Meaning & use
commercial agent
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Meanings
nouncountable
A person or firm paid to find customers and arrange sales for a company in a particular area or market.
Grammar: Countable, so it takes a/an and a plural: hire a commercial agent, work through commercial agents.
Patterns
- a commercial agent for a company
- act as a commercial agent
- appoint someone as a commercial agent
The winery hired a commercial agent to sell its bottles in Asia.
As a commercial agent, she negotiates orders but never owns the goods herself.
Their commercial agent in Germany earns a small percentage of every sale.
nouncountablebusinesslaw
A businessperson who buys and sells goods or services on behalf of other people rather than for themselves.
Grammar: Used in legal and business texts, often in the phrase "acting as a commercial agent"; the work itself is called commercial agency.
Patterns
- act as a commercial agent for someone
- a commercial agent acting on behalf of a client
Under the contract, he acts as a commercial agent for three separate suppliers.
The court asked whether she was an employee or a commercial agent.
A commercial agent must tell the client about any money received on their behalf.
Word forms
| plural | commercial agents |
|---|
Common combinations
- appoint a commercial agent
- The board appointed a commercial agent to handle overseas orders.
- act as a commercial agent
- He acts as a commercial agent for several small manufacturers.
- a commercial agent for a company
- She is a commercial agent for a Danish furniture maker.
- hire a commercial agent
- Before entering the market, they hired a local commercial agent.
- commercial agent agreement
- Both sides signed a commercial agent agreement lasting two years.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sales agent
- Very close in meaning, but it sounds more informal and is common in retail and property; "commercial agent" is the term used in contracts and law.
- representative
- Wider and vaguer: a representative may only answer questions and take messages, while a commercial agent usually has the power to negotiate or close deals.
- distributor
- Not the same: a distributor buys the goods and resells them for its own profit, whereas a commercial agent never owns the goods.
- broker
- A broker brings two parties together, often in finance, insurance, or shipping; a commercial agent works steadily for one or more named companies.
Word family
- commercial agency noun
- The business or the legal relationship of working as a commercial agent.
- agency noun
- A company that represents other businesses or people; also the general idea of acting for someone else.
- agent noun
- The short, everyday word for a person who acts for another; used alone it can also mean a spy or a chemical substance.
Commonly confused: commercial agent or distributor? commercial agent or commercial agency?
commercial agent vs distributor
A distributor purchases products and sells them on at its own risk and profit, while a commercial agent only arranges sales and is paid a commission.
commercial agent vs commercial agency
Easy to mix up because they sound similar: the agent is the person or firm, and the agency is the business or the arrangement itself.
Practice
Which sentence uses "commercial agent" correctly?
Choose one answer.
"Work as a commercial agent for a company" is the natural pattern, and "for" introduces the client. "Of selling" is wrong because "of" cannot follow "agent" in this job sense, and the other two options misuse the noun as a verb or force an unnatural infinitive.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “commercial agent”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.