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TCS: Blue Space, New Place.

I moved one of my TCS alts to Sujarento back when I moved from 7-2 to Snuff Box. The reason was a simple one. Bosena was hovering around 400-500 items. Over the summer things had slowed down and I was delisting dozens of items every few days. I've never picked up the habit of remembering to check my market orders to edit them to keep them listed. I sometimes remember but I'm not good at it. The nature of my market is to stock things every few days. The nature of the market interface to re-list items is absolutely terrible and miserable when you have to click through dozens of items and reset each one.

Two alts could handle the orders that I was able to maintain and I let my third account and third alt drop their subscription. I was deeply wrapped up in the CSM and I did not have the time or energy to manage things as I had before. I figured at some point I would catch up, become grounded and comfortable in my new position and pick things back up.

Instead, I left 7-2 and things spiraled a bit more out of control. By September, frustrated with my stack of items that never sold I shipped all of the product that just sat there to Sujarento. It was mostly frigate and destroyer type items and meta stuff. I had been running a basic market off of my personal market alt (who is not a TCS employee) since I switched over. But, TCS was sitting on a few billion ISK in stock. I wrote a contract to black frog and moved it all. I then went off to the Summit and promptly forgot about everything until sometime in October. Eventually, I resubscribed the account with the TCS alt with nothing listed in Bosena and shipped her off to Sujarento to buffer that market.

That is why my market discussion developed two layers to it over the second half of 2014. I was running two very different and separate markets. It absorbed the finicky free time that I had and it was very, very interesting.

However, my split attention did not cause ether of these markets to thrive. Bosena suffered what it had always suffered and that was the flavor of the month meta. I would go four months without selling a single missile only for missile fleets to become popular for three weeks again. Damage controls would delist of all random things or I'd find myself in a war with shuttle relisters who would come through buy my shuttles and relist them at a million a piece. Million ISK shuttles are a common sight in low sec and one of those things that sets me to growling deep in my chest.

It cannot be overlooked that the area of space that a player lives in  For someone familiar with faction warfare space or who has spent their game time in faction warfare low sec, many of my comments and observations may seem obvious. However, they are not obvious. I have long promoted the fact that faction warfare and non faction warfare low sec were two distinct beasts. I believe that the separation is healthy and improves the over all quality of low sec. But it means that what is obvious and a matter of common sense in one area of space is not in another.

In Molden Heath I put every destroyer on the market. Over the course of time I cut that down to three types. The odd man out of the group was the Talwar, for occasional fleets of them would be desired. Beyond that I stuck to Catalysts and Thrashers for gankers and even they often sat and delisted. It was very much a mood usage.

In Sujarento I have broader usage across smaller hulls. One may say, "Of course Sugar." While I may know that, experiencing it still fascinates me. There is hope for the eventual sale of my complete accidentally purchased Dragoon Army. With the use of complexes for fights, the fragility of T1 frigates and gateguns are not deciding factors in what someone will roam in. And oh! How many afterburners I sell. It boggles the mind.

Over this last weekend I have sold almost two hundred small trimarks. With more people and a different type of combat going on, more stuff sells. With Sujarento fully stocked and the Caldari and Gallente back at war, I am turning over about a billion ISK in product a day. The peaks and dips between the week days and weekends are not as pronounced.

Battleships occasionally move and then mostly to corpmates who want something right now. Battlecruisers flit in and out but the market is solidly in cruisers and frigates of all types. I have not fully figured out the ebb and flow of the market but I am starting to get a feel for it. I have to learn my alliances habits. I then have to learn the locals habits and needs.

I am also recovering from a series of errors during my first few days of listing. I made a tremendous number of typos and mistakes to the tune of about a billion ISK over the three or so days that it took me to get everything relisted. I was to angry to concentrate and to frazzled to make good decisions. Like stopping.

And down at the end... my idea of reasonable prices and regional improvement has not changed. I just need to figure out a better methodology.

Comments

  1. Why selecting Sujarento which is 2 jumps deep inside losec and not Tama which is losec just at the frontier of hisec? My noob instinct tells me the latter could be easier to stock no?
    Anyway, I am more or less into trading too on 2 of my recent chars and would love to explore losec. I was much nearer from Bosena than Sujarento, but well: would you like some help and share a section of your item list with another not-so-greedy player?
    If you say maybe, I may consider dropping anonymity... (Btw, don't worry - if not the player - the toon already perfectly fits the store marketing line).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are a couple reasons why you typically see the markets a few jumps into low. In terms of the ease of stocking a market, a direct connection to high sec can actually be a hindrance.

      First, jump freighters can directly move to any low/null system within 10 lightyears (you can jump from highsec directly to a station) so being directly attached to a highsec system doesn't matter.

      Second, high/low connections are often gate camped. So directly moving to the station via a cyno and jump freighter is less risky then trying to carry goods through gates. This often makes stocking high sec connected systems via gates much riskier.

      Delete
    2. Where you put your market has a lot of factors.

      The most important to me is convenience. I need to not be so busy trying to figure out the optimal path that I wind up not wanting to even go there and do work. So, I station my market out of where I live.

      Tama station is not a good station to undock in. I'd be at a higher risk stocking it. If I ran markets purely for ISK this might be worth it to me. Tama is also full of gatecamps. Gate camps irritate and frustrate me to no end. I don't get them.

      Bosena was next door to high sec. That did help. But, I've run markets in different locations. The access to high sec is good but it is not integral to the success of the market.

      I'm more than willing to share. I often list things so that they are there in case its needed because I feel responsible for the completeness of the market. If someone wants to come in and take over ammunition for instance I won't chase them out of the market by under cutting. I'll simply keep my orders up as a cap on the market so to speak.

      Delete
    3. Thanks for the info.

      Ammo? Why not... Sneaking a Hoarder into losec may prove entertaining if not profitable... I'll certainly make an appearance in the area then, though I still have to choose the toon to do it... (My main is happy in nullsec atm.)

      I'll keep you informed... ;-)

      Delete
  2. Sugar,

    I'm still always suprised by just how similiar our philosphies towards selling are, particularly towards people undercutting you. It's also interesting to see the changes to your store since you moved into a FW area, as that is also my primary buyers as well.

    I'm not quite large enough yet to be able to afford my own JF and still maintain current stock levels, but I'm slowing approaching the point where the store (and not myself personally) will be able to afford the JF to continue. Until then, I have finally reached the point where contracting out the hauling via JF has become a worthwhile investment, not only in terms of ISK, but also very much so in terms of my time saved. I was making near daily Jita runs to maintain stock levels and it was not only eating up all my time, but burning me out.

    I do have to say though, I never considered 497 copies of Pax Amarria to be a worthwhile item to stock (joke intended, and I'm fairly sure that was listed by someone other than yourself anyways.)

    Keep on keeping on, and remember, TCS is Sugar, not the system that it is in :)

    ReplyDelete

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