Market Discussions

I've noticed that there are more and more trades happening outside of the ancestral market home of Jita. Do people think that there will ever be a full cross over from Jita > Perimeter? If so, when?

The original incentive to move markets to Citadels was a 5% brokerage fee and 3% transaction fee on transactions at NPC stations - these were reduced to 3% brokerage and 2% transaction but CCP indicated that they intend raising the fees to the original plan at some point. Bear in mind that this is not a value add tax - the fees apply at every link in the value chain: raw material, components, modules, etc... it really adds up. As a vertically integrated manufacturer, I can absorb the higher taxes better than most but I've noticed a substantial drop in inter-regional trade in the smaller market where I do business - the inter-regional spread simply isn't wide enough to cover the taxes.

Obviously, things get worse if CCP raises the tax to the original planned amount. Some people will leave the profession (and possibly the game), some will raise their price to compensate, some will move to Citadels, some will form groups to avoid as much tax as possible through vertical integration. People will pay a premium for the convenience of one-stop shopping at traditional hubs but there is a limit. Citadels will have problems with market fragmentation, trust and disruption - all things business people work hard to avoid. I doubt many industrial players actually want to move to a citadel given the current risk/reward balance.

According to dotlan, Perimeter has more jumps into it than Jita these days. I don't know how long that's been the case, though...

Funny thing; I had my warehouse with stock in Perimeter for ages already. Just jump stock into jita when needed, the rest can be used for replenishment on other parts of EVE.

With all respect it is not about shopping - it is about selling.

Expensive stuff I buy from Perimeter per range order, but was not yet able to fill one of my multi-buys for production in Perimeter. The quantities I need are only available in Jita.

There are literally hundreds of trillions of ISK in assets currently in Jita 4-4. Probably into the quadrillions.

There is no good way to move that to Perimeter faster than a couple billion ISK at a time.

Plus, trade citadels are not invulnerable, and the cost to retrieve items from safety is considerable. This risk must be priced into any decision to move goods there.

I do not anticipate traders leaving Jita en masse, except with highly portable items (deadspace modules, etc).

I do a lot of my time hauling off of contracts and out of the "Hauling Channel". I can tell you freight wise I see a lot more items being bought and then moved back to Jita from Perimeter. Ore's are about the only thing I haul from Jita back into Perimeter.

I don't see any chance that Perimeter will become new Jita - as in both for place for buying and selling, for producers and traders and end users alike.

I can see that new Fortizar hubs will emerge that will take over from Rens, Dodixie and possibly even Amarr. But Perimeter, just 1j from Jita, will never grow to be its own independent hub/shopping mall - it will only be for traders to set up cheap broker fees buy orders for items.

Having said that though, since the increase of broker fees in NPC stations, I did something I thought I'd never do. Sell PLEX to buy orders (immediate sales) to avoid broker fees for setting up PLEX sell order. The price fluctuation between post citadel crash (I bought quite a few at 850m or less mark in some regions, but even in competitive Forge region you could buy for 900m ish per PLEX) and the subsequent rise to over 1b and crash back down with mega PLEX sales and all that - those were very good times to buy PLEX and just sell to buy orders immediately to occur no broker fees, without having to move stacks of PLEX to Perimeter. The price fluctuation and margin was good enough to sell directly to buy order and still make reasonable ISK profit (not maximum, but much much less hassle).

We will not see a major change until the citadel api is introduced, then anything can happen.