do not look at the "active trades" but just post your passive trades, people will pick them up.
The problem is that people just look at passive trades, in the rare case your neighbourhood really cant supply what you need (extremely rare these days) then ask for help from your fellow guild mates, most likely there is one with a somewhat plank shortage in there neighbourhood.
Don't solo, work together. thats what this game is all about.
Sometimes active trades sit there for long enough that they time out, if fellowship members can't produce enough goods. My tournament goods costs are truly horrendous. I have one other member of my fellowship who is in the same boat as me, provinces beyond the maximum allowed by Inno wise, and at least he's in a lower research chapter so his goods costs are slightly lower, but it's still much higher than anyone else of the same chapter. We can't get enough t1 goods while trading within the fellowship because there aren't any goods to be traded, because between the two of us we used them all to negotiate our massively inflated negotiation costs.
And again, because people keep missing this part, and saying "oh just post trades ahead of time" I will post in capital letters so maybe they will read this part. I post trades for resources WHEN I START THE RESEARCH. Sometimes, depending on the city, THOSE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN ACCEPTED when I finish putting KP into the research. I'm not even talking about people who don't bother trying to get goods for research until the very end, that's foolish. But it should be POSSIBLE for anyone who actually posts trades when they start a research to have their trades accepted by the time they need them.
My city is now trapped in a vicious cycle, where I have too many provinces conquered to participate in tournaments but the devs want me to participate in tournaments and I have to participate in tournaments for the sake of my fellowship. Even negotiating only two provinces a week (I initially tried four, but that was completely unmanageable, so I dropped to three... still unmanageable, two is where I am now, and I still can't finish the fifth level because goods shortages) I clear out all my fellowship's stores in whatever tier 1 good is needed to trade that week. Some of the trades I need to finish the tournament go unaccepted because there aren't any people who can accept them.
Ironically, my province negotiation costs are now cheaper than my tournament costs, because the tournament costs are so bloated. Perhaps I should ignore the devs and just take provinces? But that would throw my fellowship under the bus.