Using external tools to haul profitably: Difference between revisions

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* '''Selling''': This is the per-unit price the seller is offering the item for.

* '''Buying''': This is the per-unit price the buyer is offering for the item.

* '''Per-unit profit''': This is how much profit you will make per item hauled (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE 1% TAX!)

* '''Per-unit profit''': This is how much profit you will make per item hauled (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE 1.5% TAX!)

* '''Units tradeable''': This is the number of units of the item that can be traded between the selected seller and buyer. The two numbers in parentheses are the number of items being offered for sale and the number of items that the buyer is looking to buy. The units tradeable quantity will be the smaller of these two numbers. Be careful, if the seller is offering more items than the buyer wants, you won't want to buy them all! Pay attention to this number.

* '''Potential profit''': This is the profit that will be made if you buy all tradeable units (see above bullet) and sell them to the seller. Note that this may be more units than you can fit in your cargo hold, so realizing this profit may require multiple trips.

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In systems with lots of stations, you will likely discover some good trade runs with zero jumps! These may not have the highest profits, but they are very quick to execute. If you are in a hurry or just want to kill a short amount of time, then sort the list by ''Distance'' and knock off a quick zero-jump haul if available. If you want to maximize your profit, then sort by ''Profit per trip'' and work from there.

One important factor to consider before selecting your trade run is sales tax. The universal sales tax rate in EVE is one percent (1%). EVE-Central does '''not''' include the effect of sales tax in its calculations, and this is a potential trap for haulers carrying low margin goods. While the vast majority of trade runs in EVE have more than a 1% margin between the buying and selling prices, it is never guaranteed. Smaller haulers are unlikely to haul low-margin items, since they naturally tend to focus on trading goods that maximize profit per cubic meter (m3) of their very limited cargo space. But freighters, and haulers with very large capacities, are more likely to select larger volumes of goods at lower margins, so they can fill their expansive holds, and they can get caught more easily in a sales tax trap.

One important factor to consider before selecting your trade run is sales tax. The universal sales tax rate in EVE is one and a half percent (1.5%). EVE-Central does '''not''' include the effect of sales tax in its calculations, and this is a potential trap for haulers carrying low margin goods. While the vast majority of trade runs in EVE have more than a 1.5% margin between the buying and selling prices, it is never guaranteed. Smaller haulers are unlikely to haul low-margin items, since they naturally tend to focus on trading goods that maximize profit per cubic meter (m3) of their very limited cargo space. But freighters, and haulers with very large capacities, are more likely to select larger volumes of goods at lower margins, so they can fill their expansive holds, and they can get caught more easily in a sales tax trap.

To make sure you don't get caught in the sales tax trap, take the ''Buying'' value listed in the trade route data, divide it by 100, and subtract that value from the ''Per-unit profit'' value. If the result is positive, you're still making money. If the result is negative, wave off. As Admiral Ackbar once said, "it's a trap."

~~A couple examples just to belabor the point:~~

* I'm selling Garbage for 26.66 ISK each for a listed profit of 10.69 ISK. 26.66 divided by 100 is about 0.27. Subtracting 0.27 from my profit of 10.69 gives me an actual profit of 10.42. I will still be making money since the result is positive.

* I'm selling Large Asymmetric Barrier Transpositioner I's for 354,000 with a listed per-unit profit of 2,500 ISK. Dividing the sell price by 100 gives me 3,540. Subtracting this from the per-unit profit gives me -1,040 ISK. I'm in the red; this is a bad trade. Wave off.

'''7'''. '''THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT''': Most of the time, EVE-Central provides good trade run suggestions, but it's always a good idea to double-check. Verify that the EVE market window data is the same as the EVE-Central recommended route information. As long as you are doing System->Region searches, all of the buyers and sellers represented in the trade route list from EVE-Central should be visible in your market window when you search for the specified commodity. This is also why you want to start in a system that is NOT a trade hub. The market in a busy trade hub, such as Jita, can be so volatile that between uploading market data and doing the route search, it can change significantly. Better to do this in relatively quiet systems with more market stability. For the same reason, you may want to skip routes that end in known trade hubs—someone may have fulfilled the buyer's order before you get there with the goods.

@@ Line 90: / Line 90: @@
 * '''Selling''': This is the per-unit price the seller is offering the item for.
 * '''Buying''': This is the per-unit price the buyer is offering for the item.
-* '''Per-unit profit''': This is how much profit you will make per item hauled (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE 1% TAX!)
+* '''Per-unit profit''': This is how much profit you will make per item hauled (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE 1.5% TAX!)
 * '''Units tradeable''': This is the number of units of the item that can be traded between the selected seller and buyer.  The two numbers in parentheses are the number of items being offered for sale and the number of items that the buyer is looking to buy.   The units tradeable quantity will be the smaller of these two numbers.    Be careful, if the seller is offering more items than the buyer wants, you won't want to buy them all!  Pay attention to this number.
 * '''Potential profit''':  This is the profit that will be made if you buy all tradeable units (see above bullet) and sell them to the seller.   Note that this may be more units than you can fit in your cargo hold, so realizing this profit may require multiple trips.
@@ Line 98: / Line 98: @@
 In systems with lots of stations, you will likely discover some good trade runs with zero jumps! These may not have the highest profits, but they are very quick to execute.  If you are in a hurry or just want to kill a short amount of time, then sort the list by ''Distance'' and knock off a quick zero-jump haul if available.  If you want to maximize your profit, then sort by ''Profit per trip'' and work from there.
-One important factor to consider before selecting your trade run is sales tax. The universal sales tax rate in EVE is one percent (1%).  EVE-Central does '''not''' include the effect of sales tax in its calculations, and this is a potential trap for haulers carrying low margin goods.  While the vast majority of trade runs in EVE have more than a 1% margin between the buying and selling prices, it is never guaranteed.  Smaller haulers are unlikely to haul low-margin items, since they naturally tend to focus on trading goods that maximize profit per cubic meter (m3) of their very limited cargo space.  But freighters, and haulers with very large capacities, are more likely to select larger volumes of goods at lower margins, so they can fill their expansive holds, and they can get caught more easily in a sales tax trap.
+One important factor to consider before selecting your trade run is sales tax. The universal sales tax rate in EVE is one and a half percent (1.5%).  EVE-Central does '''not''' include the effect of sales tax in its calculations, and this is a potential trap for haulers carrying low margin goods.  While the vast majority of trade runs in EVE have more than a 1.5% margin between the buying and selling prices, it is never guaranteed.  Smaller haulers are unlikely to haul low-margin items, since they naturally tend to focus on trading goods that maximize profit per cubic meter (m3) of their very limited cargo space.  But freighters, and haulers with very large capacities, are more likely to select larger volumes of goods at lower margins, so they can fill their expansive holds, and they can get caught more easily in a sales tax trap.
-To make sure you don't get caught in the sales tax trap, take the ''Buying'' value listed in the trade route data, divide it by 100, and subtract that value from the ''Per-unit profit'' value.  If the result is positive, you're still making money.  If the result is negative, wave off.  As Admiral Ackbar once said, "it's a trap."
-A couple examples just to belabor the point:
-* I'm selling Garbage for 26.66 ISK each for a listed profit of 10.69 ISK.   26.66 divided by 100 is about 0.27.  Subtracting 0.27 from my profit of 10.69 gives me an actual profit of 10.42.  I will still be making money since the result is positive.
-* I'm selling Large Asymmetric Barrier Transpositioner I's for 354,000 with a listed per-unit profit of 2,500 ISK.  Dividing the sell price by 100 gives me 3,540.  Subtracting this from the per-unit profit gives me -1,040 ISK.  I'm in the red; this is a bad trade.  Wave off.
 '''7'''. '''THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT''': Most of the time, EVE-Central provides good trade run suggestions, but it's always a good idea to double-check. Verify that the EVE market window data is the same as the EVE-Central recommended route information. As long as you are doing System->Region searches, all of the buyers and sellers represented in the trade route list from EVE-Central should be visible in your market window when you search for the specified commodity.  This is also why you want to start in a system that is NOT a trade hub. The market in a busy trade hub, such as Jita, can be so volatile that between uploading market data and doing the route search, it can change significantly. Better to do this in relatively quiet systems with more market stability.  For the same reason, you may want to skip routes that end in known trade hubs&mdash;someone may have fulfilled the buyer's order before you get there with the goods.