Actual Numbers from Marketing (Long Post)

I know this is being beaten up a bit but it deserves to be. I wanted to put some actual numbers out there for people who may not be as into the manufacturing and the market side of Eve and being to light why these changes are an issue.

For clarification my skills are all 4s and 5s in all related categories, mainly 5s. This includes all invention, production, market and research skills involved in the items I make. I have been in production in some regards since 2008 as it has always been my favorite means to play Eve. I want to look at one item that I have been working with for the past few years and discuss what the new market changes mean purely from a numbers view. I base out of the Domain area and sell in Amarr, a choice I made a long time ago because I prefer the middle ground markets of Amarr with average amounts of products and prices that don’t fluctuate as much as Jita does.

Lets look at the Hawk. It’s one my best selling items with steady demand and flexible use it generally never falls out of favor unless some outlier happens.

The base cost for me to create a Hawk is 31,774,789.
The going rate for a Hawk in Amarr currently is 46,490,000.
The total taxes from me to list 1 Hawk is 2.9million.
That leaves a profit of 10.5million isk.
That is an a very nice 23% profit return which is why I stated these are good items, this is not very common.
The cost to edit the prices of a single Hawk is 480,000 isk. Which is 5% of the total profit taking the profit to just over 10mill.

In the course of writing this there has been two hawks listed infront of mine. (See my bottom edit before jumping into the comments) While not a linear trend of orders being added my order is already obsolete in the sense of any return soon, it’ll sit as a sell order for the time being freezing isk in turn. More orders will be placed in front of it as is the natural order of the market. If I wish to edit my Hawk listing twice over the course of time to attempt to sell it while it sits in its sell order state I have lost 10% of my profit, if I must edit it four times that is 20%. The alternative many people are stating is to list more singular items and then undercut the latest orders, while this may sound like a decent idea it’s pretty terrible.

The initial orders which have been placed are essentially being viewed as too expensive to change if any new orders are placed infront and will force those orders to freeze for the time. Given the system of new orders undercutting, if we are too assume new orders with less quanitity is the way to go, (this paragraph is focusing on that, people seem to not have understood the aim here) there will always be another player adding one more Hawk to the market similar to the way you are adding one more Hawk to attempt to be the cheapest. It takes place of the .01, instead of price changing you drop a new Hawk order infront of the other. There is also no cool down on this, no 5 minute wait to add an order. I can sit on my orders and watch for new orders to undercut while forcing the previous order to pay an addition fee or wait until I release the observation on the orders. What happens is a bloated market where orders must either be canceled or die out naturally due to the volume of 1 quantity orders.

The cost of adding a new order is to the market is nearly 30% of the profit of the individual item (This is primarily what I was pointing out, not the fact that the orders were placed infront). Clearly it is the means of the market to have orders placed infront of old ones, it’s inevitable even if your price is increadibly cheap. Circumstance may have it that a buy isn’t looking at the time or somone drops and order right about the same time as you. If the previous order faded away in the wave of new orders you must tack on an addition relist fee if you wish to sell it in the future. That would be the Hawk I posted earlier writing this would have already accumulated 6million isk in costs before even being sold. Two listing fee’s wipes out a 60% portion of the total profits. Based on the sentiment that people should list single items and continue to undercut each time means these items won’t have the flow needed to ensure they sell the first time.

A side effect of this is that products will lose some of their flow, the market moves less as a whole and traders without large pockets experience difficulty turning a profit soley due to the mechanics at play. It’s especially difficult for new players to enter this kind of market.

If we imagine the same situation with an item that has a much lower profit margin, say an Adaptive Invulnerability Field II the issue becomes much worse because their is sell room for a margin.

The cost is 2,278,629
Going rate is 2,564,000
The total taxes are 161,000 to list.
Profit of 119,284.75 or 4.65%
Cost to edit 28,000 including loss of the 1,000 isk reduction. Which is 2.3% of the total profit bringing it down to 91,284.

All in all I think the changes had some what of the right idea but were poorly implemented. The ratios shouldn’t be as steep as they are. I didn’t mention the barrier to new players who wish to get into the market. The high taxes couple with the requirement for all the isk needed for an order and the lower product movement means a new marketeer will have times of pure stagnation. While Eve maybe a sandbox it is still a game, having to wait for anything to happen with your playstyle can limit the experience as a whole.

Apparently I need to edit in that I have no issues with undercutting or the changes themselves but the new mechanics, 4 significant figures and tax percentages are not reasonably in line. They limit the producers and marketeers scope too much when all combined together. I know many people dreaded the 0.01 game ( I was fine with it) but I’m not preaching to get that back.

There maybe some confusion about when I say relist, I am talking about if an order lapses or it is pulled, literally the relist of an item. Otherise it’s a modifcation fee. Additionally I’m not saying relisting is always something to constantly be doing but in the event items don’t sell you will need to relist them eventually. In the case of the Hawk being 30% of the profits hurts in the long run. The modification cost should be higher which makes sense for what CCP was trying to accomplish but the initial fees or fees if an order ends up not selling should not be as steep.

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Should have priced your Hawk at a better price point if you wanted to sell it “any time soon”. Simple as that. You resorted to an outdated form of gameplay of trying to barely undercut other orders by the tiniest of differences. And now you’re paying the price.

Sounds like the change is working as intended.

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Should have priced your Hawk at a better price point if you wanted to sell it “any time soon”. Simple as that. You resorted to an outdated form of gameplay of trying to barely undercut other orders by the tiniest of differences. And now you’re paying the price.
Sounds like the change is working as intended.

And that’s how it should be. I have no issues with that, did you even read the post? The problem comes around with the list fee being 30% of the total profit.

And I’m saying that’s how it should be. Did you even read my comment?

If you don’t want to eat the relist fees, price your junk at a better point where it’ll sell better.

To what end? I could place my Hawk for a profit of only 2million and it would get under cut still, 1 million isk in profit and it can get undercut. The issue is the relist. If you list anything with a marginal profit you suffer more than the person coming after due to the relist fee happening twice.

Three options.

  1. Cut costs to increase your margin
  2. Increase sale price to increase your margin.
  3. Get out of the market and let your competition win.

If people are undercutting you they have either achieved 1 or are prepared to accept a smaller cut than you are for their work.

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It seems most people are missing the point of this post. It’s mostly to point out the percentages are not in line in a reasonable way. The market mechanics are fine but the details are not.

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The percentages can’t be controlled by CCP. those are in our hands as players as to what margin we run the market to. And most players tend to run it to pretty tight.

To the end you want, i.e. to sell things faster… ?
I’m not sure what’s going on here.

You agree with the changes but don’t like how it makes you do something differently than before?

Congrats, you’re using your brain.
Now use that brainpower to price that Hawk at a point where it’ll be less likely to get undercut if you want to sell it?

Why are you relisting so frequently?
You don’t HAVE to relist and eat the relist fee.

If you’re concerned about selling it FASTER, then price it lower.
If you’re not concerned about selling it faster, then stop relisting it?

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Would the taxes not be less outside of Amarr itself? How many jumps away can you sell and in what station?

Would the taxes not be less outside of Amarr itself? How many jumps away can you sell and in what station?

My standings with Amarr dropped the tax to a good level from what the base rate is. My skills are maxed for range. I can sell in any station? I’m not sure what you’re asking by that.

Yes, and are you selling in a station with the lowest tax?

Like a corp station for example?

I agree that the changes are good in theory but the numbers are not, keep the same system but adjust the initial fee and relist fee. I think your confusing the relist and modification fees. The relist comes around when the order is pulled or lapsed. That is the 30% one.

If I do get undercut eventually I’ll have to relist the item, it shouldn’t be as expensive to list the item again. What should be expensive is the fee to modify the orders. CCP was attempting to fight market botting and that is the fee which makes sense to raise.

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That’s not what a relist fee is, but whatever.

But that’s the thing. CCP doesn’t what you to just relist the item. It creates a type of gameplay that’s mindless and unengaging. The winning strategy is just “update every 5 minutes” and you win. That’s exactly the type of gameplay CCP does not want you to engage in.

…this is already the case?

ONE of the impacts is to fight market botting. It was not the only goal.

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  1. Check how many sell a day, if 20 sell a day and 3 undercut you, so what?

This race to be the lowest price needs to include time and volume or it is a mindless price war any prince could undertake. :crazy_face:

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First, things will probably get better with time.

  1. I’m willing to bet that prices will start to creep up as sellers begin to pass the increased market fees on to the consumer.
  2. plenty of people have said that they’re getting out. So do the same or wait them out.
  3. other players will have to adjust their strategies as well, so you’ll probably see less undercutting over time.

Second, you might want to adapt your strategy.

  1. Reevaluate where you want to sell -Selling out of a player owned structure will reduce your fees, and selling out of a less busy market will mean you’re less likely to be undercut. Personally, I look at it like a tradeoff. Selling out of Amarr means more customer traffic, but also more competitors and a greater chance of being undercut. Selling out of a smaller trade hub (or your own structure) will mean less traffic, but less competition in return. And, yes, you can get some decent traffic if you have a good location, offer a good selection, and have reasonable prices. Me a few buddies dropped a fort when I was just a baby (about a year old), and together, we were able to offer a respectable selection of stuff for mission runners, miners, and explorers, and were getting some respectable traffic as a result. Of course, the downsides to that is that (A) you’ll have to work harder and have to sell more than just the most profitable items in order to offer one stop shopping, and (B) you’ll need to be able to defend your structures.
  2. Reevaluate your pricing structure -Scoots may not have used the most tact, but he’s right. If you want to keep selling out of Amarr, you’ll probably have to price your items cheap enough so that people are less willing to undercut you and more likely to go elsewhere. Try to mitigate your smaller margins by training your trade skills, making sure your BPO’s have max ME, building out of engineering complexes with the appropriate rigs, and so on.

Anyway, I liked the old system. My knowledge of how it worked, and my willingness to .01isk people into submission gave me an advantage that I’m disappointment to lose. However, that does not mean that I think this will be an economic catastrophe, or that it will be impossible to make butt tons of isk under the new system. The question is who will adapt, and who will fall by the wayside.

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Thanks for the reply, I think you’re spot on with the majority of what you said. The post may come off as I me wanting to revert to old ways but as a whole I look forward to some changes coming and wanted to point of what I thought was out of place for the initial changes. I doubt this will be the final market change to come.

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Yeah, they did say that they would monitor the situation, so they may very well make further adjustments. So, we’ll see.

Anyway, good luck.

Well yes. But I wasn’t going to give away trade “secrets”

Yeah, that’s what I’m doing, so CCP can balls things up until their hearts are content.

I had loads of buy orders at higher than market value (orders set to station) and it was hell of a job to get them completed and that was like 2 jumps from Amarr. In the end I had to cancel 2/3 of them and place them in Amarr.

Selling stuff isn’t much different, selling stuff 3 jumps from Hek at low prices in the end I had to take half of it to Hek and most of the rest practically given away to shift it.