InCities: Skylines 2, commercial zones are where residents and tourists alike do their shopping. From time to time though, you may see little icons appear above the buildings stating that there are not enough customers. This can be confusing, especially when your city has a high demand for commercial zones.

There is more than meets the eye in the commercial demand bar though; you can’t just zone giant stretches of stores. In this guide, we are going to go over how to deal with not having enough customers in commercial zones, as well as how the commercial zone demand bar should be interpreted.

cities skylines 2 zone demand bar highlighted

What Does The Commercial Demand Bar Mean?

When your low-density residential zoning bar fills up, this means that you can zone more of this building type and houses will start to spawn. While this will happen to commercial zones as well, there are someother factors that you need to keep in mind.

The commercial demand bar may be a bit misleading if your city is currently facing the problem of not having enough customers. The’Not Enough Customers' icon can appear on shops that are located far from residential zones,which means that citizens maynot have a reason to travel that far from home.

cities skylines 2 customer density in city

With the commercial zones far from housing, residents will demand more. This creates a demand,while still having an issue with not enough customers.In this situation, there is demand, but instead of zoning even more commercial areas,it’s best to relocate the existing zones.

Which City Areas Have Commercial Demand?

From the Info Views menu, you can view your city with acommercial zone filter.This will show all the commercial buildings, as well as the suitability for stores in town. Additionally, you can seeareas of your city that have a lot of customers.

Areas that are green havea lot of customers.These are locations that wouldbenefit from more stores, as there are plenty of customers around.Locations that appear white or yellow don’t have as many customers though; if stores are located here, they maysuffer from not enough customers.

cities skylines 2 textile store with not enough customers

Commercial Building Types

In the first Cities: Skylines game, you didn’t really have to worry about individual goods sold by stores. In Cities: Skylines 2 though,there are different types of commercial buildings that sell a variety of goods.This creates aproduction chainthat leads to your industry.

Let’s take a look at produce as an example. You can zone industrial farm areas thatgenerate produce that can be exported, as well as sold in the city.With a lot of excess produce, commercial zones may be populated with a lot ofgrocery stores.

cities skylines 2 street view of city with stores and cars lining road

With that, you now havea bit too many grocery stores in an area,leading to some not having enough customers. If you see a cluster of stores with not enough customers, try looking at what is being sold at each one. If all the stores were zoned at the same time,you may see a lot of overlap.

Overall, it’s important togradually add commercial zones to avoid this situation.Place a few buildings and then see how they do. If the stores are fine, then you can add more commercial buildings.

cities skylines 2 gas station

Mixing Residential & Commercial

In real life, you may not prefer trekking all the way across a city to find a convenience store. Citizens in Cities: Skylines 2 feel this way too. A good strategy to provide enough customers for stores and vice versa is toplace commercial zones near residential zones.

Citizens don’t have to travel too far, and thecommercial buildings will get enough customers due to their proximity.You can even zone somemixed commercial/residential buildings,which have a store on the bottom and apartments on the top.

cities skylines 2 street full of commercial stores

How To Respawn Commercial Buildings

If you have a lot of the same type of store, you can respawn the individual buildings. This is done by simplybulldozing the store and waiting for a new one to appear.The new shop that appears may be a different type of shop,providing variety for customers.

De-Zoning Commercial Zones

Sometimes, it’s best tode-zone your existing commercial zones.After removing the buildings, you may either sit tight and see if the problem is fixed, or re-zone elsewhere.

Provide Transportation To Commercial Zones

One cause of low customers may be thetransportation in your city.If stores are near residential zones but are hard to reach, they may not have enough customers.

We suggestplacing stores in a location that customers can reach.Additionally, it’s a great idea toplace a public transportation system in the area.You can connect a commercial zone to a subway station, as well as bus stops. With this, shoppers from around the map canquickly access the area.

cities skylines 2 people waiting at a taxi stop