Selling Items in Bulk Using Mailing Lists

Selling large quantities of items on the market can be tedious and can take what seems like an eternity.  When your budget requires you to turn ISK as quickly as possible, sometimes the market fails you.  Market pvp is sometimes more demanding than actual pvp.  Playing station penny games and having to move back and forth to the market hub can be painful, but there are options!

In the not too distant past there was a mail group (in client) named 'bulk trade'.  People would join the mail list and then offer their wares, in bulk, at a fair price.  When selling in bulk, it is the general rule of thumb to sell at a lower margin than retail.  I should say it is the rule.  In real life, you can go on an Internet sellers's site and often get a price breakdown and discount per item the more you buy.  There is a vineyard where I am from that discounts wine depending on how much you buy.  For simplicity, 1-5 bottles are retail, 6-12 bottles gets you a 5% discount and 13-24 gets you a 10% discount.  

This is how many industrialists in EVE prefer to sell large amounts of manufactured goods.  It is safe. It is quicker than the market and just makes good business sense if you need to turn over ISK quickly.  Yes, you will take a deduction on the margin, but getting your ISK quicker allows you to manufacture more and the cycle continues.   

EVE's client only allows 2000 members in a mail group and the popularity of 'bulk trade' was such that the owner had to look to other avenues in order to provide their service.  In a controversial move, they decided that they would charge a fee to use the service.  I have no issue with that and it was a move that they felt would be beneficial to them.  That's the entrepreneurial spirit that drives us.  However, many people were disgruntled by the change.  Another mail group has taken it's place in the EVE client's email system.  That successor group is named 'Wholesale Trading'.  Following in the same vein as the original 'Bulk Trade' mail group, it is a natural progression to change over to it.  In my opinion, it doesn't matter to me whether its one mail group or ten.  I will join them all given the opportunity because that is how I make my ISK.  Any tool that helps me make ISK is well worth it.  

As of yet, I haven't been accepted to the Google mail group that 'Bulk Trade' evolved into, so I can't tell you how much success I have had.  If they do ever accept me, I will happily add my experiences to my blog.  If you are having a similar experience, might I suggest joining the "wholesale trading' mail group? I have had good success there, so I know it works.  It may not be as massive (yet), but give it a try.  You don't have anything to lose (it's free) and only ISK to gain.  Plus added sanity.   

You can see the forum post here: Wholesale Trading mail group 

Good Luck and as always, fly safe-ish.

The Perils of Proclaimations and Speculations

It is common, during reports of upcoming expansions (now 'patches') that items (newly introduced or buffed) will lead to a inflated market cost.  What happens, as in real life, when something is hot, people gobble up inventory and sit on them until such a time as they reach their maximum value and high demand.  I remember back when rails got buffed, people invested heavily and were rewarded when people started fitting rails to their ships.  They made a lot of ISK.  The keen-eyed observer can see those market trends, speculate on market performance and sell when demand and price are high.  There is an old adage, "You have to speculate to accumulate".  

This brings me to Kronos.  I imagine there are a bunch of people who went out on a limb and bought up or manufactured cargo rigs in preparation for a market run on them when freighters are modified for the Kronos release.  When first mentioned in the Dev Blogs, freighters were getting a nerf to their cargohold size and getting equipped with rig slots.  

After deliberation, they decided to change them to low slots.  While this is actually a lot better than rigs (you would have to destroy them to fit your logistical needs should they change), so it would be costly.  With low slots, you can customize your freighter as you see fit.  The downside is, anyone who took the risk with rigs is now probably scrambling to dump them.  

I can show you this with the use of EVE-Markets.net's graphs.

Edit: I hate retractions, but such is the activity when I give misinformation.  Pointed out by Zhilia Mann, I used the wrong graphs.  I have corrected my post to show 'capital' cargohold optimization rigs.  Coincidentally, it shows a similar bubble as the large cargohold optimization rigs...

Looking at Capital Cargohold Optimization I's 90day history, you will see a large bubble and a steady decline.  That coincides with the initial announcement of the freighter/rig modification.  Looking at the median average, there was (if my math is correct) about a 48% increase.

People who own freighters would probably try to fit T2 CCO's to get the most out of the rig slots.  That one, as shown below is in the same neighborhood.  We are looking at a median average rise of about 43%.

Speculation can be highly advantages or financially devastating.  

Speculate with caution and as always, fly safe-ish.

Anchoring Your POS in High and Low Sec

The quick and dirty:  

In order to hang a high sec player owned station (pos), your corp needs to have a certain standing based on the solar systems security status.

The Details:

For example:

To hang a pos in a 0.5 system, you will need an 'unmodified' 5.0 standing with the faction who claims the solar system.  In a 0.6 system you will need a 6.0 standing.  It works the same in low sec.  In null or WH space, it doesn't matter.  You are free to hang a pos there without a standings check 

EDIT: In Cruis, standing requirements go away.  I completely forgot about the change...Sorry!  Thanks JB DeVries for your correction!

When I say 'unmodified; standing, you will have to disregard any skills you have.  Also, your corps standing is based on its membership.  You need your total unmodified average to calculate your standing.  When you open up the corp tab on your NEOCOM under standings, it will show you what your unmodified average is with all your relevant npc corp contacts/factions/etc.  If you look deeper, you can click to see composition.  This shows all the people in your corp who count towards (or against) your faction average.  

People with a 0.0 standing DO NOT count against or for your standing with that faction.  If they are .01 +/- or more, they count against you.  I am pretty sure NEW members to the corp wont effect standings for 7 days.  If you boot the members that lower your standing average, I believe it takes about two days or downtimes for the standings to reset.  Not 100% on that, its been a while since I had to hang a pos.  

If you plan to hang one pos, prior to Crius, I would hang two (for future expansion).  Once Crius hits, we might not all need as many pos's as we do now (for research).  

Don't forget strontium, fuel blocks and faction charters (for low sec and up), and as always, fly safe-ish.

Kronos Supercarrier Change and a Tip

As stated by CCP Falcon, fighter-bomber volume will be doubled.  Any fighters that are in your drone bay that overload it will cause you problems.  This means that you cannot warp or jump while the drone bay is overloaded.  Prior to the June 3rd Kronos deployment, you may want to move your drones to your cargohold.  Per the post, all drones in your drone bay (if it will become overloaded) will be moved to your cargohold.  If for some reason this doesn't happen, you will be stuck in space.  You can jettison the drones and scoop them to your cargohold.  If you have any other problems with them, put in a ticket under the 'stuck character' category.  

I find it is better to be safe, than sorry during a patch/expansion deployment.  

On a related note, set long skill queues prior to the deployment in the event that you are not able to log in.  Pretty much every update I have an issue where I can't log in to the EVE client.  Take these little preemptive actions to avoid issues and as always, fly safe-ish.

May and Beyond

Boy, May has really flown by.  We have had a productive month and the corp is growing steadily.  Our industry division is working well and I will be posting our May performance and I think I might add a few things like how I run a balanced budget.  I didn't have enough info to put one together until May is closed out.  We were only in business from the middle or March, so there isn't a lot of history to get a budget together.  Even with 2 months behind us, the numbers are still skewed towards assumptions and speculations, but it gives us a starting point for refinement.  

I'm happy to report that the blog is doing well so I will continue to do it.  It has become an important part of my role in our corp and it gives our members a resource to utilize and also how well, as a corp, we are doing. 

Perhaps my blogging experience is still sophomoric, but I enjoy doing it.  I would like to think I will get better as time goes by.  Sometimes it is tough coming up with something to discuss, but using the Dev Blogs and forum posts can get the creative juices flowing.  

I hope you will continue to follow my blog and tell your friends, corp-mates and leadership and as always, fly safe-ish.