Market Discussions

This thread is terrible, way off topic.

Ok, lets roll it this way....

Say I have 3000 of a module sitting in my hangar.

The following are my options:

1) Dump to buy orders at my local trade hub

2) Dump to buy orders in Jita

3) Put up 1 order in my local trade hub

4) put up 1 order in Jita

5) put up stacks of 30 in my local trade hub, and play pat-a-cake with the guy who keeps undercutting me

6) Put up stacks of 30 in Jita, and play pat-a-cake with the undercutters. (Full screens of blue are fun!)


With 5 and 6, you also have the option of pulling the prices down as far as you want, then cancelling all your orders, leaving the guy following you now selling at or below the price he bought at. and you can either scoop up the cheap items now on the market, or let someone else get a bargain.

But, yes, you have no control over price in any way........


Usually I choose options 2 and 3 because they are the least hassle. and just require me making 1 jump in a shuttle after setting up the contract for moving the items.

to annoy you.

we spoke in a private backchannel, and i advised him to call you "the guy that shuts down the grid" on ghostbusters

I know this thread is way old but I thought I'd leave my 2 cents because I am guilty of doing this.... quite often...

and I do it because I know if I don't, someone else eventually will. They will bring it down within razor-thin margins between the buy/sell because that's what markets do. So, why not beat the herd and get the price it will eventually be but faster than everyone else :)

Because it depends on the level of competition. A market where people can get in and out with considerable ease and there are low setup costs should be highly competitive and thus razor thin margins.

A market where entry is not quite as easy will likely have wider margins for the short run (the short run is not precisely defined here as it can vary from market to market). So by rushing right down to the razor thin margins you are in effect leaving money sitting on the table.

There a couple of reasons to drop the prices that I can think of:

1. You had a windfall of sorts, you ganked a freighter and a boat load, literally, of something of some value, but you don't want to play the 0.01 ISK game (because if you did you'd be a station trader and not out ganking). So you set the price low to move the product fast, hopefully.

2. You realize that your ISK, which is tied up in this product, could be much better used somewhere else. This is the time value of money that several other posters were commenting on. So you want to liquidate quickly to go take advantage of this other opportunity. These other commenters were too stupid to realize that this approach is still completely in line with maximizing profits.

Personally, in both situations I'd go for the bulk buy/sell mailing list in game. That way I don't risk dropping the price low and still being stuck with a 0.01 problem (or dropping the price lower again). Basically find somebody who doesn't mind the 0.01 ISK thing.

That's just rubbish.

What do you need control over the price for?

In fact it's better if someone else is controlling the price, as that way you can set your margins before placing buy orders.

I prefer turnover to maximized profit.

I don't 0.01isk; when I do change orders, it's by substantial amounts. Perhaps not 20% like in the OP, though.

My goal isn't to get rid of possible profit for others or myself - though I tend to close margins on items I trade fairly quickly. My intention is merely to increase the velocity of buy/sell, get my profit and move on. Occasionally the prices and 'market pvp' don't work in my favor and I'm faced with selling at a loss. I bite the bullet and keep going until the items are sold; I don't sit on the items waiting for a margin to grow again.

When the profit margin on a product disappears like that, I put it aside and check back later (assuming I liked trading in it). If the margin (and more importantly, the volume) looks decent, I might trade in it again.

From what I hear, the people who like to 0.01isk on an item with a 50% profit margin for three weeks absolutely hate it when people like me come along and reduce that margin to 5% in the course of two days.

Don't worry guys. I'm out of your item as quickly as I come into it! Just sit back and let me profit.

Don't get all offended m8
I'm just talking about increasing velocity and selling/buying quickly in exchange of maximizing the potential profit of an individual item with 0.01 isk orders that barely move the price around.

My post wasn't even directed at you

Thanks for all the insight and banter folks. Basically I was trading in Hek when I dealt with this issue. I've since moved to regional trading and found a nice station to set up shop with little competition (1-2 sellers per item) that is slower but my mark ups are 20%+ and still sell just fine.

1. Liquidity

Cannot hold onto assets forever

2. See 1

If the best bid is large enough and is at a price above manufacturing cost it can be strategically better to just dump assets for a -20% difference from the best asking price. 0.01 isking a large stack of items will generally lead to the best bid being brought below manufacturing cost before you exhaust your inventories.