Editing Making ISK as an Explorer (section)

=How to best convert loot to ISK? =
Finally, you've got your loot safely to market, now to sell for ISK.  

There are a number of different strategies for realizing ISK, each with different levels of effort, different market places, and different ISK returns.  The strategy you use will also depend on the type of loot: for example, you will treat blueprint copies very differently from loot items with NPC buy orders.  The mix of strategies you use depends on what you are interested in spending time and effort on and on what skills or (industry) facilities you have access to.

==Strategy 1: Selling to buy orders==
Selling to existing buy orders is the simplest method in-game.  Place you item in your in-station item hanger, right-click and select "Sell this item".  Where you sell, however, is vitally important.  The best buy prices in the game are with the biggest trade hubs:
* [https://evemaps.dotlan.net/station/Jita_IV_-_Moon_4_-_Caldari_Navy_Assembly_Plant Jita IV - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Assembly Plant]
* [https://evemaps.dotlan.net/station/Amarr_VIII_(Oris)_-_Emperor_Family_Academy Amarr VIII (Oris) - Emperor Family Academy]
* [https://evemaps.dotlan.net/station/Dodixie_IX_-_Moon_20_-_Federation_Navy_Assembly_Plant Dodixie IX - Moon 20 - Federation Navy Assembly Plant]
* [https://evemaps.dotlan.net/station/Hek_VIII_-_Moon_12_-_Boundless_Creation_Factory Hek VIII - Moon 12 - Boundless Creation Factory]
* [https://evemaps.dotlan.net/station/Rens_VI_-_Moon_8_-_Brutor_Tribe_Treasury Rens VI - Moon 8 - Brutor Tribe Treasury]
For high-volume goods, the buy prices don't differ hugely between these hubs, usually by less than 10%.  For rarer, high-value items, e.g. rare manufacturing components found in some Covert Research Sites, Jita will have significantly better prices.  Because volumes for these are extermely low in the other trade hubs, any buy orders are usually speculative in nature and could be as low as 10% of Jita buy prices.

One challenge the game throws up for explorers far from Jita is that one cannot see in-game what the Jita buy prices are. The "Regional Market" interface only gives the buy orders for the region the player is currently in.  A player can use third-party tools that access the EVE external API to get visibility into orders from across all regions:
* [https://evemarketer.com/ EVEMarketer]
* [https://www.adam4eve.eu/ Adam4EVE]
* [https://evetycoon.com/market EVE Tycoon]

'''The low-risk selling strategy -- choosen by perhaps a majority of explorers in the game -- is to simply transport everything to Jita and sell there.'''

The major exception to the above are those goods that have NPC buy orders associated with them.  These NPC buy orders are at specific stations, generally not trade hubs, and the player buy orders at the trade hubs are nearly always lower:  
* For regular exploration sites, the main examples are the "blue loot" Sleeper components from Sleeper Caches.  Exceptionally, one trade hub with the relevant NPC buy orders is Amarr.  For other regions, look for buy orders with expiry times in excess of 364 days - these cannot be made by players and must be NPC orders.
* Some event exploration sites will yield Overseer's Personal Effects.  These can be sold at CONCORD stations.
* Some events will also have tokens that need to be turned in at specific NPC stations -- see CCP's event information on the Agency tool for details.

==Strategy 2: Buy-back services==
One easy method for quickly realizing ISK from loot is to use what is known as a buy-back service:
# Loot is appraised on the service's external website, using various back-end third-party tools plugged into EVE's external API.  The appraisals are generally some percentage below Jita's highest buy bids.  Some loot may get special treatment in their appraisal.  
# The appraisal is then used as the basis of an in-game contract, where the service provider's alts purchase the loot from the player for the appraisal price, at an agreed location.  
# It is then up to the third party to haul and sell the goods as they see fit.

The different third-party buyback services differ in who they serve, from where they will do pickup and what percentage of Jita buy prices they pay:
* Signal Cartel has a corporate buy-back service [https://carrier-logistics.space/ Carrier Logistics], exlusively for corporation members.  It does buy-back, most of the time, at 90% of Jita buy prices from any of the [[CS:Corporation_Contracts_and_Hangars#Locations|Signal Cartel bases]] in high sec and, unusually since it is a wormhole system, at 80% of Jita buy from [https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Thera#Thera_XII_-_The_Sanctuary_Institute_of_Paleocybernetics Thera XII - The Sanctuary Institute of Paleocybernetics], Signal Cartel's base in Thera.
* The best-known third-party service available to all players is that of [https://highsec.evebuyback.com/ Highsec Buyback].  It, as the name suggests, will buy from all NPC stations in high-security space and has what it terms a "base rate" of 90% of Jita buy orders.  For how the service operates see [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEVrBXCbRj8 this YouTube video from Rushlock].
* There is also a similar buy-back service for low-sec space, called [https://lowsec.evebuyback.com/ Lowsec Buyback], ostensibly [https://forums.eveonline.com/t/lowsec-buyback/319942 using the same technology, but by different players].  There the "base rate" is 70% of Jita buy orders.
Note that you are not guaranteed to be quoted the normal percentage of Jita buy prices, but the appraisal screens should give you enough information to assess the value of the offer.

From a player perspective, these services dramatically reduce the level of effort to realize a significant portion of the ISK available from their loot and '''are likely to be the most time-efficient''' means of doing so.  However, other strategies can yield significnatly more ISK.

==Strategy 3: Selling using sell orders==
Why sell using a sell order?  Outside of Jita, many standard loot items have significant price differences between the cheapest sell orders and the highest buy orders.  Even in Jita, slower-moving items (due to high expense or a fragmented market) will also have such a premium for sell orders.  So placing selected lines of loot on the market using sell orders can provide the explorer with much additional ISK.  

The best prospects for sell orders can be spotted while selling to buy orders. Simplly check the market details for any item where the quoted buy price is well below the market average.  For example, an item with a ''buy'' order that offers 20% ''below'' market average will have ''sell'' orders at about 50% (=1.20/0.80) ''above'' the offered price. (This assumes equal volumes of transactions on the sell orders versus the buy orders.)

The challenge is making the sale with a sell order.  Two things need to happen:
# A buyer needs to make a purchase request for the loot item in question and
# The explorer's sell order needs to be the one with the most competitive price at that time.
Buyers tend to prefer to purchase from one of the main trade hubs -- so most sales are made there and players should ship their goods to these.  For some items, e.g. ship skins and rare faction drops, only Jita has the sales volume to make it viable to sell these items.  The disadvantage of busy trade hubs is that other players with sell orders for the same item will repeatedly modify their orders to undercut your price, ensuring that they, and not you, get the sale.  The main counter is to respond in-kind and relist at a lower price '''or''' wait for the market to clear their stock out, bringing your sell order back to the top of the list.

The above consideration means that the player need to be able to log in a character relatively frequently at a location within the range specified by their Daytrading skill, from where their sell orders are.  The usual strategy is to dedicate one alt to this trading activity, tranferring exploration loot from the exploration alt to the trading alt by means of private contracts. (One region is the maximum range for order re-listing, i.e. with an alt with [https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Skills:Trade#Daytrading Daytrading V] trained up.)

==Strategy 4: Using loot to manufacture high-value items==
The basic idea here is to use exploration loot as the input materials in blueprints, manufacture the blueprint item and sell it on the market.  Since the alternative (for using the blueprint) is to buy the input materials on the open market from sell orders, this is equivalent to selling the same loot using a sell order.  If the blueprint output is easier to sell (as is often the case for higher value items that blueprints create) then this method is, with one caveate, a good way to realize ISK.

The caveat?  Manufacturing with that blueprint has to be profitable if used with input materials sourced from the open market.  Many blueprints are not profitable and using a loss-making blueprint here is worse than selling the loot more directly using a sell order.

Examples: 
* T1 rig blueprints use lower-value salvage materials commonly found in relic sites.  
* T2 rig blueprints use higher tier salvage materials, again from relic sites, and R.A.M. components from Sleeper caches.

==Strategies for blueprint copies==
Before deciding on what to do with your blueprint copies (BPCs), you first need to put a value on them.   Since they are not listed on the regional markets, it is difficult to assess the value of BPCs.  Some techniques to do so include:
# Right-click on the BPC and select "View in Contracts".  The resulting contract search window will show the currently active contracts with that BPC.  Typcially, you will focus on those contracts where the BPC is not bundled in with other items and where the contract is a straight sale rather than auction.  The lowest value contracts will be a reasonable indicator of value, especially if they are fairly new contract offers.  Older contract offers, languishing in the contract market, may well be severely overpriced.  Also double-check that the number of copies in the BPCs on offer match that of yours.
# Right-click on the BPC and select "Use blueprint".  Set the number of manufactured copies to the maximum allowed by the BPC.  With the mouse, hover over the "/" sign to the left of the big BPC icon in the middle -- this will give an estimate of the total cost of the materials needed.  Hover over the icon of the BPC result to see the estimate of the value of the output from the BPC.  The difference between these two values less the manufacturing cost (also listed on the Industry window) is an indicator of the profit and the maximum value that can be extracted from the BPC.
# If you are at a trade hub with the required BPC materials, you can right-click on the "/" and select "Buy All Materials" to see what it would cost at that trade hub to obtain them.  Right click on the icon of the BPC result and select "Market Details" to see what the Sell and Buy orders are set at for the local market.  The profits indiciated by the previous method can differ greatly from this, more realistic method.
# Fuzzwork's [https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprint/ Blueprint Calculator] is a third-party tool for evaluating the profit achievable with a BPC.

===Manufacturing from your BPC===
The last three methods will indicate what profit you may be able to make from manufacturing the goods in the BPC, assuming you have the right manufacturing skills.  If you are able to source the materials more competitively or find a manufacturing facility with lower build costs you may be able to improve your margins.  Don't forget to account for brokerage and sales taxes if you are to use the local market to sell your resulting manufactured items.

===Trading your BPC===
One alternative is to put the BPC up for sale in a contract.  Ideally, this would be done in Jita, to maximise the number of interested buyers.  The BPC market outside Jita is relatively small and fragmented.  Bear in mind that the buyer will wish to make some profit when they manufacture using the BPC.  For a high-demand BPC requiring only Industry Level 1 to manufacture, expect to succeed with a contract offer with a price of no more than 50% of profits obtainable with a Jita sell order and minimum sales and brokerage taxes.  For BPCs that require specialized industry skills to manufacture and produce slowly moving items, expect to realize through the contract system much less than 50% of the manufacturing profits.

A final approach is to use our corporate blueprint buy-back service [[SCRUBS]].  As well as working with a base rate of 50% of Fuzzwork appraisals, flat-rate offers are made for some common exploration BPCs like those for Zeugma Analyzers.


{{Thanks|Gatide Huren|2119427313|both}}