Yiwu International Trade City is the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities, and visiting it is one of those experiences that rewires your understanding of how consumer goods actually move around the world. The market is divided by product category — District 1 handles crafts, jewelry, and accessories; District 2 has toys, games, and electronics; District 3 is hardware and tools — and each district is subdivided into thousands of individual stalls where the minimum order quantities start at a few hundred units and the haggling is real.
The market is not really oriented toward individual retail customers, and the sheer scale can be overwhelming without a purpose. The most interesting approach is to pick one or two product categories you know something about and trace the supply chain back to its source: the stall selling nothing but different sizes of padlock, or the one where every surface is covered with plastic dinosaurs in forty colour variations. The market is open to the public but the pricing assumes wholesale buyers; retail purchases are possible but not the point.