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Successfully Trading

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I'm not a new or experienced pilot, but I have spent some time within the Eve universe, and the one thing that has always been beyond me was trading.

I've tried it but failed miserably and lost alot of isk in the process. My first attempt as a character straight out of creation was to fly around checking prices on something that everyone needs. In my particular case I just chose something cheap and easy like Antimatter Charge S. I flew around and found a batch being sold at 8.00 isk per unit. So I bought 50ks worth thinking that on average I see it being sold for about 12-14 isk per unit and I could make a profit, small as it may be. So I flew around some more checking around for a station selling at the lowest price per unit and found one in a .4 station selling at 210.00 isk per unit. I figured jackpot, I'll dock there and sell. I docked and went to hit the sell button, then adjusted the price I was selling per unit and hit the 'ok' button. I was stopped, essentially being told I could not sell it above the regional market average, etc etc. I then looked at the buy orders in the lower box of the market pane and saw that there were buyers buying the item for 7.06 isk per unit, and due to this I could not sell my load for as much as I had wanted.

I am sure I am doing something wrong or misunderstanding the entire process as a whole, but for the sake of thinning down the noob population, any and all help would be much appreciated =)

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4 answers

2

velocitypsycho

Your problem in this particular instance is that you did not hit the "Advanced" button. That gives you the interface to sell it for whatever you desire. There are no restrictions on the size of buy/sell orders.

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kazz
-

This answers your specific question related to how the market window works. You are trying to sell to current “buy orders” but what you need to do is set up your own sell order.

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1

stefan_62

For a very, very short intro:

Find something not too expensive per item but with a high trade volume and maybe a pretty stable price. In the market window, sort sell orders (upper table) by ascending price (cheapest would be topmost) and the buy orders (lower table) by descending price (highest bidder topmost). Maybe filter out lowsec and 0.0 (lower trade volume). Now browse the buy orders for the highest bid available at your current location (the topmost entry with green background). Compare this to the lowest sell order price at your current location. If buy is less than sell, place your buy order 0.01 isk higher than that top bidder. You may set the range of your offer to more than just station but then you possibly have to check for more buy orders to outbid.

Wait for transactions ... Check if you're still the highest bidder ...

Collect your items bought (if you chose to buy from more than just station) and place a sell order. This should be 0.01 isk lower than the current lowest offer at your station (if any). Don't care too much for lower offers at other stations, even in the same system, many people are even too lazy to quickly hop to another station to save some isk.

Some further things to consider are:

Trade Hubs have a much higher trade volume than remote systems. It may take a while to buy/sell your stuff when you're not trading at a hub - but the advantage is that you don't have to buy high and sell low. Trading remotely takes more time but may yield more profit.

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1

count scary [ Editor ]

IMHO The keys to being a successful trader are three fold:

  1. Know the market.
  2. Know your product
  3. Understand the risks and hidden costs.

Knowing the market are things like, "is the item I want to trade in dominated by one or two people?" You can buy 1 of the item every so often to see if the same name comes up. or "What are the peak times in this system? How many people are in it during those times?"

Knowing the product: "Where does it come from?" "T1 or T2?" "what is the average daily volume?" "Is the spread big enough to be worth my time?" Remember a product that has a volume of .5million units a day with a profit of 1 ISK is better than one that has a volume of 10 per day with a profit of 10,000ISK. Return on investment over a period of time is the key here. And high turnover means little to no backlog of stock. Another thing to watch out for is someone either driving down costs by dumping a large amount on the market or driving up costs by placing stupid buy orders. Don't get into a .01 ISK competition unless you know exactly what you can go down to.

Understanding risks and hidden costs: Do not forget your broker fees, your taxes and such in the trades. Also, remember always buy low and sell high and stay in an NPC corp to do your trading....NPC corp == no war decs.

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