Newcomer / Intro Why am I making a loss on the black market

rekikire

R
I'm pretty new to the game and decided to become a slaver. I bought a bunch of imperial slaves cheaply and found a station that would take them off my hands. So when I went ot the black market the price showed as 19,080 and I thought I was going to make a nice profit.


138953


And the demand they have is more than the amount that I have to sell.

So I go to sell and see the following.

138954


Why are they saying they're going to pay 19,080, but only paying 14,310?

What am I doing wrong?
 

Krieger

Krieger
You are supposed to sell them on the normal market in stations where they are legal.

All items sell at a loss on the black market if you bought them from a normal market. The black market pays 3/4 of legal price (or was it 2/3 ?). Only items salvaged illegally from space or planet surfaces sell at a profit on a black market because you got them for free (unless you damaged your ship to get them).
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
I normally sell Narcotics and others for profit at black markets. Probably not a lot, but I'm not doing it for profit.
 

Codger

Codger
It has a bit of a strange design. You'd think that you'd get paid more for smuggling illegal stuff in, and selling on the black market. But you don't.

You can make a reasonable profit on Imperial Slaves by picking them up in Empire space (where they are legal) and delivering to certain other stations (where they are also legal). Example, Ehecatl system, Murdoch Dock to Bestii system, Bickel Station will get you about 3000 Cr/ton at the moment. Prices change with state, of course. Boom is good.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Codger said:
It has a bit of a strange design. You'd think that you'd get paid more for smuggling illegal stuff in, and selling on the black market. But you don't.
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Umm, it's not actually that strange. Drugs do work like that IRL, but other than that, no. Go to a fence or a pawnshop to sell a stolen item and they will pay you much less than the item's market price. They are taking a cut for added risk.
Things certainly are more expensive to BUY on black market, but Elite does not have this functionality.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
It's a bug.

If you for example accept Cargo as Mission Reward and then proceed to sell it, it'll also commonly state "Loss : xxx.xxx Cr" despite being 100.0% profit.

I can only assume that the display compares your selling price to Galactic Average and attempts to indicate if your profits will be sub-par - erroneously displaying this as a net loss.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
FalconFly said:
It's a bug.

If you for example accept Cargo as Mission Reward and then proceed to sell it, it'll also commonly state "Loss : xxx.xxx Cr" despite being 100.0% profit.

I can only assume that the display compares your selling price to Galactic Average and attempts to indicate if your profits will be sub-par - erroneously displaying this as a net loss.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is partly right and partly a bug but in a different sense (as far as I understand it)
Market looking at the galactic average and telling you that you will earn less than a galactic average is definitely a thing and it's mostly working as intended. As the black barket buys goods at some fraction of GA price, it will show as a "loss". That's what it means and it is exactly what's happening in OP's case.

The "bug" is, AFAIK, that sometimes the market compares GA prices and telling you a loss even if you salvaged the thing (i.e. got it for free), in which case the "loss" thing doesn't make sense.
(Though it kind of does, too, because ultimately, the market vendor doesn't KNOW how you got the items)
 

Cannabal

Cannabal
Lesson learned, I'm so glad I found this!
I know I'm late to the party, but I still wanted to say thanks for the explanation; I was getting some kinda tired of (and frustrated by) the financial losses anytime I thought I'd try smuggling purchased goods into systems where they are banned.
 
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