want the Accounting and Broker Relations skills to reduce market fees.

Sell in one of the smaller markets - Dodixie, Rens, Hek, etc... volumes are lower but margins are higher and you don't need to babysit your orders. I adjust my prices twice a day.

Study the cycle for products you are interested in (price history tab in market tool). Eve is a commodity market and they are cyclical. To be profitable you need to sell in the top half of the cycle. Don't chase the price into the bottom half - once people get tired of selling below cost, the price will recover.
Skorpynekomimi
#5 - 2017-05-23 08:37:25 UTC
Do Little wrote:

Sell in one of the smaller markets - Dodixie, Rens, Hek, etc... volumes are lower but margins are higher and you don't need to babysit your orders. I adjust my prices twice a day..


Volume of sales is key, though. I used to use Dodixie, but came back from a break to find it absolutely dead. Jita has higher prices and massive volume of trade, so I'm now doing 15+ jump runs there.

Economic PVP
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#6 - 2017-05-23 18:20:13 UTC
The typical spread between buy and sell orders is at most 5%.

The key is realize that manufacturing is a "value added" service.

Many, many, many items sell in excess of 20% of their material cost.

I don't build anything that doesn't earn me at least 10%. The more expensive the item, the lower percentage I'm willing to accept.

Example: Survey Scanner II were selling at over 100% profit for a while. I purchased all the normally-priced ones I could find, and resold them. Soon, the price plummeted as others also noticed and started manufacturing more.
Hal Morsh
Doomheim
#7 - 2017-05-24 22:03:50 UTC
Tau Cabalander wrote:
The typical spread between buy and sell orders is at most 5%.

The key is realize that manufacturing is a "value added" service.

Many, many, many items sell in excess of 20% of their material cost.

I don't build anything that doesn't earn me at least 10%. The more expensive the item, the lower percentage I'm willing to accept.

Example: Survey Scanner II were selling at over 100% profit for a while. I purchased all the normally-priced ones I could find, and resold them. Soon, the price plummeted as others also noticed and started manufacturing more.



The one thing I grabbed quickly was in hek selling some catalysts, that dropped very fast but I made a few.

The advice is helpful, thanks.

Oh, I perfectly understand, Hal Morsh — a mission like this requires courage, skill, and heroism… qualities you are clearly lacking. Have you forgotten you're one of the bloody immortals!?
Sara Starbuck
Adamantine Creations
#8 - 2017-05-28 11:29:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Sara Starbuck
Also i would like to point out that even if some items have 10% margins and some have over 100% ones, its better to make the 10% one if your isk/hour ratio is better. I would also almost always stay away from T1 markets, rigs excluded since the "my minerals are free" crowd.
The harder its to make and move the item the less theres ppl making it and usually more profit you get.
People always tell new indys to make ammo, yes ammo gets used a lot but theres generally not much profit in making it.
Jita is the only place where i ran my sales and buys when i made stuff, i did move stuff from Jita to other hubs too but thats not really manufacturing thats more about trading.
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#9 - 2017-05-29 10:34:20 UTC
Hal Morsh wrote:
Tau Cabalander wrote:
The typical spread between buy and sell orders is at most 5%.

The key is realize that manufacturing is a "value added" service.

Many, many, many items sell in excess of 20% of their material cost.

I don't build anything that doesn't earn me at least 10%. The more expensive the item, the lower percentage I'm willing to accept.

Example: Survey Scanner II were selling at over 100% profit for a while. I purchased all the normally-priced ones I could find, and resold them. Soon, the price plummeted as others also noticed and started manufacturing more.



The one thing I grabbed quickly was in hek selling some catalysts, that dropped very fast but I made a few.

The advice is helpful, thanks.



Catalysts are a reasonable example of something that is in high demand and regularly getting destroyed (thanks to my friends in the New Order) and that have a fairly low barrier of entry. 10/20 Catalyst BPOs are readily available in the 75-100m range, or you can just research your own in ~2.5 months.

There's a hell of a lot of logistics involved in building them, however - you need significant amounts of minerals in your production location. IIRC the tritanium and pyerite are really bulky.

I often recommend tech 2 drones and tech 2 frigate modules as a starting point, because you don't need to haul ultra bulky stuff around and the margins are quite high.

You need to build 250m worth of Catalysts to make ~20m profit - you can make 100m building 250m worth of Warrior II.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com
Skorpynekomimi
#10 - 2017-05-29 10:38:04 UTC
Funny how you anti-mining groups expect to still get your gank ships from somewhere, really.

Economic PVP
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#11 - 2017-05-29 15:23:58 UTC
Skorpynekomimi wrote:
Funny how you anti-mining groups expect to still get your gank ships from somewhere, really.

eh not really, the mineral markets are nearly completely flooded.

Sabriz Adoudel wrote:
I often recommend tech 2 drones and tech 2 frigate modules as a starting point, because you don't need to haul ultra bulky stuff around and the margins are quite high.

You need to build 250m worth of Catalysts to make ~20m profit - you can make 100m building 250m worth of Warrior II.

absolutely! the frig mods are pretty quick to invent then build and not too bulky. you also don't have to invest too much isk to get started so if the markets take a bad swing you have a limited downside.

and I can't confirm nor deny those margins, however it seems the slight skill barrier to t2 manufacturing provides far more profit opportunities.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter