Science & Industry

I used to check the supply / demand first, then produce the item, then put up the sell order for the item for around the highest price I found in the item's 1-3 month market history. Then I just wait for the supply to run out, and reach my sell orders. You need to have patience for this and sometimes your item will wait on market for 1-3 weeks before the supply sold out, but if its reach you, your stuff will sold high. Thats why I produce different kind of things, so I have constant income, because there is usually an item which reaches a supply drain and people can only buy it for high.

I also don't participate in 0.01 ISK wars on selling side. If I have 200 items to sell, and there are sell orders before me for 5, 10, 40 item / order for example, and demand is 500/day, I put my sell orders behind the low quantity, because they will filled, then I will be the next, and I can sell my stuff higher.

For buy, I put buy orders, than wait half-1 day, and usually they filled without having to compete. Also if I want to buy 300.000 of something and there are buy orders for less quantity, I put my buy orders below them, cause they usually will be filled, and after then mines are filled too, and I can buy cheap and not generate rising prices.

You can also generate price fall / destroy a market if you always put your sell orders for the cheapest price, because then others starting to compete you and price will start to roll lower and lower. That's not so bad if others put their orders just 0.01 ISK before, but there are always some ppl who don't have patience and put sell orders for foolishly low prices and destroys yours and others market.

Remember, these are not the best tactic if you need money fast and you play hardcore industrial, but if you just play 1-2 hour / day casual and don't want spreadsheet and counting, hauling, ordering all day. I could produce lots of items and sell them with lower profit, and maybe my final ISK balance would be higher, but I just don't like to produce and play the businessman all day along.

Tell me about it, Remote hull repair system of large and medium size was one of those items, but when I tested the waters with those they were awesome. Only later I figured why (for pos structure repping).

Ah, you mean like for example contacting some factional warfare corporation/corporations and offer them to supply specific station in their region?
That is good idea, specially to create package deal like predefined module combo for i.e. hurricane or harbinger. Even if you don't manufacture all items, you can "resell" what you don't manufacture just to fill the package.
Nice one!

Thank you :)
It is a game where mostly all is made by players so with more manufacturing bigger universe and player base can be supported.
Also this kind of money making frees a lot of time for "fun" stuff as it requires little active effort once you set up.

General rule of thumb: If someone is able to relist your goods at a higher price, and they sell at that price, then you were pricing things too cheap. Charge all that the market will bear .

The caveats:
- They may be trying to sucker you in some fashion.
- If the margins get too good, other manufs will jump in, or people start shipping in product from other hubs.

Personally, I love speculators and relisters as they help reset prices to a higher peg point for a week or two until the undercutting drives prices back down. In the meantime, I just ship a larger percentage of my recently produced goods into that market to take advantage of the better margins over the other markets that I supply.

Comments like this..

It'd be far more useful to research what ME level is appropriate for the BPO you are interested in than just plumping for ME10 and hoping for the best. (go here to find out http://zofu.no-ip.de/bpo )

Conversely, PE10 seems to be a great 'one size fits all' for pretty much every BPO i can think of

Actually you are right, Jita is supersaturated and small manufacturer can get better profit in mission hubs but if you want to sell volume then hubs like Hek, Dodixie, Amarr, Rens are place to be.

Spin that a little bit......

Look into mineral compression via modules, their are some modules that when built take up less m3 than the minerals needed to build them. Someone with the right standings and skills can reprocess those mosules and get almost or all the minerals back.

Combine a ship BPC with enough of those modules to provide the minerals to build out the BPC and sell that lot as a package.

There is quite a demand for these pakages in some areas......

Thanks for taking the time to post the guide, and the helpful discussion that has followed. One thread that seems to be running below the surface of the discussion is what drives profitability.

The ongoing debate over whether Production Efficiency V is 'required' is a good example. PE reduces waste, which trims the bottom line and thus improves profit. However, it is possible to conduct a profitable sale with a low PE, it just means you take a lower profit, and are priced out of some compressed-margin markets.

Profit is an equation with a variety of factors, many of which can be influenced by training skills. Some factors rely on player knowledge, such as which markets and products represent good opportunities. Master industrialists are, by definition, master of both the character skills AND the player skills - or at least, more of them than the competition.

Looked at from a competitive differentiation perspective, character skills are commodities - anyone can acquire them given time. Player skills are another proposition entirely, requiring time, study, experience, and threads like this to develop.

This right here is PRECISELY why those in industry need to KNOW THEIR MARKETS. Getting all associated skills to elitist levels (as a couple in this thread suggest) is really only necessary if you're building and selling competitively in hard markets like Rens or Jita. The simple fact is that a lot of still sells for better prices outside those major trade hubs. I'm still baffled why most people don't get it.