So my friend wants me to start playing this game, and says a good thing to do to make money early game is trading. Buy low, sell high, play the market, etc. Thats all well and good, I have somewhat of a background in economics so I understand the concepts, but what I don't know is how to find out what in the game moves quickly. What has good trade volume, what has a good profit margin, and what items are volatile VS what items are stable on a day to day trend. I was hoping an experienced player would be able to help me out with some information on what items I should start selling with my limited capital and skill points, and eventually what I should be looking forward to once I become a more experienced player. Any information at all will help. Thanks!

Advice - as a starting player you will not have the required capital to turn a profit. I advise running missions or mining. I think your friend is probably poor himself if he thinks that is a good idea :/

Also to further assist you with some advice... Trading doesn't turn a very decent profit till you have proper standings and trade skills along with the capital i mentioned above

This post was edited by aeroswat on Feb 19 2012 07:16pm

you start with 5k isk. That isnt enough to buy a single mod lol. Unless you want to try and flip ammo. Which in turn still wont be worth it.

Take aero's advice, he hit it right on the head.

if u wana merchant... u will need like starting capital 500m min

do this buy contracts with multiple items, only faction ...
example a ctontract for 5 x true sansha web for 300m after sell all single for 70m ... u get 50m profit...

lets say my capital is about 500m. My skills are training and will be for the remainder of the week and a little bit into next week. I know that nothing in the game is attainable until after a week or so of skill training. I've played before a long time ago. You've all brought up valid points, but unfortunately my questions weren't answered. What items are good for trading, and which items are not? You mentioned standings, and that sounds like a viable point, but you mentioned nothing about what I might have to do in order to get into any standings with anyone. I like JSP in the fact that there is a broad spectrum of people who have knowledge, but what I don't understand is why people need to contribute nothing but negativity and dismissal. Instead of saying what a trash ass player you think my friend is based off information you don't even have, and telling me I'm doomed to fail, I would recommend instead offering information and advice that would actually help me out. mIgY is the only one that offered any kind of helpful information, the rest was just vague concepts and useless negativity. I play Diablo 2 and Dungeon Defenders, and I'm on JSP for them as well, and I've been here since 2007 despite what my profile claims, I simply lost the logon for my old Squeezy102 account. When I have information and I see someone asking for it, I load them up with whatever it is that i know in order to best help them enjoy their gaming experience. This snobby "LOL you noob, gtfo" attitude is a real stain on this forum's reputation, and its people like you that really stop people from getting the most out of the games they play. If you have any real information to provide, I'd be forever grateful, but if all you have at your disposal is derogatory remarks and dismissive attitude, I'd kindly ask you to keep your comments to yourself.

Im not trying to be a dick.
But this is tl:dr

I saw what i bolded and heres my input.

You are suppose to figure this out. Thats what trading is all about. No one (at lease in their right mind, or unless they are scamming you via market games) will tell you whats hot and whats not. Unless like i said, they have a ton of an object and plan on flooding the market, the may tell you its a hot item and you'll will just buy it up at their price. Only to see it plum-it.
Eve is hard and unfair. If you want to play fair, then in the words of my friend: Go play hello kitty online.

Well then I suppose I'm a better gamer, more polite, and more helpful than both you and your friend. Its a game, after all. Meant to be enjoyed by all who play it, difficult as it may be. If the people at the top choose not to help those who are only beginning, that's one thing, and one person's opinion. Fortunately for me, not all players are as selfish as you and your friend, and I will eventually find someone who will help me out. It may not be on JSP, it may not be for a few months, but there are players who are still helpful and selfless. Its just too bad that online games have become flooded with selfish, off-putting scum like you and your friend. I'll find what I'm looking for, thank you for your opinions, as useless as they are.

>add> Also, spell check may do you some good. Education would be equally helpful.

This post was edited by stg3barx on Feb 20 2012 12:31am

The best way to make isk without any big skills when u start is to salvage.
Salvaging is the process to get materials from wrecks, using a SALVAGER.

For that you need a DESTROYER (of your race) and to fit it with 8 salvagers.
But wrecks don't come from nowhere... You have to either
-ask in local (in a mission hub) for someone to let you salvage their wrecks
-probe the ships that are missionning and warp to them it.
to probe ships you need an expanded core probe launcher and combat scanner probes (4).

probing guide:

Economies of scale are the biggest deterrent to making profit off of the market in EVE online. Some people have been playing and manufacturing for a long time and have lots of capital and advantages to work with.
Economics in EVE online is PVP too.

The best description of EVE online's economy using real world economic terms would be perfectly competitive because products are homogeneous and demand for individual manufacturer's products are perfectly elastic since no one manufacturer makes a module any better than another.
A 10MN MWD II is the same regardless of who makes it.....in a perfectly competitive market the firm will sell as much product as they put on the market if they put it on the market at market price.
However not all manufacturers are the same and old players can make more of the modules faster while using less materials, all while paying less tax and less production costs.

But don't be discouraged! EVE online has a free market, much more laissez-faire than real world economics and there are plenty of opportunities.

If you're just thinking about buying a bunch of one thing one place and taking it somewhere else to sell for more then I have to say that nothing comes easy and that you should find mission hubs for upper level mission runners and sell essential things like ammo at an inflated price. I haven't really tried that myself it seems like a good place to start.

I gave you advice (run missions). If you played at all before like you said then you should know this is how you achieve standing. Shit just by doing the tutorial it should give you that information so what this has told me is you are too damn lazy to do anything for yourself. Why the fuck should I help you any further than steering you in the right direction? I'm glad you are ignorant because it allows for easy kills in Eve.

Botted makes a good point as well. Who in the hell would tell you what's hot on the market? That would be dipping into their own profits and eventually cutting them down to 0 if you are successful enough. Something tells me you are in your early teens and smoke pot all day long. You children have a sense of entitlement like the world owes everything to you on a silver platter. Grow up and do something for yourself and quit asking people to hand feed you things. Before you ask and call other people assholes take your fucking ship out of the station and fly your ass to a market hub where someone is going to buy something from you (aka Jita).

You sir are more dumb than a bag of rocks.