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TCS: Downsides

I assign this under the TCS label of posts but it is not quite a TCS post. It is about markets however. When I write I try to write about both the good and the bad. It is easy to trim posts and filter events. But, I dislike that type of manipulation, even when it benefits me (In this case making me look like a market genius that never gets a thing wrong). I don't care for being wrong or unsuccessful but documenting my Eve life is going to have to include the bad with the good, silly, and random.

My market is successful. However, after we returned from Nalvula I noticed an unexpected price of success. Last year I noticed that people had moved into Bosena and randomly sold stacks of things. Often high volume items like fuel and ammo, undercutting my sales. Not being a trader, I do not use many of the tools that are available to hunt down where items may sell. That is when I discovered that Bosena had become a large enough blip to attract some market hunters.

What I discovered upon the return from our Nalvula deployment was that people were selling boosters as well. My booster trade has never been profitable but I built it up from begging people to buy them from me to selling them at a regular and steady rate in Bosena that paid for itself. I never asked more of it. I rarely do of my projects. This may be why I'm not rolling in the dozens of billions. But, it was after the Nalvula deployment that I realized my boosters were not selling at all. They had delisted while I was gone and when I went to restock them I saw that I had been undercut by someone else.

My Cult of Reasonable prices normally keeps me pretty even tempered about being undercut. The difference with my booster sales is that they are one of my personal projects vs a TCS project. The entire reason I first started making boosters was to create a steady supply for my corpmates. There are booster sellers out there but many shroud themselves with a cloak of mystery. None of said sellers were close enough for convenience and trying to find my way in the game and prove my value and worth as a corpmate, I undertook to make and sell boosters since it seemed to be a needed niche. Then someone told me that I'd quit because everyone quit. I didn't like that person very much. I also didn't like being told I'd fail at a project.

I'm still making boosters.

However, I also have to admit that I am hemorrhaging money on them now. I've had almost nothing move for three months. My researched BPO's are not moving that quickly and now the new industry changes mean that I will be paying to use my own research slots.

Yeah... no.

I'll have to accept the new ISK sink that is POS when it comes to making boosters. I'm not going to stop. I pretty much refuse to. I'm not particularly good at abandoning something I have decided to undertake (as in I won't). But, one must be reasonable. ISK does not pour from the heavens no matter how many rain dances I do try out. This means that I am going to go back down to a medium tower. I upgraded to a large for labs and flexibility to try other things. I don't think any of those things are paying the fuel bill. I've gone long periods of time without my boosters moving. This is not a new situation to be in. But, it is one that can continue for longer than is necessary.

My baseline goal is to have boosters available for the boys. My second goal is to have that at a reasonable rate. This may have been the founding seed of my market concept. With people undercutting me in my own market (how possessive I am!) I could undercut them back. However, I'd lose money. I am not part of the booster in crowd. I know it exists. I simply do not exist to it. I don't produce so much that I can buy in bulk or at huge discounts.

Instead, I will eat the cost of my own success.

It doesn't taste overly bad.

These are the side effects of a stationary market. No one ever said that it was a right to succeed in Eve. No project is guarantied to go as you wish it would go. It is something I've thought of a lot of late. My POCOpire may be under some heat in the near future. I'm not pleased at the prospect. My POCO are not my right to have. Not even for my glorious ideas of improving regions and making space more livable for others. If I want to have that goal I have to make it happen. That means that there is no obligation to anyone to leave my POCO alone just because I feel like having regional improvement projects. If their idea is glorious monopoly of market and POCO that is their right to have and their effort to create. Or, if they don't like my corp any asset with my corp or alliance ticker is a target.

My sandcastles are not kicked over. I will say I'm having a bit of an issue sculpting some of the turrets to my exact satisfaction. Yet, that is the appeal. The fact that I have these situations to deal with is a testament to what I have created. And, welp... that's the game of Eve that I play.

Comments

  1. I've been selling boosters in Bosena over the last couple of months, so not knowing what markets you sell at or at what price, I may be the one (or one of the ones) undercutting you. :)

    I started making boosters because it was something dark and mysterious, the criminal underbelly of Eve. And I only started selling boosters in Bosena shortly after I started producing them because an old corp mate of mine was living out there and wanted boosters delivered. He's long since left the area (he often lamented about 7-2 shooting up him and his corp) but the boosters sold well, so I kept on supplying them.

    So through luck and happenstance I rode on your coat tales and filled a booster vacuum that got left behind during your deployment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there! How are you?

      I'm pretty sure in January I had an interesting mixture of Vacation + Deployment + Having a hard time getting supplies.

      The boys where all ordering huge stacks of the popular stuff and I was having a hard time getting the gas on the market. Such is the life of not having any contacts. Bosena suffered so that I might supply my corp and now I'm dealing with the fall out.

      Such is Eve. I've encouraged them to buy the cheaper boosters instead of paying more to me. It is probably stupid but I'm pretty stuck on my best prices concept.

      Thank you for posting. :)

      Delete
  2. That awkward moment when your dealers meet each other....

    ReplyDelete

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