Meaning & use
sales agent
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Meanings
nouncountable
A person whose job is to sell a company's products or services, often working for commission.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a sales agent' or 'three sales agents'.
Patterns
- work as a sales agent
- a sales agent for a company
- act as someone's sales agent
She works as a sales agent for a software company.
The sales agent explained the different insurance plans to us.
Our sales agents earn a basic salary plus commission.
nouncountableformal
Someone officially appointed to buy or sell property or goods on another person's behalf.
Grammar: Countable and often followed by 'for' plus the person or company represented.
Patterns
- a sales agent for someone
- appoint someone as a sales agent
- the seller's sales agent
The owner appointed him as her sales agent for the apartment.
As sales agent for the estate, he handled all inquiries from buyers.
Word forms
| plural | sales agents |
|---|
Common combinations
- a licensed sales agent
- Only a licensed sales agent may sign the contract on the owner's behalf.
- an insurance sales agent
- An insurance sales agent visited our office to present the new policy.
- a real estate sales agent
- A real estate sales agent showed us three houses last weekend.
- work as a sales agent
- He worked as a sales agent before moving into management.
- appoint a sales agent
- The company appointed a sales agent to handle the region.
Synonyms and how they differ
- salesperson
- More general and gender-neutral; it can describe anyone who sells, including shop staff, while 'sales agent' usually suggests a specific company or client is represented.
- representative
- Broader and often shortened to 'rep'; it can cover service and support roles, not only selling.
- dealer
- Often used for someone who buys and sells goods on their own account, so it stresses ownership rather than acting for someone else.
Word family
- sales agency noun
- A business that sells goods or services for other companies.
- sell verb
- To give something in exchange for money.
- salesmanship noun
- The skill of persuading people to buy things.
Commonly confused: sales agent or salesman?
sales agent vs salesman
'Salesman' refers specifically to a man and is now often avoided; 'sales agent' is neutral about gender and emphasizes representing a company or client.
Practice
The owner hired a lawyer to ___ for the sale of the building.
Choose one answer.
'Act as' is the correct pattern meaning to serve in that role, and the possessive comes before the noun. 'Act like' means to behave in a similar way, which is not the intended meaning here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sales agent”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.