Hmm, that’s unfortunate. In most neighborhoods, there will be advanced players who check the trader every few hours to make sure smaller trades like that are getting picked up. If you’re in one of the unfortunate few places where that’s not the case, then everyone’s advice to find a good fellowship will be extra important. (The difference being that available trades are limited to a certain number of cities on the world map, based on proximity, so if you’re in a “bad neighbourhood” the trading pool might be very limited, while you can trade with fellowship members no matter where they are located on the map.) If you’re not ready to join a fellowship, you can consider checking your trader for the names of people who are offering very large 2- or 3-star trades and messaging one of them directly to ask if they would be willing to watch out for your trades. Most players who are farther along in the game have millions of those goods and are happy to help out a new player, they just don’t always immediately notice small trades buried under all the others.
Did it get picked up since you posted?
I understand your trepidation! It feels more stressful to have to rely on other players rather than making everything you need yourself. The game is set up to require that as you progress, however, so making the switch early will be less stressful in the long run. You made a good step (even if it doesn’t feel that way at the moment)!
As far as the space around your city goes, you sadly won’t be able to unlock anything like half of it if you stay where you are in the tech tree. The number of provinces needed to unlock each expansion increases as you complete more of them, and you’ll hit the infamous Orc Wall (where you need orcs to negotiate, which can’t be produced or obtained in any way before chapter 8), long before you would have half the space opened.
You are on the right track with keeping some expansions back, though. It’s always a good idea to leave at least one or two expansions unplaced so that you can pull them out if you suddenly need more room, like when you unlock a new type of manufactory. One of the biggest challenges in this game is space-management because it will feel like you never have enough of it, so learning to limit your buildings and make your space as efficient as possible rather than relying on always being able to have more room will help you move through with fewer snags (unless you just want to build a city for aesthetics and never mind anything else, which some people happily do
).