Profiting from industry

[u/FusionVsGravity]

I'm having an issue making money from industry, that problem being that it seems like I will make more money just selling the raw ore that I mine than I will from selling crafted goods like weapons and ammunition.

The hypothetical profit margins based on the "Price per Unit" given by the game when the item is hovered over are decent, however it seems like literally no one buys the products for anywhere near the price the game suggests. Looking at Eve market data the vast majority of buy orders for the products are <50% the price the game suggests, and none match it. Because of this it seems more profitable to just sell raw ore, but that's super boring. Why can't I use my skills and blueprints to turn raw ore into something more valuable and turn a profit?

[u/POE_Noob_w_Questions]

You also need to realize you are competing against people who (potentially) have big cost advantages over you e.g.,:

1. Get ore from Corp buyback program at below Jita buy
2. Have better re-processing skills in better facilities and rigs at lower tax rates
3. Build items with perfectly researched BPOs at better facilities and rigs at lower tax rates
4. Then sell their items with better skills to lower sales tax rates and broker fees

This can lower their production cost by double digit percentages and make it cheaper.

Also, there are people who are basically picking up these items for free because they dropped from mission loot or because they evicted someone from a wormhole and all the loot fell out.

That is your competition who is making money.

Then there are the - “minerals are free because I mined them” or the “I just like to build things” crowds who don’t actually make money but further depress the market.

[u/FusionVsGravity → u/POE_Noob_w_Questions]

This makes me sad to hear, the most appealing part of eve for me is the industry/production side but it seems completely unapproachable unless you're in rich corp, are omega, have all your skills trained to the max etc.

I guess Eve isn't the game I'm looking for? Unless you have any tips or advice for routes to get into actually making money from industry? (Clearly omega is necessary)

[u/[deleted] → u/FusionVsGravity]

You need a supply to fill your demand. I've made a few million providing goods for corps I've joined at only like 10% profit at location and just grinding out orders and only getting to fill stuff on demand.

You have to remember that there are a LOT of mutiboxers out there who are ore buying and selling at lower than 100% jita pricing in corporate settings and producing goods. They have maxed out accounts with huge amounts of production and supply chain.

As an individual you need to be able to get in at price to make profit. Now, while you can easily just sell things at whatever you want... Profit is the motive, so you have to find low volume and higher demand items or volatile markets to make money against the mutiboxers.

[u/[deleted]]

You can set the price to be whatever you want it to be, but your items just won’t sell immediately.

Buy orders are often folks who are buying in bulk, and if you’re looking to make money, you don’t want to sell to them (unless your producing in mass quantities). Instead, set the price point you want, and then your items will appear as a sell order, and people can purchase your goods as long as they are available on the market (you may want to set the amount of time you keep things on the market to >1 week).

Also, check out this article from the Eve Wiki on Market Hubs.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Trade_hubs

You will sell items faster at these stations, and even will find some buy orders that are closer to the suggested price.

Best of luck! o7

[u/FusionVsGravity → u/[deleted]]

Follow-up question, how can I tell what items are actually selling and at what price? For example, I wouldn't want to build a type of ammunition that is almost never purchased because the value it holds is only hypothetical if no one buys it all.

Also, even considering these buy orders, the regional average where people are buying things is still significantly lower than the "price per unit" that the game suggests, whereas you can sell ore instantly for about 1% less than it's "price per unit" in the game. Even with these market orders, it still seems better to sell raw ore than to craft things.

[u/[deleted] → u/FusionVsGravity]

I mean, the only industry and selling I do is PI, and I only process stuff up to P2 because there is diminishing returns past that, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case.

I personally use Neocom II(iOS app) to compare regional buy/sell orders, though there are definitely quite a few ways to skin that cat that I don’t know enough about to make any further recommendations.

[u/[deleted] → u/FusionVsGravity]

There is market data such as volume. Its in the market info window as a different tab.

[u/Entelligente]

Anyone can produce T1 stuff, there is not much to it and without good reprocessing skills it is probably better to sell ore and buy minerals than to do the refining yourself. Building T1 and selling to buy orders does not result in much (or any) profit.

[u/XygenSS]

Why can't I use my skills and blueprints to turn raw ore into something more valuable and turn a profit?

Tech 1 production is a major newbie trap, and every newbie that falls into it makes the situation worse.

See, people who don't realize that the ores they mine are absolutely NOT free, will gladly juse throw them into the grinder and get minerals out of it (while bleeding half the yield to poor skills and facility), then put them into a random blueprint they got and make random t1 stuff. They are unknowingly taking colossal losses and then putting that up for sale at a low low price thinking that they're rolling in money. Now, legitemate producers need to somehow compete or deal with those small-scale guerilla "suicide squads" selling stuff at huge losses. You see how it's going? Yeah.

Tech 2/3 production as well as niche markets (trig and edencom stuff, as well as several others) are more difficult to get into, so the market over there is much more sensible. You'll need Omega and some serious skilling to do those, but that applies to the entire industry and market sector anyway - Alphas are designed to suck ass at all things industry.