Choosing a Trading Station

One of my readers recently left the following comment:

Hey man logged in just to say thanks your blog has helped me immensely with my own trading ventures. 

One thing I was still curious about and hopefully you can do a blog on, is HOW you choose what regions to trade in, apart from the big trading hubs I've never been able to figure out what would be a good region to place buy orders in and whatnot. 

Thanks once again 

Jerex Deka

This is a great question. One of the problems I have writing articles for the blog is there's so much I could write about with so many complex permutations, qualifiers, circumstantial / situational subtleties, and related subjects to get sidetracked on that it's often difficult to cover a topic well without straying into too many other things and practically writing a book in the end.

The trick is finding topics that are focused on something specific without being too simple and Jerex' question is a good one for that. Today's topic is about how to find good places to trade from.

Though Jerex asked specifically about how to find good regions, pretty much any high sec region is good to trade in. I'm in 19 high sec regions now and they're all good. IMO picking a station to trade from is more important than choosing a region to trade in.

Once you have a good station picked out you need to figure out what to buy and how much to pay for it as well as what to sell and how much to ask for it, at that location.

Like they say in real estate it's all about 3 things. Location, Location and Location.

The 5 main trade hubs (Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek) are obvious choices. However, the main trade hubs are infested with bots and no-lifers which can make it difficult for anyone else to do business on them. Depending on your business model and how much time and effort you want to spend working at it, you might be better off avoiding the main hubs and sticking to smaller hubs.

There are many things that can help you identify good locations to trade from, including in game information, websites and offline utilities/tools.

For websites and offline tools I really like:

EVE Marketdata for their Station Rank Lists
Ombey's 2D EVE Maps (or Dotlan if you prefer)

Some of things I look for are:

Map Statistics "docked and active"
Level 3 and 4 mission agents (the more the better)
Sisters of Eve
Facilities, especially Clone, Repair and Manufacturing
Starter systems
Number of asteroid belts
Proximity to ice fields
Travel choke points
Regional gates
High to low/null gates

Generally speaking the more of the above a particular station has the better it is for trading. Unless it's infested by bots (Oursulaert for example), then you're often better off on another station. In that case I particularly like stations only a jump or two away and straddling the main traffic route(s) to either the rest of the region or to other (preferably more populous) regions.

Knowing as much as you can about the above factors should tell you a fair bit about the players in the area, giving you an idea of what they're likely to sell cheaply and what they might pay dearly for.

I've used a few different methods to find stations to trade on in the past but right now I pretty much just use information from EveMarketData and Ombey's maps leavened with my own personal experience in the area.

I check EveMarketData ranked lists of trade hubs within a region to find out the size of the market on all the different stations. I look at Ombey's maps to get an idea of likely traffic routes, chokepoints, proximity to ice / asteroids / facilities and the like. Finally I consider my own experience in the area, things like "I pass through this system a lot on the way to other places" or "There always seems to be a lot of players in this system".

Then I choose a system after considering all of the above. I don't always choose the largest market, in fact a few of my best (favorite) locations are far from being the largest hub in the region.

Map "docked and active" used to be my primary method of finding new stations to trade at. But that isn't nearly as useful now as it was before Dust was released. The problem is now Dust players show in the "docked and active" list too. Pre-Dust, you could count on it any system that normally had 30-50 players docked and active was a good sized secondary hub and any system with more than 50 was a big secondary hub. But now players on the docked and active list could just as easily be a bunch of dust bunnies and a ghost town as far as Eve players are concerned.

Stations with mission agents, especially level 3 and 4 agents, make good trading stations too. Generally speaking, the more agents and the higher level those agents are the better.

Sisters of Eve agents are particularly good. They have the best missions for repairing faction standings and they have some very desirable items in the faction LP store too. Any sisters station is good for trading and if they have level 3 or better yet level 4 sisters agents (Osmon for example) they're very good. Having a sisters station nearby (within 5 jumps or so) is pretty good for business on other trading stations too.

Facilities attract players to particular stations too. I find clone, repair and manufacturing facilities are more important than labs. Most of the better trading systems have at least 2 of those 3 facilities though there are exceptions. Some of the best have only 1 or even none. Manufacturing often means competition from manufacturers, depending on what you sell and just how much competition there is, that competition could be a good thing or a bad thing.

Starter systems are pretty much guaranteed to have good numbers of players around and not all of them are newbies either. The regions around them are generally fairly well populated too. One big advantage of starter systems is the no-lifers and bots don't seem to be very active on most of them (or at least not in my markets).

Travel choke points both between regions and within a single region. If you notice you seem to be passing through a particular system more often than most it's a travel choke point. As long as there's a station in the system, travel choke points often make great trading locations even if they don't have any of the other indicators of a good trading station. Just watch out for gankers they like travel choke points too! Be particularly wary of gankers in 0.5 security choke points, especially if it's a choke point on the route to low/null. Ombey's or Dotlan maps are great for finding travel choke points. Dotlan is more up to date but I prefer Ombey's because I find it easier to read and it shows trade hubs too (I double check trade hub status on EveMarketData).

Trade Hub Clusters

Everyone either already knows what the 5 main trade hubs are (Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek) or can find out quickly with a simple question in chat or a quick google search.

Beyond the main hubs there are a multitude of secondary hubs of varying size. Most regions have several fairly large secondary hubs and many smaller hubs.

What isn't immediately obvious is there are clusters of secondary hubs associated with the main hubs. Several large secondary hubs, spread across multiple regions, all within a few jumps of each other and with one of the main hubs more or less central to the cluster.

For example there's what I think of as the "Minmatar Cluster" covering the regions of Metropolis, Heimatar, Molden Heath and Derelik.

Hek (Metropolis)
Rens  (Heimatar)
Teonusude (Molden Heath)
Tanoo (Derelik)

This cluster is rather unique because not only does it contain 2 main trade hubs (the others only have 1 main hub) but it also encompasses regions in both Minmatar (3 regions) and Amarr space (1 region). In the other 3 trade clusters (1 for each of the other 3 main hubs) the regions are all of one faction.

Heimatar is a large region and Metropolis is huge, Rens and Hek are the main trade hubs in those regions. Or you could argue Rens being central to the cluster is the main hub of the cluster while Hek is merely a super secondary hub in the cluster that just happens to be much larger than any other secondary hub (anywhere) and nearly as large as Rens.

Molden Heath is a small region with Teonusude being by far the largest of the small handful of secondary hubs there and one of the few high sec systems in the region. There's an active PvP community in the region which drives a small but thriving market that's surprisingly good for such a small region.

Derelik is a large region in Amarr space that's very close to Rens. Seven of the other secondary hubs in Derelik are larger than Tanoo, but I like Tanoo because it's closer to Rens than any of the larger hubs, directly straddles the route to Rens and is a bit of a chokepoint between large parts of the region.

Travelling from Rens (the central hub of the cluster) the distances involved are:

Rens to Hek 6 jumps
Rens to Teon 5 jumps
Rens to Tanoo 4 jumps

All distances are using high sec jumps only (no low/null shortcuts if there are any).

As a trader you can simply send big loads to Rens or Hek and supply the rest of the cluster with a series of short trips from there.

I generally courier a big load from one of the other main hubs to Hek and post anything that has good prices there. Then I load the rest up plus any excess stock that was sitting on Hek into a blockade runner (gotta love that unscannable cargo hold!) and fly to Rens. I contract everything to the Rens trader, he posts everything worth posting there, then contracts everything back to the Hek Trader (including any excess stock that was just sitting on Rens).

Rinse and repeat for Teon and Tanoo. Anything that was gathered up along the way and not posted anywhere goes back to Hek. Some of the gathered up stuff gets posted on Hek, if there's at least a billion or so worth left over that I don't think I'll be able to sell soon in the cluster, it all gets shipped out (usually via courier) to one of the other main hubs.

I tend to do this about once a week (a different cluster each time) or about once a month for each of the 4 clusters I work.

PLEX Market Update II

48 hours after the experiment began (1 day after the first update) I've bought a total of 6 PLEX in 3 different regions. I've sold 3 for 40 - 65 mil profit each, used 1 to sub an account and have 2 more up for sale. I have buy orders up in 4 or 5 regions now.

From what I've seen so far, I figure at least 10 day should be possible with that kind of profit.

As many as 20 a day might be attainable with profits in the same range but even that many might be pushing it a bit. Any more than that is probably only possible with lower profit margins around 20-25 million which won't leave much after taxes and fees.

I need to move PLEX purchases quickly because I expect prices to begin going down now. It's that time of year when prices have historically gone down anyhow and the Amazon pricing snafu yesterday will only help push things along.

PLEX Market Venture Update

Regarding my little PLEX market venture which began yesterday so far it's going good

Nearly 65 million (roughly 11%) profit before taxes and fees (roughly 2%) isn't bad. The second one I used to resub an account that was expiring in 6 days. I also bought another PLEX for even less in another region and posted it for resale there.

In less than 24 hours I've bought 3 and sold one at a pretty decent profit with hardly any effort involved. The plan is working, now I just need to find out how well it scales.

Doing a little simple math, with 20 traders if on average I can buy and sell just 1 PLEX a day per character for an average 50 million profit each that works out to

20 traders x 50 mil ISK x 30 days = 30 Billion ISK profits

That's pretty close to my current total monthly income. From just a single item.

If I can average 2 per day per character it'd be 60 billion, or close to double my current monthly income!

3 PLEX for $4.98 What?!

In breaking news live from Dodixe local chat, Amazon has 3 PLEX listed as on sale for just $4.98 (90% off)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A2CI8LE/ref=dsvrt_review_asin_detail

It looks like a legitimate link, not a scam.

Not sure what's going here, a pricing mistake maybe? The seller is CCP Games. Something strange going on since they have single PLEX priced at $19.95 and 6 packs at $99.99

Several people in Dodixie local claim to have bought and received their PLEX in game already. If these sales are actually going through at that price and it lasts for very long it could have a huge impact on the market price of PLEX in ISK.

Update: Less than an hour later the offer has been pulled and the 3 pack is no longer available.

It didn't last long enough to affect the price of PLEX in ISK.

Moving into the PLEX market

A PLEX is a fairly valuable item that (for such an expensive item) moves in high volume. PLEX are currently going for over 600 million ISK with around 3,000 a day being sold in Jita alone.

No doubt many of those sales were actually the same PLEX sold twice (bought and resold on station at a profit) but even if we assume half were bought for resale (I doubt it's that many) that'd still leave 1,500 a day moving on Jita.

What is PLEX?

A Pilot License Extension (PLEX) is an item that adds 30 days of game time to your EVE Online account. PLEX can be purchased with real money from CCP's website here. PLEX can be converted from any game time code and can be traded on the EVE market in game.

Players can also use PLEX to:

Perform a Character Transfer.
Perform a Character Resculpt.
Convert PLEX to Aurum and use Aurum to purchase apparel and cosmetic accessories for characters from the Noble Exchange.
Enable Dual Character Training for 30 days.

Of course PLEX are often used to trade real money for ISK. Many players will buy a PLEX for real money, then sell it on the market for ISK.

It's great for players with plenty of real cash because it saves them time grinding ISK in game and it's great for those with plenty of playing time (and ISK) because they don't have to spend any real money to pay for their subscription(s).

That's a win win situation for everyone involved. It's something anyone can do without breaking any rules and risking getting banned like they would with RMT (Real Money Trading) transactions.

The PLEX market

On the main hubs and many secondary hubs the PLEX market is heavily camped by no-lifers and bots constantly posting and updating buy/sell orders. Combined with a high price this makes it a tough market to break into, especially on the busier stations.

In the past I avoided trading PLEX because they're so heavily camped and tie up a fairly significant amount of ISK. I bought PLEX one at a time and only when necessary to pay for account subscriptions or dual training.

I never bought PLEX for resale. Lately, with 12 accounts and usually at least 3 dual training I've been buying a PLEX about every 2 days on average and getting to know the PLEX market in many different regions better.

My Strategy

I can buy PLEX at good prices in several regions fairly reliably so I'm going to buy a few extra for resale and see if I can resell them in a reasonable timeframe. I've already bought two in about half an hour, posted 1 for resale at an 11% profit and posted a 3rd buy order.

So far I seem to be buying them faster than I can resell them on station but it's too early to be certain of that. If it turns out I can't resell them quickly enough that's no big deal, I got them at a good price and I'll use them to sub accounts in a few days anyhow. Or alternately, my buy price is good enough I could always transport to Jita and sell to buy orders there at a small profit.

I'm going to leave that character logged in for the rest of the day and semi-camp PLEX.

Semi-camping meaning I'm not going to just sit there obsessively checking for cuts every 5 minutes but I'll check it several times throughout the night and cut when necessary. For example, every half hour or so while writing this post and doing other things on the computer, or later tonight during commercial breaks while watching football (Go Riders!).

Assuming it works out well I plan to start buying and selling PLEX in multiple regions. I'd drop a whole bunch of lower end, less valuable items and increase my presence in the PLEX market. That should take far less time and effort on my part than working hundreds of less valuable items does and hopefully it'll increase my ISK per hour too.

Note: October is traditionally when PLEX prices are at their highest. This is when you want to buy PLEX for quick resale. Sitting on them in speculation of even higher prices later would probably be an expensive mistake.

Selling Baggies $100.00 each!

Here's a real life business plan following the brilliant business model of a certain well known Eve Online real money trading gambling business.

1. Buy a box of baggies for a couple bucks.

2. Add some weed (or parsley if you're a scammer) to each bag.

3. Sell the bags for $100.00 each and rake in the profits.

You can't get busted for selling drugs because you aren't selling weed. You're just selling baggies (which is perfectly legal) and giving the weed away as a free bonus reward for your valued baggie customers.

If you put parsley in your baggies instead of weed your customers have no legal recourse to do anything about it since all they paid for was a baggie. Even if they wanted to do something illegal about it they couldn't because you're hiding behind a compu... er wait...nm.

<note for the humor impaired - this is satire>