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Space Trucking Problem.

I spent some time doing some bad math. What I have been trying to do is use public courier contracts to decrease my overhead with TCS. This comes back to the office problem. I figured if I could skim ISK off of the transport costs of Red Frog I could pour them into the office fee and keep everything as it is with running TCS.

The biggest barrier I have experienced is the fact that my contracts are off the beaten path. I often hear people say their public contracts are picked up in hours and moved. Well, when doing moves between hubs that is true. I don't move between hubs. I move from a hub to a random place in space. It is only five jumps away from Rens but it is still somewhat far away.

And this makes my poor little marketeering heart sad.

My problem is how many contracts I make. I'm up to about a dozen a week. A billion ISK is my top. As I write this I am about to restock about three billion ISK in items. I have a billion ISK waiting in Teon to be stocked that only arrived in the last hours of the three day contract.

I've also realzied something else. My courier path leads through not one but two ganking systems.

This was made clearer as I was doing a hauling run myself and landed on the Aufey gate. Two Machariel landed directly after me and jumped. I was not fast enough to catch the pilot information.

Was it innocent or not? Machariels are popular mission boats after all. Yet there I was, frozen in place wondering if I was jumping to my gank. I warped off, checked the killboard, gave it an hour and continued on my way. I have a market to keep stocked after all.

The Machariel incident made me realize that my contracts may look even worse.

Maybe I need to seperate modules and hulls. That way every single contract will not require  freighter?

Anyway, I did have a nice conversation with plo of Gallactic Hauling Solution's about the state of contracts for space trucking corporations.

Anyway, back to the drawing board.

Comments

  1. OK I'm presuming you're doing Jita -> Teon - which Red Frog charge 17.4m ISK for.

    Rens -> Teon is 4.8m ISK.

    So if you can get the stuff shipped on public contract from Jita -> Rens for less than 12.6m ISK you've saved money. In my experience, that's very doable, and most of them get picked up very quickly.

    Personally I'd probably just do Rens -> Teon myself, as 5 jumps isn't tying up a client for a long time, and I guess the route is reasonably Gank-free.

    Quick tip - put the whole package up on a corp contract from Jita -> Teon, and then subcontract that package for the separate runs. When your package arrives in Rens, everything is still in one package and you can right click -> find contract to check you're sending the right things to the right places.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good call. I've been thinking Jita to Rens and then moving it myself instead of contracting again. I'm thinking to small and personally dependent. A few extra steps but a potentially large savings.

      Delete
    2. Might wanna consider Jita to Hek. That's a shorter trip for the courier and Hek is one jump closer to Teon than Rens is too.

      Me I tend to just ship direct to Teon if Teon is where I want it all in the end. But my contracts between main hubs tend to be *at least* 2 billion collateral and I'll pay 20 million on a public courier contract like that maybe 25 mil if it's a really big contract (4 billion+). Nearly always delivered within 12 hours and usually much faster than that.

      Delete
  2. Try setting up buy orders in Rens. People live and work in Minmatar zones and mostly shop there. They sell spare ships and modules. There are industrialists living there. You can even stock cheaper than in Jita via Rens buy orders.

    The only downside is that those orders fill up slow and randomly. But if you end up with excess, you can sell in Rens.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Who asked you gevlon

      Delete
    2. I think I'd be the one who asked since it was public.

      Delete
    3. Hush Gevlon, stop giving away buyer secrets.

      Just kidding though he's absolutely right about that.

      Delete
  3. Also, try PushX. Their costs are generally lower than Red Frog, plus they offer blockade runner contracts to lowsec for cargo 9k m3 or less, as well as a lot more nuanced options for regular runs than Red Frog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, my only problem with PushX was speed in my Jita to Twin route. If I'm going to restructure my shipping altogether time is being given up for ISK savings.

      Delete
    2. They do have a Rush service. At least one market blogger I know advocates paying the extra isk to get it shipped within the 24 hr period

      Delete
    3. Yeah but he is doing margins trading within small windows. Expodited service is like 40 mil last time I looked? I turn over well but that would suck any profit I made dry and zibuse the profit to expand the store.

      Delete
    4. Seriously just use public courier contracts, a lot of the time the pilot who picks it up is with RFF, PushX or one of the other courier corps anyhow.

      The difference is you don't have choose one corps, whoever's the fastest to pick it up gets it.

      Delete
    5. Mox, the problem, as Sugar has already stated, is that the public contracts are not getting the stuff to her. They might be faster hub to hub, but if I read her post correctly, the public contracts are failing from hub to hinterland.

      Delete
    6. I disagree, I ship direct to Teon fairly often. And though most of my shipments don't take much cargo space that's not true of all of them. I shipped a couple faction battleships out to Teon just a week or so back.

      I think her problem is something else, too large a cargo or not paying enough are most likely IMO.

      Anyhow I made a post about making public courier contracts work.

      http://merchantmonarchy.blogspot.ca/2014/07/making-courier-contracts-work-for-you.html

      Delete
    7. I've done 10m for public contracts with a bit collateral from Jita to Teon. Yes my shipments are bulky. I move a lot of hulls these days.

      Now what I can do is seperate modules and hulls. I didn't have to for red frog but it will probably get my public ones moved faster.

      Delete
    8. That explains it, you're lowballing too much.

      You're only paying about 435k per jump. RFF charges 17.4 mil for the same trip, about 746k per jump.

      I'd suggest try sending shipments paying 500, 666 and 750 per jump and see how that works out for you.

      Or better yet send a 3-4 billion collateral shipment paying 25-30 million. Over 1 million per jump usually gets it delivered fast even with the higher collateral.

      Delete
  4. Your adventure in Aufey could have been either as code does operate in that system, but over the weekend half of the incursion community was moving through that system to a new focus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The killboard didn't say ganking but oh the sweet paranoia!

      Delete
  5. Are you posting the contracts in Haulers Channel?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yup? Maybe I need to spam more?

    ReplyDelete
  7. THeir's a Haulers Channel?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup. Its called Haulers Channel. They have a forum post. Its about connecting shipments to haulers.

      Delete
    2. So, as an Independant hauler, it would be worth my while joining?

      Delete

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