Distributor agreements

There will be many occasions in business when it is necessary to negotiate. Indeed, we do this all the time and often the exchange is continual and goes unnoticed. Negotiating is a process of bargaining to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. It is interesting to note that the origin of the word, negotiate, is from the Latin word for business, negotium, and indeed in modern French a negotiant is a business-person.

Negotiating is a process of bargaining to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.

Negotiation implies communication between two (or more) parties to find solutions to problems and a resulting outcome acceptable to all. It is not having your own way in all situations. If you decide to make use of distributors to support your internationalisation – and many routes to internationalisation involve the use of distributors – it is likely that negotiating the distributor agreement will be one of the most important tasks that you undertake. A distribution agreement is a contractual relationship between a distributor and a seller, usually the manufacturer, to sell selected products. Unlike an agent, the distributor takes title to the goods and resells them to customers in a specified geographic area. There is no contractual relationship between the seller and the ultimate customer.