Income and Prices

My first steps were to test out a few ammo to see what and how they sell at different locations. I've found a few popular ammo, and they sell quite well. Location is definitely the key. Some locations are bare, and I set higher prices (at 50% profit), while others have competition, which drives my profits down (to 20%). In either cases, I will make profits. Orders are coming in every few minutes. :)

I've found that hauling minerals for production is annoying. It takes too much of my time. My badger II is not up to the job all the time, and it may take a few jumps before getting all that I need. I've found a solution, however. I place a buy order ahead of time in the station (or solarsystem) where I manufacture. This usually cost slightly more, but removes the need for me to haul it myself.

An interesting event occured as well. The usual range of how much money a customer pays stays within 10K to 60K isk. With this in mind, I was surprised with an order of 550K isk. I had to investigate. Upon contacting the customer, I've found that he was a manufacturer like me as well and that he sells the same product, too. So, why did he buy my stuff in such a large quantity? Apparently he saw my price as very low, and bought it all off at one location to sell for a much higher price later on. He further claimed to have such location not very far off from where he bought my stuff. According to my market research the price I set at the station was not too low, but only slightly lower than the rest. It may be that the orders were canceled or bought out, but it is more likely that he simply found a system nearby of which I am not aware of.

Fun stuff.

Next step is to scale up production of the popular ammo, and cover more territory, so that such cases as above will happen less in the future.