What is the difference between an agent and a distributor?
An agent is effectively an extension of the person who appoints him. The agent has the level of authority granted to him by his principal (but may also have ‘ostensible authority’). The principal is responsible for the authorised acts of his agent. A distributor is an independent business which buys products from a supplier and then takes responsibility for selling them to others, without recourse to the supplier except in case of defects. Thus a distributor bears the risk if it cannot resell all the products it buys from the supplier.
