This guide will teach how to use the EVE Online Market, with everything from making ISK to buying at the best prices. People who do market selling are either NPC corporations, or player characters. You, too, can do market selling, but making a good market profit takes more effort than just selling to whoever you find. This guide will help teach some ways to increase EVE Online market profits.
The Basics of Making Profit
When one buys an item in the market view, one is accepting a market price set by another player character, or by an NPC corporation that is selling this item in the market. You'll notice that different prices are available from different station markets.
To sell an item, put it into your station hangar (click the Items tab on the left), right-click an item, and choose "sell" to make it appear in the market. A window will pop up asking how much you're willing to sell it in the market for, and how long you want it to be available for purchase.
The strategy for making a market profit comes from where you sell it and how much you sell it for. In general, if an item is widely available in a region and you sell it for a much higher price than most other people are selling it for in the market, it's unlikely that anyone will buy it. But if your price is too low, you might be missing an opportunity to make more money from that sale.
The availability of an item in a region's market is also important to consider. Trying to sell an item in the market that nobody is selling nearby might mean that nobody is interested in buying that item, or it might mean that that item is difficult to acquire and therefore very valuable.
Check for Buyers
Sometimes one can find buyers who want to buy your items for much higher prices than most people are selling in the market it for. It's unlikely to happen, because most buyers will not spend a lot of money on an item that they can easily get cheaply in the market, and because if someone were offering to buy it for a high price, some other seller might make that sale first.
Look around, though, to find regions of space where an item will sell in the market for a higher price than what was paid. An item that is cheap in one region might be hard to come by in another. But remember: if you buy something at a low price and want to make a profit from its sale, a selling price has to be more than twice the amount paid. That way, one can get more money than one started with.
Choosing the Station from which to Sell
Where to sell your items? Pick a market of a station that has a lot of traffic and a lot of pilots, or, at the very least, in a station that's in a solar system with many pilots and lots of traffic. If you're selling something at a station or system where nobody really hangs out, your items might not sell very quickly, if at all, unless you're selling it for a price that is quite a bit lower than what others are selling it for.
Also consider what you're selling. In a system where a lot of combat occurs, it's possible to sell weapons and ammunition for fairly good prices, particularly in a station where there are agents who tend to offer mostly encounter missions. If you're selling ore, find a station of a mining corporation and sell there.
Setting the Price
Don't set a price so high that nobody will be willing to pay it, but don't set your selling price so low that a good profit is impossible.
Check your local market to see how much people are selling an item for nearby. Usually, don't set your price higher than this, but it might not be a good idea to sell it for a price below the selling price of everyone else. A pilot might still buy what you're selling even if it's not cheapest in that region.
The key thing to remember is that pilots are lazy. If there are a many same types of items for sale in a station's market but different prices, it's almost certain that someone will buy your item if your price is the lowest in that station's market. This isn't always to your advantage, but sometimes prices in a station's market are much higher than they are in most of a region, so there is still a decent profit.
Adjusting your price
If you find that other items for sale in the market have dropped in price and your asking price is no longer competitive, it might be necessary to modify your market sell order via your Wallet. A broker fee is required to do this, so try to set the best price in the first place.
Reducing market costs
Setting up a market sell order costs money. However, there are some Trade skills one can train to reduce these costs. Broker Relations will reduce broker fees, and Accounting reduces transaction tax.