Futures trading came out of Edo (Tokyo) at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It was actually a response to over-taxation, and the daimyo's, in order to generate revenue, forward sold rice at a fixed price to the markets.
Apparently, around the same time, the Edo markets developed the department store. Where merchandise was organised under the one roof by department; ie clothes, food, etc. Presumably, prior to that, it was merchants selling just one type of merchandise from the one shopfront.
Edo at about that time had approximately one million people in it and was three times larger than Osaka. It was a bustling metropolis with plenty of wealth - especially as it was the city of the Tokugawa.
It is interesting to note that after 1850 Japan got caught in treaties which prohibited trade barriers being put up. It was not until the early 1900s that they could turn to protectionism; yet in that time, Japan went from Shogunite isolationism, to an industrialised trading nation.
One of the ways it dealt with that, while still seeking protectionist advantage, was through the tyranny of bureaucracy and inspection. Exporters had no difficulty getting their goods there, but getting them to market was different. One of the tales is that nails were hammered into baseball bats to make sure they were wood. Effectively destroying it as a sellable good.
It appears however that Japan was able to modernise in the late 19thC under a free trade policy.
