One of the most common types of business opportunity ventures, adistributor or dealer is an independent agent who’s entered into anagreement to offer and sell the product of another company butisn’t entitled to use the manufacturer’s name as part of itsbusiness name. Depending on the agreement, the distributor may belimited to selling only that company’s goods or it may have thefreedom to market several different product lines or services fromvarious firms.
Here’s an example: An authorized dealer of Minolta productsmight have a Minolta sign in his window, but he can’t call hisbusiness Minolta. Often, the words “dealers” and “distributors” areused interchangeably, but there is a difference: A distributor maysell to several dealers, while a dealer usually sells directly toretailers or consumers.
