Trading post

A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a <a href="/facts/Factory_(trading_post)/uv1rWc2w">factory</a> in European and <a href="/facts/Colony/6ku13Po7"> colonial</a> contexts, is an establishment or settlement where <a href="/facts/Goods_and_services/zsMmYyUJ">goods and services</a> could be <a href="/facts/Trade/S13U8JKr">traded</a>.
Typically a trading post allows people from one geographic area to exchange for goods produced in another area. Usually money is not used. The <a href="/facts/Barter/vBDyXcd9">barter</a> that occurs often includes an aspect of <a href="/facts/Bargaining/KcUxrewP">haggling</a>. In some examples, local inhabitants can use a trading post to exchange what they have (such as locally-harvested furs) for goods they wish to acquire (such as manufactured trade goods imported from industrialized places).
Given bulk transportation costs, exchanges made at a trading post for long-distance distribution can involve items which either party or both parties regard as <a href="/facts/Luxury_goods/WGfwoF5a">luxury goods</a>.
A trading post can consist either of a single building or of an entire town. Trading posts have been established in a range of areas, including relatively remote ones, but most often near an ocean, a river, or another source of a <a href="/facts/Natural_resource/w9WXxMx3">natural resource</a>. A prominent geographical location and the head start provided by an early trading post ensured that trading posts feature in the history of many of today's cities, such as <a href="/facts/Timbuktu/IkFhskNF">Timbuktu</a>
and <a href="/facts/Hong_Kong/4nAf3mqQ">Hong Kong</a>.

Trading post open-in-new

Trading post