Advanced Trading Guide
From UniWiki
While the individual player will should find this guide useful, it is written as a complement to the Advanced Trading syllabus. It assumes you have an understanding of the function of the market window and the basics of the market mechanics. If you do not have a strong understanding of these, you can look at this link.
Contents |
Introduction
This guide will review and discuss:
- the skills used for trading and their usefulness
- the careers of other players and how to capitalize on their needs and wants
- types of trading with a focus on haul trading vs station trading
- ways to find trade items and types of sales
- contracts and how to maximize their uses
- alternate revenue streams usable in conjunction with trading to maximize profits
Trading Skills
Basic skills are those covered in basic trading class. Advanced skills those which aren't.
Basic Trading Skills
Order quantity skills
- Trade - the base trade skill that is the prerequisite for other skills / also increases market orders by 4 per skill level
- Retail - increases market orders by 8 per skill level
- Wholesale - increases market orders by 16 per skill level
- Tycoon - increases market orders by 32 per skill level
The level you train each of these skills depends on how many market orders you are comfortable handling. A player without any of these skills trained can place 5 market orders. With all trained to level 5, a player can place 305 orders at once.
Range Management Skills
- Marketing - allows you to set remote sell orders, level 1 allows for orders in the same solar system, level 5 allows for region wide orders
- Procurement - allows you to set remote buy orders, level 1 allows for orders in the same solar system, level 5 allows for region wide orders
- Daytrading - allows remote order modification, level 1 allows for modification in the same solar system, level 5 allows for region wide modification
- Visibility - allows you to set the range on remotely placed buy orders and is used on conjunction with Procurement, level 1 allows you to set the range for buy orders placed in the same system, level 5 allows you to set the range for any buy order placed in the region. This is a skill that CCP gave a poor description to and subsequently is confusing when people first read it. An analogy I've seen on the EveO forums is that procurement determines how far you can throw a grenade and visibility determines how wide it's explosion is.
While there are good reasons to train the first two of these skills to level 5, the level you train the last two would depend on your travel habits and how close you stay to your hubs. Although, I cannot think of a reason you would need to have Visibility trained to 5. If you want to set a region wide buy order, it does not matter what station you place the order at.
Advanced Skills
Fee Management Skills
- Broker Relations - reduces broker fees 5% per level, reducing them from 1% untrained to 0.75% at level 5
- Accounting - reduces sales tax by 10% per level, reducing it from 1% untrained to 0.5% at level 5
While these might seem trivial percentage changes, remember that you pay a broker's fee every time you place a buy or sell order and every time you modify those orders. So lets look at the effect this has on profit margin. At the time I am writing this guide, a Fleet Issue Stabber buys for 68,000,000 and sells for 85,000,000 ISK in Hek. With these skills untrained, the brokers fee on the buy order is 680,000 ISK and 850,000 ISK for the sell order. The sales tax is 850,000 ISK. That is 2,380,000 ISK lost, so your profit of 17,000,000 ISK is reduced to 14,620,000. With both skills trained to level 5, the brokers fee is 510,000 ISK for the buy order and 637,500 ISK for the sell order. The tax for the sell order is 425,000 ISK. The total loss is 1,572,500 ISK reducing your profit to 15,427,500 ISK. By having your skills trained to level 5 you made an extra 807,500 ISK on this single transaction, and that is assuming you don't lose any extra from bid wars.
That is why I believe everyone whose primary source of ISK is the market should have both of these skills trained to level 5 as soon as possible.
Misc. Skills
- Margin Trading - reduces the amount you need to place in escrow for each buy order by 25%. This allows you to place large buy orders without cleaning out your wallet. You sell the items as they come in, covering the ISK you need for the remaining escrow. This skill gives you the opportunity place more orders with the same amount of ISK in your wallet and reduces the number of orders you have to place and manage, freeing up time for other things.
- Contracting - increases the number of contract you can place by four per level for a max of 21 at level 5. Contracting is an important skill whose uses will be covered later in the guide.
Player Careers that Effect Trading
These players often have low or no trading skills due to their career focus.
- Missioners
- The low volume of individual items from looting usually makes it more practical for them to fill buy orders at mission hubs, which are usually lower than those at trade hubs.
- Their ISK comes from fast mission turn around, so many will buy at mission hubs for a mark up over market hub prices to increase their "ISK per hour" rate.
- PvPers
- The main focus of their training is on combat skills, many times leaving them with few trading skills.
- Many find most "carebear" activities boring, including/especially trading.
- Pirates
- They have the same issues as Non-Pirate PvPers, but low sec standings restrict their access to high sec trade hubs.
- This lack of access to trade hubs leads them to manufacture some items such as ammo, creating a low sec minerals market.
- Industrialist
- Surprisingly, there are some who neglect this important aspect of their craft and do not have a functional understanding of market mechanics/dynamics.
- These individuals either tend to fill buy orders in bulk or screw up the buy/sell spread by playing the market.
- When later happens, simply place yourself as the #2 sell order and wait for the other order to fill, maybe even buy the items yourself if the deal is good enough.
Types of Trading
This guide will focus on Haul Trading as Station Trading is covered in the basic trading class.
- Market Hub to Mission Hub Trading - By taking the time to research which items are dropped as loot by missions and which items are needed by mission runners, you can set up orders that move items both ways allowing you to buy at the lowest possible price and sell at the highest.
- Region to Region Trading - By taking the time to research the prices items are moving at in different regions, you can move items from one market hub to another for profit. Having an alt in the region you don't primarily operate in is helpful. Ensure the time spent moving both ways could not be better spent trading in one region.
- Hi Sec to Low Sec/0.0 Trading
- Use courier contracts to move items from Hi Sec to these stations without entering yourself. Place a high enough collateral on the contract to ensure you still make your projected profit if the hauler gets ganked.
- Use remote trading skills to station trade at these locations from hi sec.
- As mentioned earlier, pirates often have a sec status that prevents them from entering Hi Sec to get to trade hubs, so you can set up a below average market order in these areas that are the best they have access to. Then, follow remote station trading principles to sell the items at an above average mark up.
Finding Trade Items
Do not give the students any leads on "good items to trade", so they have to do the research themselves which will make them better traders faster.
- Research the Market Window - There is no substitute for opening the market window and going through the browse tab from top to bottom. This is the most comprehensive way to find the items best for trading in your region. But as this is both time consuming and impractical for newer traders who have limited market orders/capital, here are some other ways to fill in the gaps.
- Sell What You Know - Examine what items you use and see if they can be traded profitably.
- Run Missions - Loot wrecks to see what drops and see how well it sells. This is also a good way to get items to sell if you are limited on capital. Also, see what items you consume during the missions and sell them at the mission hubs.
- Check forums for fits
- Check places such as Scrapheap-Challenge and Battleclinic
- Google killboards to search fits
- Look at fits linked by senior members in E-Uni chat channels
- Use the chat channel PRICE_CHECK. This is a player created channel for the purpose of asking for and giving regional price checks. By participating in this channel, you can see what other people are trading and how the item is moving in your region. This will also help in getting regional price checks for yourself.
Types of Sales
Now that this guide has covered the different types of Haul Trading and how to find market items to trade, it will discuss reasons you have for purchasing various items.
- Buy Order to Sell Order - This is the standard concept of buying low and selling high.
- Buy Order to Buy Order - You place buy orders in one location and haul them to another location to fill someone's buy order. This gives the benefits of a faster turnaround on an item and avoiding the fees of setting up a sell order. Just be careful not to get caught with product you cannot move.
- Buy to Refine - Buy loot items that have no value in your region for a cheap price. Next refine the items to sell the ore for more than you can reasonable sell the items for. Racial ammo and weapons are good items for this.
- NPC Seed Items - Buy items at seed locations and haul them to trade hubs. This can also be done with region specific seed items.
- Region Wide Buy Orders
- Have two orders, one low for region wide purchases and the other for normal trading. Pirates with low sec status will fill the low ones.
- Items at the Low Sec/0.0 stations can be remotely sold for a markup. If you have items at stations that won't move, you can pilot out in a cov ops and reprocess it to sell the minerals. Just be sure to keep the buy prices low enough and the minimum quantity high enough to make it worth your while.
- Worst case, you can sell the item to the next highest buy order for a minimal loss.
Contracts
Contracts get a bad reputation among some newer players whose primary exposure to them is contract based player scams. But contracting is an important tool to the trader. To learn how to set up contracts go here. This guide will discuss contracts as they apply to the trader.
There are two types of contracts, the courier contract and the auction/item trade contract.
Courier Contracts
There are players who enjoy being the truck drivers of Eve, just like we enjoy being the stock brokers/commodities traders of Eve. Some of these players have the skill(s) and wile to bust through gate camps and get your trade goods in and out of pvp hot spots. Others can move your goods 20 plus jumps from one trade hub to another and still allow you to maintain your profit margin. Use courier contracts to your advantage, but remember to cover your potential losses with the collateral function.
Auction/Item Exchange Contracts
These are actually two different types of contracts but perform the same functions with slight differences. The intended purpose of these contracts is to provide a mechanism to sell items that cannot be sold through the market.
- Auction contracts are the E-Bay of Eve. The contract is set up with a starting bid price and a buyout price that can be paid to bypass the auction process. If you have the highest bid price and no one else has paid the buyout when the contract expires after two weeks, you get the item.
- Item Exchange contract skip the bid process and only have a sell price, so that as soon as you pay the contract cost you get the item.
You can use this type of contract to buy rigged ships at good deals, buy and sell researched BPCs and BPOs, even sell mission items.
Alternate Revenue Streams
What is discussed in this section is off topic from trading but can be used in conjunction with it to increase your income. For details on these topics, see the appropriate guides or wikis.
- Production - Limited production serves two purposes to the trader. Some items you can buy minerals and produce cheaper than you can buy them. This allows you to increase your profit margin. Other items sell just about as fast as you put them on the market but it is hard to get buy orders for these items filled, so you can produce them yourself to create the supply you need.
- Research - This is the process of creating BPOs and BPCs that reduce the cost of production materials. As the expense in ISK of conducting this research is minimal compared to the value of the finished product, the real cost of these items is time. Since your "time" is spent playing the market, putting a BPO in the queue at a public station is a passive thing to you. But as the researched BPCs are produced you can sell them through contracts without taking up your market order slots.
- Metagaming - "a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset ... or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game." This first line of wikipedia's definition describes the everyday norm of Eve. So, in Eve, metagaming usually refers to some form of direct player to player interaction that meets that definition.
- The form of metagaming familiar to most players is scamming. This commonly involves manipulating the intended purpose of the contract system to dupe someone out of ISK.
- A less insidious form of metagaming is to find a niche or service needed or wanted by players and then form a corporation in order to provide that need and profit off of it.
- Datacore Farming - Datacore Farming is the process of a R&D agent doing research for you to accumulate research points (RP). This RP can be cashed in for datacores, which are an item used in T2 invention and you sell on the market. With skills fully trained you can get approximately 100 million ISK a month with only the effort of flying to the agent and then hauling the datacores to the market and putting them up for sell. The great thing about datacore farming is that all three toons on an account can farm at the same time, generating enough ISK to pay for a PLEX each month.
