How to Fix “Not enough customers” in Cities Skylines 2

Understanding the Production Chain

To gain control over your city’s economy, it’s essential to understand how production works.

If you have an excess of something, check the production chain to see if you can convert it into a more valuable resource.

For example, I produce a surplus of grain:

If I click on grain, I can see that grain can turn into petrol:

But if I scroll down to look at petrol, it seems I import a lot of it:

So ideally, I should zone new industry and/or demolish companies until I find one that creates petrol from grain.

That business should then thrive in my city.

Exporting raw materials like grain may not be profitable.

However, setting up a supply chain (like above) to produce higher-value products can benefit your city’s companies and help them level up.

A Hands-Off Approach

You can influence which industries appear in your city by using taxation and subsidies effectively.

For instance, if you want to promote the automobile industry, you can subsidize automobiles to attract those companies to your city.

This will encourage automobile companies to spawn in your new developments.

This will create a domino effect and boost demand for automobile manufacturing components.

Eventually, you can tax automobiles once the resulting industries have been established.

To expedite the domino effect, you’d probably want to look at what materials are necessary for automobile production, and subsidize all of those as well.

An alternative hands-off approach is to avoid designating entire zones for commercial or industrial purposes all at once.

This helps prevent the risk of oversaturating the area with businesses of the same type, as illustrated by our friend’s experience with the furniture stores.

How to Fix “Not enough customers” in Cities Skylines 2

I have this supermarket that complains about not enough customers.

It sells “Food” but I also have a lot of fast food companies nearby.

Fast food is a different resource, but perhaps it’s competing with our supermarket.

Now, if I check the production tab, I see that food can be consumed by more than just cim consumers.

It can also be used by other retail outlets, and converted into “Meals” or “Lodging”:

I have two electronic shops next to this supermarket, so lets demolish one until I get a company that produces Meals or Lodging.

To make this easier, I can subsidize Meals or Lodging to increase the chance they appear.

There we go! This Donut Shop will utilize food and sell meals.

Now, for the big question—will it fix the “Not enough customers” error?

After about 20 seconds, the supermarket no longer complains!

Conclusion

Managing your city’s economy in Cities: Skylines 2 requires careful planning and attention to detail.

Use taxation, subsidies, and the production chain effectively to create a thriving and balanced city.

Remember that profit drives all businesses and they will reinvest profits to level up the building.

This creates less burden on water/electric, higher salaries for employees, and requires higher education positions to be filled.

Travel costs eat into profits now, so you ideally never want to import or export as shipping costs a lot.

So, as an overarching strategy, periodically check the resources that are being imported, and try to minimize that.

References