I don’t do a lot of manufacturing these days, but I just looked at my margin report for FBs from this mornings prices and they look pretty healthy as far as I can see. I used to mine a lot of my ice but always made a straight profit on reproc anyway then bought PI materials to make the blocks on my researched BPOs. The margins I see are against the sell value of the materials so you do have to be careful and adjust as necessary if your buy prices are high but ice/FBs always gave me a good return.
Not sure why u are focused on solely Jita, I do sell at Jita but also all the other hubs and buy from all over. Hauling time is factored in against price differences, i.e. thrs no point saving a million isk if it’s going to take you an hour to haul it, but if it saves/earns 100 million then you might think it worthwhile.
As for finding products to build and sell, I have a BPO library I can select on with all the costs spreadsheeted out on a daily prices download. Thrs a fair amount of research to be done but for a quick look at a product you can use https://eve-industry.org/calc/ .
Lastly, never sell cheap, you can always stock it and sell it when the prices change, when you see the market move or a nice buy order that gives you a good margin then haul it and sell it.
That’s up to you to find out. Getting information is a big part of the game. Get in touch with people. Don’t play the game by yourself. There are also websites on what is going on in EVE.
Sorry, I cannot help you with specifics. I’m just coming back very, very slowly after a hiatus of 3+ years. I won’t be ingame before q2 2020. I’m just starting to collect information ;).
@Alistair_Atreides Mara is right. You have to do your research, it takes time and effort, nothing built in a day.
For example there is a certain group of items that are drops from NPCs that players will sell to get rid of but in fact they are packed with minerals. I buy them cheap, reproc them for an instant 50% profit then manufacturing from the minerals gives another 50% (on average) profit. Spotting opportunities like this is the game if you are and indy player.
Ahh the fabled list of loot that reprocesses considerably above market, took me a while to compile mine but oh so worth it if you buy in a mission hub.
The problem your seeing isn’t that someone is mining the ore and selling something for less than build cost. Your not understanding their build cost and sale price. There are ways to procure materials way below jita price and ways to sell items above jita price. A builder doesn’t have to mine anything. They can be a better procurer of materials than you and then undercut you below ‘build cost’ while still profiting.
Then the profit doesn’t come from production, being able to get the required materials below market cost could then sell for more as well. Production income is mostly about trading and understanding location, supply, demand and “sneaky business”.
And with “sneaky business” I mean all those newbie friendly “come join us it’ll be fun and we have an ore buy back program” corps.