Station Trading

Station Trading is the art of buying and selling from one station.  Many people make mountains of ISK buying low and selling high.  It can be a bit risky, but the bigger the risk, often times the bigger the payout.  I have station traded over the years.  I made a market toon just for that purpose.  I usually go through periods of time where I station trade religiously, as often as possible updating buy and sell orders.  Sometimes I just set buy orders and check back every few days to see where I stand.  There are a bunch of pit falls to the occupation.  It is one of those things that is simply in theory but it can be tough to master.  The market (and the market hubs) are volatile in nature.  People dumping massive amounts of things on the market or buying up everything around can cause spikes in those items due to the supply and demand on them. 

I'm no economist, but unlike other MMOs, EVE's marketplace is extremely dynamic.  This is mostly due to CCP's idea that the economy should be player run.  They have minimal input, seeding very few items like Blueprints and Skillbooks.  Even those can be bought and sold at a profit.  

So, station trading.  These players are most often permanantly housed in a market hub like Jita, Dodixie, Amarr, etc.  Players rarely, if ever, venture outside the station to buy and sell items.  I have had relative success with turrets.  Many people who run missions will sell any META 3-4 items on the market.  You can place buy orders for them, sometimes at a very low price and resell them at a high price.  

For example, here is a trade I did the other day (pre tax/market fees)

     150mm Light 'Scout' Autocannon I

     Bought:              136,088.12

     Sold:                236,498.99

     Total Profit/Unit:   100,410.87

     Total Profit Margin: 73.78%

That is a great deal!  It can become very lucrative especially when you move large volumes.  Quantity can be king here.  This is something I have been supplementing my industry wallet with.  Diversity can be a good thing. 

Some things you should consider is Tax and Market Fees.  If you are trading on a narrow margin, these can add up and cost you money.  You can make a simple spreadsheet to make a formula to double check your profit.  It might look something like this:

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G
1	Item	Cost	Sell	Buy Fee	Sell Fee	Tax	Profit
2	ITEM X	INPUT COST	INPUT SELL	'=sum(B2*.0076)'	'=sum(C2*.0076)'	'=sum(C2*.0075)'	'=sum(C2-B2-D2-E2-F2)'

D, E and F would be dependent on your skills and standing.  Certain spreadsheets to operations differently, If I recall, Excel uses ':' to separate some functions, but Open Office uses';'.  I don't recall what Google Docs uses.    

Some times might appear like a good deal.  You will notice there could be a large profit.  What you wont notice right off the bat is whether or not these items actually sell.  You can click over to the market graph and select what timespan you want.  Then you can see the moving data. 

The marketplace tab is full of useful and (possibly) intimidating information.  I will be putting up a separate post shortly to cover those.  I believe with the info in this post, the info in my marketplace tab breakdown and some research on market trends on specific items, you can make some ISK and understand why things are happening.  Until then, fly safe-ish