ABSTRACT
Commercial negotiation has been with us for a long time, some accounts going as far back as when ships first sailed to China to buy silk and spices. In the pre Industrial Revolution era the small scale of manufacturing operations meant that the entrepreneurs had to be skilled in everything including the purchasing of raw materials. If entrepreneurs were able to determine the quality of the inputs and, at the same time negotiate a price to minimize the average cost of inputs, the greater the demand for their product and the higher the profit margin.
