Create a commission-affiliate network

Do you want to develop your brand by creating your network?

Do you still want to be able to set prices for your independent distributors?

Do you want to have centralized stock management to be effective and that the shelves of your distributors are always full by pushing goods?

More generally, you want a uniform logistics organization. 

Want to reduce the cost of accessing your distribution network by saving your distributors the cost of inventory financing?

The affiliate commission will meet these needs. 

Commission-Affiliate Agreement

The commission-affiliation was born from practice. Che associated contract : 

• a commission contract, whereby an independent intermediary called a commission agent sells products / services in its name, but on behalf of the principal who owns the products and is the beneficiary of the transaction ; 
• a trademark license agreement, the commission agent exploiting the principal’s trademark to conclude sales or services. 

As such, it allows a precise framework of the methods of exploitation of the brand. This supervision is essential : it will alone guarantee respect for the positioning of the brand and therefore the image of the brand in the eyes of the customers attached to it. 

The brand licensing agreement is an essential tool of the customer experience : it makes it possible to ensure the control of the operating conditions of the brand and thus to guarantee their homogeneity. 

If you want to protect the margins of all distributors in the network and establish a clear price picture of your products or services, it will be necessary to carry out a contractual and financial arrangement ensuring in competition law the qualification of agent to your commission agents-affiliates.  

Our method for drafting a commission-affiliate contract

A prior study in the form of a consultation will be necessary : the agent must not bear any specific risks related to its investment and operation. The promoter of the distribution network must therefore bear its distribution risks. The agent qualification criteria are fine-grained and must be managed with great precision given the risks involved : if the affiliated commission agent is not an agent and the prices were imposed, there would be a price fixing agreement and a fine of 10% of the global turnover of the brand would be incurred. 

We write many commission-affiliate contracts. We have proven methods for creating commission-affiliate networks and are familiar with benchmarks in your industry. We have particularly practiced affiliation commission in the sector of personal equipment, but also materials or food products. 

Thecommission-affiliate contract   meets strategic challenges for your network: 

• it must translate your organisation; 
• it must organize the security of your income; 
• it must protect your product stocks, your brands, your data and the perimeter of your network;
• it must integrate the dimension of the market and competition law, to protect you from compliance risks.

 GOUACHE Avocats’ approach to drafting commission-affiliate contracts  is simple : 

• (i) the commission-affiliate agreement is a technique for organizing your distribution: we are first interested in you, your business, the way you want to organize your relations with your affiliates. 
   For this, we listen to you and have designed exclusive digital tools to help you in your reflection and guide you in your choices. We are with you. We welcome you to discuss with you your organisational choices, the choices to be made and help you decide by sharing our benchmarks and our reflections. 
•  (ii) the terms of the commission-affiliate agreement  must be clear and easily understandable, both for your future affiliates, who must understand the consideration and the reason, and by the judge who will be responsible for deciding the dispute to which the contract could give rise: this is to reduce the judge’s power of interpretation, which is a source of insecurity for companies. For these reasons, we have used legal design techniques to further improve the presentation of our contracts and their accessibility, without giving up any of our contractual management tools.
• (iii) the redaction of the clauses of the commission-affiliate contract is worked on scientifically to ensure the greatest legal certainty: we have in-house litigators, based on our significant experience in distribution litigation and on a systematic analysis of case law (weekly cabinet review); these clauses follow a validation process involving a law professor. 

Commission-Affiliate Agreement

 The quality of youraffiliate commission contract  , fully customized, will directly depend on: 

• the level of control of your network (product image, price homogeneity, scope of points of sale); 
• valuing the network.