Retail Centers and Inflation Not Unique to Modern Times

Retail centers and inflation were well known in Bible times.

Not unlike modern cities  merchants like to  establish their business in areas where there was a lot of traffic. The Bible mentions  markets at various city gates in ancient Jerusalem such "The Fish Gate," The Sheep Gate, and the "Gate of Potsherds."

There was even a "street of the bakers according to Jeremiah 37:21

Naturally such names referred to the type of goods sold at each of these gates and commercial centers  -- mentioned in Nehemiah 3: 1,3 and Jeremiah 19:2 just as some street names in modern cities suggest the type of commercial activity carried on there -- such as Fleet or Wall Streets in England and the United States.

Like our modern era goods were sold through bartering as well as money and customers had to cope both a variety of prices  as well as inflation down through they years.

For example at the time that Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery in the 18th century B.C.E. in a jealous rage all they received for him was 20 silver pieces -- possibly a shekel. But 300 years later the price for a slaver shot up to 30 shekels according to Exodus 3: 32 and by the eighth century B.C.E. the price for a slave was 50 shekels as described in the 2 Kings 15:20 account. And 200 years after this the asking price for a slave was 90 shekels -- or more.

So both shopping at the local market or mall and having to pay ever more for  food and other items seems to be common  to both Biblical and  our modern worlds.