As time advanced and kingdoms established, coinage came into vogue. The need for a convenient medium of exchange, which would not only retain its value over a period of time, but would also possess general acceptability, was keenly felt.
Hence, beads, shells, skins and furs were introduced by different communities as a medium of exchange in order to make transactions of goods and services easier. In the absence of proper transport facilities, people used to face a lot of difficulties to go to the market for making purchases and sales.
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Local Peddler:
As the settlements grew into villages, need for the exchange of surplus goods, more particularly the agricultural surpluses, was keenly felt. Since farmers were producing more than their personal requirements, they needed to dispose such surpluses with the help of some middlemen. The local peddler was the middleman who specialised in the transaction of agricultural surpluses.
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However, the area of operations by such peddlers was mostly confined because of lack of adequate transport facilities. Despite all odds, the selling practices employed by the merchants and peddlers in those days were the pioneer efforts for the development of modern salesmanship.
Chapman:
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With the progress of civilisation handicrafts began to be manufactured on a small scale. Simultaneously, a new peddler known as the Chapman came into existence. The Chapman was a pack peddler coming from sea routes and riverside towns who specialised in dealing in luxury articles. As compared to the peddler, chapman had to use more elaborate selling skills in order to sell high specialty articles to the upper and middle class people.
Chapman may, therefore, be described as a door-to-door specialty luxury salesman similar to the modern day salesman. As a matter of fact, the Chapman rendered great commercial service to the people, since travelling even a few miles was quite risky due to bad roads, neglected bridges, robbers and highway-men. In spite of all these hurdles, chapmen were selling a variety of specialty goods and handicrafts, covering great distances.
Shopkeeper:
During the early days of self sufficiency, the need for exchange of goods and services hardly arose. Human needs and wants, during those days, were limited; confined to limited articles and services, which could be met from within the locality. The existence of caste system in India was the main reason for such self-sufficiency at the local level, since persons belonging to a particular caste specialised in producing certain articles and providing certain services.
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The articles not found locally were purchased from the nearby town, market or fair. With the gradual increase in population and growth of their needs and wants, local markets proved inadequate to meet the growing needs and requirements of the people.
As such, the necessity for establishing shops for ‘settled selling’ in local areas was greatly felt. The earliest stores were called ‘shops’ or ‘stalls’. Gradually, small shops were opened in villages and towns.
These shops were open stalls, displaying goods made in home workshops. Goods displayed in such shop or stalls usually were skilled and qualitative. Those shopkeepers usually made all the articles that they sold and were, therefore, aware of the minutest details of the material and workmanship involved in the manufacture of such articles.
Commercial Adventurer:
Despite best efforts, the area of operation of the Chapmen and shopkeepers was very much limited. In due course, some merchants took on business through the sea routes. These ocean-going merchants were known as ‘commercial adventurers’ because they took high risk by taking the speciality goods to far and distant places, from one country to another.
These merchants experienced hardships while developing commerce through sea. The shops used by such merchants in those days were usually small and lacked basic facilities. The seas were ridden with pirates and exposed to tempests and typhoons.
Under those difficult and unfavorable conditions, they undertook trade and commerce, which led to the earlier development of international trade and commerce. These commercial adventurers may be described as travelling salesmen.
Merchant Adventurer:
The commercial adventurers were responsible for selling domestically produced commodities. Those domestic producers had established certain kind of monopoly through the trade guilds. This led to the formation of monopoly by the producers, who produced only on orders, resulting in high price, low output and stifling of demand. However, the merchant adventurers helped in breaking down the monopoly in trade, held by the merchant guilds.
This led to the opening up of trading and commercial activities to a large section of the society. This resulted in low price, high volume of output and expansion of demand. Thus, on a large scale the merchant adventurers did a commendable job for the growth of trade and manufacturing activities.
Commercial Craftsman:
These commercial craftsmen were originally working in various workshops, producing different kinds of articles, strictly made to the order of the consumers. Therefore, they were in a position to place a number of samples before the customers and accordingly orders were being received by the craft guild. In the beginning, womenfolk handled the task of presenting samples and receiving orders.
At a later stage, with increase in the number of customers, craftsmen from the workshops were deputed to handle the same. Thus, they became craftsmen-cum-salesmen. Such craftsman in charge of the sales was known as the commercial craftsman.
Bagman:
The bagman was the first modern traveling salesman, in the strict sense of the term. Bagman was a commercial traveller going from place to place on horseback carrying samples of merchandise in the saddle-pouch on behalf of his employer.
In their mission of keeping touch with old customers as well as locating new ones, bagmen covered wide distances. As a result, they played a significant role in creating and extending demand for the goods and services of the manufacturer and acted as missionaries of goodwill for their employer.