Barkor Street is not only a religious center, it is also-perhaps even more so-a business center, a major market, and a commodity collecting and distributing center. The one-km-long street is lined with shops and stalls. From religious objects to daily necessities, commodities of all kinds and from all parts of the world are on display here. There is endless bargaining in this street. What is unique is that a seller's final price is called a "pledged price." This means that the seller makes a pledge to the Buddha that he is honest and it is the last price he can afford.

It the markets of old Lhasa, apart from tea, silk, porcelain, horse gear, spices, dried fruit and daily necessities, which came from the hinterland, most commodities came from abroad: coral, amber and diamonds from Europe; cloth, dyestuffs, bronze ware, pearls perfume and medicines from Nepal; industrial articles such as aluminum pans from India; grain, sugar, musk and tobacco from Bhutan and Sikkim; and safflower and dried fruit from Ladakh. Tibetan products exported through Lhasa included gold, silver, salt, sheep's wool , woolen fabrics, carpets, medicines, fox skin, musk and borax. As can be seen the imports were mostly finished products, whereas the exports were mostly raw materials. The export of sheep's wool, in particular, was considered the lifeline of the Tibetan economy. However, the wool had to be exported via India, which was ruled by Britain at that time, and Britain did not allow Tibet, on pain of embargo, to contact any other country to sell its wool. So Tibet was forced to sell its wool in India for Indian rupees. British and Indian merchants the re-sold the wool to other countries for handsome profits. This reminds one of robbers making profit by waylaying people.

The merchants of Barkor Street were mostly Tibetan, Han Muslim and Nepalese. The Han Chinese were mostly from Beijing, and Yunnan, Sichuan and Qinghai provinces. The Yunnan merchants, in particular, were numerous, and had a long tradition of doing business in Tibet since the late 18th century. A contingent of merchants in the northwest of Yunnan was most active in this regard. Despite all hardships, they traveled between the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau once a year bringing tea to Tibet. In return, they took local produce, hides and fur back to the hinterland. During the Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945), this route, known as the "ancient tea and horse road," served as China's only land access to the Allies. The route became fairly busy during that period.

There were more than 40 shops run by people from Yunnan in Lhasa in the old days. Most of them were concentrated in Jiri Lane, part of Barkor Street. During the mid-and late 19th century, there was a Yunnan Guild Hall there. Businessmen from Yunnan had a good reputation. They had close connections with both the Tibetan nobles and Tibetan merchants. They gave generous presents to the high commissioners and made large donations to the major monasteries.

Many of the Yunnan merchants learned to speak the Tibetan language, and some settled down in Tibet with Tibetan wives, although they already had families and properties in Yunnan. This led to many romances as well as tragedies. However, such things are rarely mentioned nowadays.

It has been quite a long time since Beijing people started to do business in Tibet. At first, they engaged mainly in long-distance transportation. By the 1930s, there were 30 to 40 shops in Barkor Street alone owned by Beijing natives. The owners usually lived in Beijing and were responsible for the purchase of goods, while the businesses in Lhasa were managed by their employees. The goods, primarily silk brocade, porcelain, jade objects, bronze wares, silk thread, and arts and crafts, which were very popular with Tibetans, were first transported to Tianjin and loaded on to ships which sailed down to Hong Kong and thence to Calcutta. From Calcutta, the goods were taken to Kalimpong, and thence to Lhasa by mules, yaks or donkeys-a journey of 20 days. The whole trip would take about three months. This was carried out two or three times a year. Brocade sold particularly well; it was used not only for clothes but also for decorative purposes in monasteries. Silk threads were also very popular, because both Tibetan men and women liked to mix them into their pigtails, which would then be coiled up on the head.

The people of the Khams-pa branch of the Tibetans, living in western Sichuan and eastern Tibet traditionally engaged in business. The largest Khams-pa business in the early 20th century, run by a man named Pondatsang, had branches and offices in many cities both at home and abroad. It was he who funded the 13th Dalai Lama's sojourn in India in 1910. when the Daia Lama returned, Pondatsang was given the monopoly on the export of sheep's wool for the whole of Tibet. By the 1930s, even monks began to realize what benefits business would bring them, and many of the senior monks, officials and aristocrats became more interested in trade than in the revenue from their estates.

The Anti-Japanese War (1937-1945) provided a good opportunity for the rapid development of trade in Tibet. During the early years of the war, east China and the southeastern coastal area fell in the hands of Japan, and export by sea became impossible. A few years later, the Japanese army cut off the transportation route between Yunnan and Myanmar. Shortages of goods became very acute in the southwest of China (the Chinese government had withdrawn to Chongqing, in Sichuan Province, at that time), and goods which China needed had to be brought in either by airplane on "the Over Hump Route" or along the traditional caravan route from India to Tibet, and then to the hinterland. So Lhasa became a busy hub of commerce. Caravans of mules traveled from India to Lijiang, to Kangding and then to Chengdu, crossing the whole plateau and covering a distance of several thousand kilometers.

In 1945, when the news of victory in the Anti-Japanese War reached Lhasa, the merchants in Barkor Street were wild with joy. The Representative Office of the Republic of China in Lhasa organized merchants from the hinterland to parade in the street with lanterns in celebration, and borrowed Pondatsang's residence to stage performances for two days. The costumes and stage sets for the performances were all made in a hurry with money donated by merchants. Officials of the Gaxag government, nobles and their families were invited.

Following the cessation of hostilities, communications with the outside world from the hinterland by both land and sea were resumed, and the "ancient tea and horse route" became quiet once more, as did the Lhasa markets. In the 1950s, many Han merchants returned to the hinterland; only those who had families in Lhasa stayed behind. A few settled down in India or Nepal, and became Overseas Chinese.