A commercial agent will have the authority of his principal to negotiate sales or purchases in the principal’s name, so the commercial agent will not be a party to the sales contract with the customer.  Further, because the commercial agent contracts in the principal’s name, the commercial agent would not take possession or control of the principal’s goods and would not take part in the delivery of goods from the principal to the customer.  By comparison, a distributor would usually take possession of goods and then deal with re-selling or distributing them on to customers, usually by contracting in its own name.