Life at the crossroads of culture and commerce

Talking about his company’s roots in the perfect store, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar observed that “throughout history… commerce and civilization had always developed alongside each other. The first markets arose at crossroads, where traders came to reach the largest number of potential customers. If sales at the crossroads were good, the merchants stored their wares there permanently. If they were the best in the whole region, traders brought their families and settled there. In time, they put up walls and built an infrastructure, and commerce transformed the lowly crossroads into a city.” In the same way, commerce and culture are entwined. Each evokes the other.