Setting up a Market Trading Alt

It was an idea formed after reading the blog Merchant Monarchy. Previously all my sales had been handled by each character with only one having any decent trading skills.

All that changed when I started reading Merchant Monarchy and realised I should invest time and an alt slot in creating a market trading. The, fairly recent, introduction of Dual Character Training meant I now could train another character without having to stop training on a main character.

Plan

I worked out that my only costs would consist of:

• skill books
• increased clone limit of 7m SP
• a couple of jump clones 
• PLEX for each month I want to train

I figured no more than 3 months of PLEX would be needed (EVE Mon was used to plan the skill queue) and there were only a few skill books needed. I should be able to setup a character for no more than a 2 billion investment.

Result

Well just under 2 billion ISK and three PLEX later the trading alt is now living in Jita with jump clones in two other locations where I sell items.

The Trading skills I've got are now at the following levels:

• Accounting V
• Broker Relations V
• Contracting IV
• Corporation Contracting IV
• Daytrading V
• Margin Trading IV
• Marketing IV
• Procurement IV
• Retail V
• Trade V
• Tycoon V
• Wholesale V

And these are enough for my alt, I don't do many buy orders so Margin Trading IV is enough and anything I do buy I tend to get direct from Jita market. 305 sell slots mean I can do a lot of selling, not just in Jita but at the other two locations I plan to.

Moving Assets

I've used Red Frog Freight as well as my own Transportation characters to move stuff to and from jita without issue. Contracts can be setup remotely far from the items and Courier contracts mean things can get transported quickly and efficiently.

Saving Money

The Accounting and Broker Relations skills alone have saved me several hundred million ISK in fees, so worthwhile and having one character control all my buying and selling is much better for my own sanity as I no longer have to remember which character has what to sell/buy.

It may have cost almost 2 billion ISK to setup but I've very nearly recouped that investment in less than 3 months of use. I really wish I'd setup a Market Trading alt earlier.