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The payment of 'commission' as remuneration for services rendered or products sold is a common way to reward sales people. Payments often will be calculated on the basis of a percentage of the goods sold.
Offering monetary compensation in the form of commission alone, or commission in addition to salary rather than simply a fixed salary, is intended to create a strong incentive for employees to invest maximum effort into their work. Common industries where commission is used include car sales, property sales, insurance broking and many other sales jobs. Contrary to the common erroneous belief, with the few exceptions of salespeople with very high volumes in real estate, car dealerships, and other businesses earning lucrative amounts of money, most do not earn much. In fact, according to surveys done in the early 2000's on the commission-only salespeople in the United States, only 8% of them are able to earn an annual income of $ 50,000 or greater, the vast majority, over 50% to be exact, only have an annual income of $ 10,000 or less.
Controversially, many charity collectors now work on a commission basis.