negotiation

1. General: Bargaining (give and take) process between two or more parties (each with its own aims, needs, and viewpoints) seeking to discover a common ground and reach an agreement to settle a matter of mutual concern or resolve a conflict.

2. Banking: Accepting or trading a negotiable instrument.

3. Contracting: Use of any method to award a contract other than sealed bidding.

4. Trading: Process by which a negotiable instrument is transferred from one party (transferor) to another (transferee) by endorsement or delivery. The transferee takes the instrument in good faith, for value, and without notice of any defect in the title of the transferor, and obtains an indefeasible title.

One useful but fairly uncommon type of contract stipulation is a most-favored-customer clause. Under such an arrangement, no one gets a better price than this customer, or if someone else does then this customer's price drops to that level. This affects future negotiations (it makes things tougher on that customer's competition, and it gives the vendor an excuse not to negotiate with them, if that's what the vendor wants, since its hands are tied.) But it's then easier for that vendors rivals to target its customers, and harder for it to do the reverse. Sometimes this raises the price the vendor can charge, because each customer doesn't negotiate as much, assuming future customers will.

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