Japanese main export was raw silk thread, and because exported goods such as raw silk thread were exchanged at higher prices on the trading market than on the domestic market, local merchants, who mediated between a place of production and market, began to sell products wholesale directly at open ports, not to warehouse merchants in big cities such as Edo (now Tokyo).
日本からは主に生糸が輸出されたが、生糸などの輸出品は、国内市場よりも貿易市場の方が高値で取引されていたため、生産地と市場を仲立ちしていた在郷商人は、江戸などの大都市の問屋ではなく、直接、開港場へ生産品を卸すようになった。