Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

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Etienne Darmond
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Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

On Trading and related activities (Part 1 Submitted by E. Darmond, Freshman)

Link to part 2: https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 41#p954441

I’ve have very low-end computer equipment and situations in RL where participation in group events is not often possible. Thus trading has been a way for me to build up a substantial bundle of ISK so as to feel confident LOOSING ships when I am able to participate in group pvp activities.

Game-wise trading can be lonely but releasing your inner Ferengi can help with later social pew pew because, as you recall, the first rule of EVE is don’t fly what you cannot bear to loose. It’s easy, even FUN, to loose T1 frigates when you have bank that can buy oooodles of frigates. And ship based PVP is very easily learned in T1 frigates.

I say ship based PVP because, guess what me pirate hearties, marketing and manufacturing ARE forms of PVP! EVE is a complex system of player versus player and player cooperation: including trade and manufacture. Though the trader rivals are relatively face less you can figure out who your customers and suppliers are by looking at your wallet transactions to see who you are buying from and who you are selling to. I haven’t done it yet but you can also use ‘buy’ contracts to purchase the right amount of raw materials in the right place from the people who know to look. You can advertise these contracts through the trading channels on the alliance discord so that corps mates can ‘know to look’. And you can work deals with other players you meet and learn to trust (at least as far as filling a contract goes….many of your eve buddies will gladly eat you if they meet you, all in good fun and sportsmanship of course….).

My experience extends to Jita, Amarr, Dodixie and ICY secondary market in Stacmon (which seems to be coming along daily, it’s a good location, slower than the main hubs, but convenient to UNI, a number of other corps and to null and low sec space.)) (Personal preference follows: I found the trade hubs in Minmatar space to be too slow for my liking, so I’ve only had an alpha alt there to experiment. (Note my finding RENS slow may simply be an artifact of me not paying it the same attention as I have to Dodixie. When I look at EVE economic data for Hek I might find that if I did have an actual trade dedicated omega character there I might do better than Dodixie. But Dodixie it is for me for reasons of closeness to Stacmon and convenience of not getting spread way to far over the galaxy).

Dodixie is very convenient to Stacmon and relatively ‘safeish’ for hauling materials for manufacture and market. It’s slower than Jita and Amarr but still profitable for station trading and selling the right manufactured goods. For selling certain manufactured goods its way more profitable than Jita. Jita tends to be a buyers’ market. Prices are driven down rapidly as people dump their stuff there. But those who dump loot, also buy things……

This is a supplement to the articles posted on the EVE Uni wiki and some materials in archived classes. I’ve also participated in one or two trading classes live, apologies that my stainless steel sieve of a brain can’t be more specific in giving credit where credit is due, but UNI is an awesome corps full of helpful people.

Some things I’ve learned about trading and related activities:

1. The interface can be weird and laggy. Be very careful to double check your entries in the buy and sell interfaces before you finalize them. Sometimes keystrokes don’t register, sometimes the first and second key stroke get written over. So check. It’s way too easy when going through filling a series of empty order slots to get into an automatic approval mode and find yourself out by an order of magnitude or two or three or four….argh.

2. The font EVE online uses is annoying when it comes to numbers. Zeros look like eights for example. This can lead to confusion particularly if you are tired or distracted. Just as you prepare your screen for pvp or pve operations you can prepare your screen for trading especially by you using the controls in settings which depending on your graphics set up can magnify display by up to 150% (this does reduce display area BUT when trading you only really need to see the dialog boxes so reset your display magnification before undocking.)

3. Adjust font to LARGE and set transparency to zero. (settings in your neocomm).

4. When looking at regional market be very careful to rank SELL orders with the lowest price at the top and BUY orders with the highest price at the top. (you do this by double clicking the column label just like in most spread sheet apps.) (If one has them ranked by number of jumps or some other category it’s easy to accidentally pay way too much for something.)

5. Strictly speaking station trading buying and selling at one station. Sometimes there are sell orders that come up at other stations in the region that are a very good deal. If you have patience and are playing a long game, it can be worthwhile to snap up these deals as you notice them and let them accumulate in a cloud around your hub for a few weeks or months and then go out on your own hauling missions to collect them. However, make sure the profit margin on the ‘steal’ price is worth the wait and the eventual haul. Also be careful about low prices in low sec or null sec stations. It’s often not worth the risk. Low sec pirates use such deals as bait to increase traffic through their gate and station camps. You can right click on an order in the regional market that will bring up a drop-down list that includes a location information selection. Clicking on that a dialog box will appear with several tabs. One of the tabs will tell you the sec status of the station where the item is being sold. You can also use the in-game map or a third-party map like dotlan.

6. One of the great things about strict station trading is also one of the most boring. You cannot be attacked. Unless you goof your order entries your ISK is totally safe.

7. When selling or buying look at the volume and the price history. It’s also a good idea to get a feel for the price in different markets using a third-party tool such as evemarketer.com. There are lots of scammers out their trying to inflate the data and have distracted or unaware players buy stuff at horribly high prices. (or sell it to a ridiculously low buy order.)

8. Be careful about changing your orders. Depending on your Character’s skills and standings at the market station this can really eat into your margins. Sometimes it’s worth cancelling an order when you have a few items left and replacing the order with a greater volume of the same item or using the slot for a more profitable item. Sometimes it’s worth just letting the order ride for the market to come back up to your asking prices.

9. Prices for a lot of things in Jita tend to boom and bust on a rapid cycle. If you have the time and you don’t like the current sell price its often worth setting the time period for 3 months and asking for the price you want. If the price you want is reasonably within historical margins the price will soon rise to meet your preference and your stuff might move quite quickly to a high-volume buyer. Amarr is a fairly high-volume market, Dodixie less so, (I found the Minmatar hubs even less so HOWEVER my results there could simply be based on bias for being in Dodixie for other reasons and not giving Rens the same attention. Looking at economic data for Aug 2022 it may be that Rens is as good if not a better hub for station trading that Dodixie.)

10. I don’t station trade in Stacmon, the volume is too low for me to make it work. In Stacmon ICY secondary market I sell mostly medium and small t1 rigs. I tend to set a 3-month period and I tend not to change my orders to undercut the ‘competition’ unless someone has just placed a significantly higher number of items over the number I have remaining to sell. Then I might adjust the price to undercut the larger order and move my stuff faster. Otherwise, I just wait my turn using a longer strategy. Stacmon ICY is a good market, close to our UNI manufacturing & refining and with the advantage of being able to use UNI contacts to source raw materials through uni trade channels. However, it is no Jita….So a different strategy is necessary. It is still quite profitable, just much sloooooower. Yet it seems to be getting brisker everyday as more people are stocking it with a greater variety of desirable goods. The more the merrier. If buyers can routinely find the stuff they want they will come looking.

I usually don’t find it profitable to buy player made items and re sell them. Thus, my station trading buy and resell tends to be loot items only. If it has a blueprint, I tend not to station trade it. You can check for blueprints in the industry tab of the item info box. One exception to this rule has been GIANT containers. I make good money on buying low and selling high. But not on manufacturing them. Weird but true.

If you find this helpful, I’ve got a lot more. Stay tuned. When I am able to rejoin the game I’d be glad to serve as a trading, rig manufacturing, high sec sub freighter hauling mentor (2 years player experience now) even as I seek out a frigate pvp mentor. Anyway posting this is a way for me to keep my hand in with y’all even when I can’t log into EVE.

Link to part 2: https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 41#p954441
Last edited by Etienne Darmond on 2023.03.07 18:24, edited 3 times in total.
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Arin Mara
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Arin Mara »

What made you realize Minmatar markets are slower than other main hubs? Did you track goods or do an analysis that you could share?

What are your thoughts on investing in Corporation and Faction Standing to lower the tax rates?
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Etienne Darmond
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

Thanks Arin Mara,

I have no hard data to back my opinion on the Minmatar markets.

It is just that when I was starting out they did not take off the way that Dodixie did AND it does not take hard data to get the feeling that they are slower than Jita. I confess bias to operating in Dodixie space because of its proximity to Stacmon, which may mean that my comparison of Minmatar and Dodixie on station trading is shaky. So with 3 alts to trade with, based on my initial rather unscientific survey, I invested them in Dodixie, Jita and Amarr. If someone has some actual data on Minmatar I'd be interested as well. I admit the interest is rather casual as my alts are fully deployed, but it would be interesting for others thinking of dispersing their alts.

As to investing in corporation and faction standing YES! Definitely worth Caldari Navy standing to trade in Jita, though my trade alt there has very little. Definitely worth Federation navy to trade at Dodixie. My main has very good standing with both Caldari and Federation Navy but he very rarely trades at Jita. My trade alt at Amarr has very little standing with the NPC corp that owns the hub but she does all right (all three of my omega characters have very high trade skills 2 @ tycoon V (Dodixie / Stacmon, Jita) and 1 @ tycoon IV (AMARR))

A note on advancing standing. As Arin Mara likely knows be careful with security missions that require you to shoot empire faction ships. it really lowers your standing with the empire involved. Also be careful with story line missions they raise your standing with one empire but lower it with its rivals. If this is Okay for your purposes go for it, but be aware. My main now has such low standing with AMARR that if he goes any lower he will have to do the SOE 'our man Dagan' thing to avoid having trouble from NPC's while traveling in Amarr space.

The high standing my main has at both Jita and Dodixie allow him to reprocess loot modules without paying a fee, WHICH is very valuable in the long run, and which i can talk about in future notes on activities related to trade.
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

Thanks again Arin Mara for the question on Minmatar data. Just from a very brief glance at the August economic report and the wiki it seems that RENS might well be as good a sport for station trading as Dodixie.
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Adrian Tarmikos »

Great post, Etienne! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to part 2 :)
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Belta Jer »

Great post, thanks for sharing!

Like you I enjoy station trading mostly because I can do it in little bursts when I need to be able to "pause" the game, so I can't really undock.

Here are some of the tips I would give someone, please feel free to correct me if any of them seem wrong to you!

* Go for the big expensive items! Especially if you're an Alpha, you have limited slots, so don't waste them on small items with small profit unless you are lacking in capital, and if you are, go earn your starter millions somewhere else and invest in some items that generate a real profit.
* Aim for 2x profit on every item, so the sell price should be double the buy price. It limits your options, but gives you leeway to re-list the items many times without risking an actual loss.
* Learn to read the market history charts. I'm still getting the hang of this, but despite being a bit inscrutible, they can show you a ton of information that will help you understand if anyone will actually sell to your buy orders. For example, you can usually tell if an item is player-created from blueprints just from looking at the chart, since it's all selling and no buying.

I've had traders in Amarr and Dodixie, and Amarr really does move faster. I wouldn't want a market any slower than Dodixie, that's for sure. Jita seems a bit too stressful to me, I don't want to be relisting things constantly.
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

Adrian Tarmikos wrote: 2022.09.24 19:11 Great post, Etienne! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to part 2 :)
Thanks!

I'll roll out some more in weeks to come.
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

Belta Jer wrote: 2022.10.04 18:42 Great post, thanks for sharing!

Good stuff. Yes, everyone is a little different so I don't have any corrections. Readers and contributors must experiment to find their bliss!

Amarr really seems to be a great place for station trading lots of low cost buy items and high price sells and pretty brisk. And yes Jita is a lot of changing of orders.

Amarr's relative isolation since the Trig cut off point on the old pipeline seems to have jolted it up a few gears as a trade hub. But then I was just rejoining the game around that time soooo careful on this point, as on my prejudice against Minni marts I could be a source of plausible mis information.

If anyone is having fun and profit station trading in Miinie land it would be cool to hear about.

ED out o7
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

ED’s Notes on Trading and Related Activities, Part 2.

I've moved this to its own post to increase exposure.

Original text deleted

Link to new location pending.
viewtopic.php
Now Found Here <click link to jump>

https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 41#p954441
Last edited by Etienne Darmond on 2023.03.07 18:19, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

Jindo Lee wrote: 2022.10.09 05:14 Great stuff!
Thanks Jindo, awesome spaceman!
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Re: Notes on Trading part 1. Submitted by Etienne Darmond, Freshman.

Post by Etienne Darmond »

I should perhaps repost part 2 as it's own post. I'll attend to it when I am able to get back in game.
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