The Basics of Trading

"What is best way to trade? Buy low and sell high, of course!" - by Anonymous Trader "Trading everything there is in game to trade will make you a gazillion ISK" -

Introduction: Why Trade?

Trading is one of the highest income activities in EVE. ISK-generating activities that require harvesting game's resources, such as NPCing and mining, naturally have a cap on their hourly income. This cap is typically somewhere in the range of 10-30 million ISK per hour. Trading obviously has its own limit, as you cannot generate unlimited ISK/hour, however it does offer a much higher cap on how much ISK can be made per same time and effort when compared to other activities in game. It is one of the less time demanding occupations in EVE and can be made as risky or low risk as you would like it to be. And what's more, trading generates ISK even when you are not playing the game. You can be sleeping or on vacation and ISK will be slowly seeping into your wallet.

Given the above, why doesn't everybody in EVE trade then? The answer is simple: not all players find it fun and not all players become successful at it. Being a successful trader who finds trading to be continuously engaging and interesting requires a certain mindset. Some players might find mining relaxing, while others find it excruciatingly boring and frustrating, and similarly not everyone enjoys trading. As you start experimenting with it, keep in mind that it is only a good way of generating ISK for as long as you're having fun doing it.

"Buy Low, Sell High"

Every beginning trader seeking advice on how to best trade will eventually encounter a response that goes something like "buy low, sell high". However, this response only springs more questions to mind. Buy what? Sell where? What is low? And what is high?

Amateur traders may seek answers to these questions from their friends, corpmates, or post make threads in market forums. My advice: don't. It is highly unlikely that a successful trader will reveal their trading secrets to you because ultimately you will turn into a competitor. Trading is unlike other forms of generating ISK in that it can be done completely solo. Unlike mining, running missions, maintaining a POS network, exploration, or ratting in 0.0 space, trading offers very little incentives for traders to band together and help each other out. As such, the mindset of a regular trader is that everyone swims through the murky waters of market on his or her own.

From this follows that if you would like to find some worthwhile opportunities to make ISK trading, you have do your homework yourself. This means spending a few hours doing market research, as well as reading all kinds of guides posted out there on the subject. You can even head to EVE's market forum and lurk there, see if you can pick some information there from success stories of experienced traders. In essence the process of buying and selling things is not very difficult. It is seeing opportunities to buy/sell that is an art.

Types of Trading

This section deal with the "what to trade" question. Everything and anything in EVE that has an ISK value can be traded in this game. And even though trading everything will make you gazillions of ISK because your play time is limited, you will to pick one or a few areas of specialization. Here are some different branches of trading:

• NPC goods trade. This is the most basic method of trading that many newbies start out with. NPC trade goods sell in the "Trade Goods" section of the market. NPCs set up sell orders and buy orders for these at certain price differences that can be exploited to make profit. The down side of this type of trading is that it requires hauling stuff often between two different regions, which is time consuming. The price difference also changes, slowly decreasing as more and more people find out about trade route. Eventually a trade route gets extinguished and traders who have been using it have to find new ones to continue making profits. In empire this activity is very low pay generating maximum of may be 10 million ISK per hour. However the more risky the route is, the more profitable it can be: Making 2.2 Bil ISK a Day in NPC Route (warning probably outdated now)

• Trading Modules For anyone who has ever lived in a region where NPCs do not drop the racial items needed to fit your ship this one is pretty obvious. While T1 non-named and T2 modules can be produced anywhere, named goods are often lacking in regions where they don't drop and can be resold in these places for a markup. You can also trade modules between two trade hubs if you see there is a good discrepancy in prices.

Where to Trade

There are many locations where you can do the buy low, sell high trick. The best way of learning pros and cons of trading at any given location is

• Inter-regional trading. Another very obvious way to trade. Each region offers different resources that other regions might now offer. The demand for these resources in those other regions fuels inter-regional trade. For example, you can buy hybrid weapons cheaper in Gallente space where rats drop them than you can in Amarr space where rats drop only energy weapons. There are Gallente ship pilots who live in Amarr space and will pay extra to not have to fly 20+ jumps to Dodixie or Oursulaert to purchase certain race-specific items for their ships.

• Inter-hub trading