Merchants must be strangers?

I agree with what Chantelle said, the idea of merchants is a more historical concept before the age of the industrial revolution. Before the increase of factory production, each item was hand crafted most of the time and now we lose that individuality in the item. I believe that merchants will continue to be strangers as we still won't have that deep sated connection with them and there would still be that divide. The items or the material goods separate our connection from others.