B List in the Market

Every time I pass through the market, which is to say every day I leave the school, I am always amazed by the variety of what you can buy there. Everything and anything is found in the market.

It struck me that the letter B alone stands for a huge number of items:

Blue jeans, belts, belt buckles, batteries, battery chargers, baking soda and baking powder, buttons, blouses, Barbie dolls, teddy bears, bras, barrettes, blenders, bicycles, baskets, buckets, basins, brooms and brushes, all their school books (bootleg photocopies) and the bookbags to carry them, soccer balls, glass balls for Christmas trees, boots, beans, bran, bread, bananas, beds, bedding, bath towels and all bath products, bakeware, bowls, and my all-time favorite: Bread machines, a popular item in a land with intermittent electricity coupled with low bread consumption.

Walking along and looking at the astounding variety, I have to wonder at the provenance of all this stuff. Some of it is made here (the beds, for example), and some of the things are new, made in China- plastics, some clothing, baby items. But most of the non-food items are clearly the detritus of hundreds of thousands of North American yard sales and second-hand stores. How does it get here? I have heard all kinds of prices on shipping cargo containers, upwards to $6,000 for just one container.  How does that figure into me buying the complete, hardback compendium of all the Curious George books for one dollar? John Berendt's book on Venice? Sets of Pfaltzgraff, cellophane packages of faux hair for hair extensions, big rolls of wiring (only slightly used) for your new home? 

In the morning men with wheelbarrows are everywhere, trucking the stuff out for the day. Sometimes there are groups of vendors, mostly women, gathered around the backs of tractor-trailers. I can't tell if they already know which stuff is theirs, or if they are waiting to bid on merchandise, like some kind of a wholesale auction. All through the market, around 6 AM, ladies will be putting their sheets out on the ground and opening up their boxes, getting out their particular specialty, housewares, tools, clothing items, plastics, tschotskes, baby things. 

It appears to be the most popular industry/business of the town.  Where does it come from? And who pays to bring it here?