Economic slump or assumed NPC buyers beyond the players?

I've noticed that business slumps at times, but the need for businesses to give people jobs are high. Right now I'm having issues with a couple things regarding the IC economy.

Nobody's buying food, cargo, or really anything except junk in my shop.

Yet, there are at least half a dozen colonies starting up out there...and ICly at least there are colonies and factions that still exist.

So my question for the discussion is this:
As a business owner, do I assume that people other than players are buying from me(NPC organizations in the local sector, basically made up orgs) or do I just fold it in because obviously those colonies are getting their materials, labor, and equipment for free ICly and are completely disregarding the economy that's already there?

 

I didn't say there were dozens, I said there was a half dozen in development. I'm not saying I'm the only business either, but where's food coming from? I get the advertising but it doesn't help, I spam the hell out of the radio when I get on to advertise too. People are asspulling. There's no way that one food producer could support even five colonies, unless it's rice, and wheat, because that's all you need...am I right??? Wakka, wakka!

Here's the things that I see:
-No way is everyone buying their fuel from Saltus.
-No way is everyone buying food from the Garden
-No way is everyone getting building materials from Strongfist.
-Heck I'm not sure anyone's buying (except me) from Radical.

 

I get that, but after they feed themselves, they export how much? Enough to feed 3 colonies(I think that's conservative but I'm not sure how many are actually IC confirmed dead)?

Also, who makes the alcohol for the BaRP that supposedly goes on?

Look, my point is that the IC game economy doesn't really work because not everyone is playing by the same rules. Who's gonna say their colony can't make enough to support everyone?

So...back to the original question: Do I continue the asspulling by assuming that NPC orgs are buying my goods so I can continue RPing a business or do I just live with the fact that the economy is broken on the server and go out of business ICly(because business w/o buyers is pointless)?

 

Understandable, and I get that our player base is too small but I do kinda feel like businesses are underused on the whole, like where do people get their materials. I've gotten a bit bored with the shop aspect of my business and it was always meant to be a second tier of the business model but I would rather do producer stuff, or provide services. Heck I'm on the Mawl and basically no one is selling salvage even, or black market items. I made Cy as a fence originally.

I don't even care that NPC orgs are buying things, that seems fair to me, because we assume that there are other people on the frontier aside from just the player characters, but why don't people just say, 'hey, I wanna buy XYZ, then someone else says hey, I'll sell XYZ to you.'

Anyways, that's my gripe. People wanna build but they don't want to say where they got the stuff...or even pretend. It's problematic when Avis says that we need to keep accounting sheets to deal with 'out of sector businesses', so that we aren't just pulling it from nowhere, which I understand but it's difficult to work within that framework if no one says they are buying.
[DOUBLEPOST=1437515371][/DOUBLEPOST]Hrm, maybe what we need is an open starnet-commodities market for orders of large supplies...just to make it that much simpler.