Counter Sales Associate - HVAC & Plumbing

UDig, Ferguson launch Sales Cockpit to streamline counter Sales. September 22, 2026 UDig designed and built Sales Cockpit with Ferguson, a value-added distributor of commercial and residential supplies servicing plumbing, HVAC, and other trade professionals. UDig creates digital experiences and frontline tools people want to use. The collaboration brings many of the sales systems Ferguson's counter associates use every day into one interface, cutting down on any back-and-forth between systems when contractors are waiting at the counter. Sales Cockpit is currently in initial deployment at a limited number of Ferguson branches with plans to expand in the months ahead. Contractors run on tight schedules, and every minute at the counter is a minute they're not on a job site. Sales Cockpit is designed to help associates search, quote, and close orders without switching screens so they can get contractors back on the road faster. The platform also brings Ferguson's modernized payment technology into the counter workflow. "Contractors don't have time to spare, and the associates helping them don't either," said Gordon Kelly, executive vice oresident at UDig. "We started by getting clear on what makes Ferguson different at the counter, then built alongside associates in their branches to drive adoption. We leveraged AI-native delivery to shorten cycle times and build quickly. The result is that associates can stay focused on the person in front of them, with the systems behind the counter working quietly in the background." "Sales Cockpit brings the systems our associates use every day into one cohesive, intuitive interface, built around the workflows and flexibility our associates already know," said Jeff Walbert, senior vice president of operations at Ferguson. "Working with UDig, we moved quickly without losing that focus. I'm looking forward to seeing how these improvements help our teams serve customers with greater speed and build on the strong relationships that define Ferguson." UDig will share more about Sales Cockpit and its work with Ferguson to support trade professionals at the Industrial Supply Association Fall Summit, Oct. 27 in San Antonio, Texas.

How national distributors decide where to build next. Sep 3, 2026 Where a distribution center goes matters. See how nationwide building, land cover, and parking data help distributors identify the right sites faster. Facility placement is a speed problem before it's a real estate problem. Get a distribution network's geography wrong, and no amount of warehouse automation fixes the extra day it takes a truck to reach a customer three states away. Why site selection matters. For a company running dozens of distribution centers and hundreds of branches, where a building sits determines what a customer actually experiences: an order that arrives next-day instead of two days late, a delivery route that runs efficiently instead of wastefully, or a new metro area that gets served well instead of left thin. Ferguson, the building-products distributor, put it plainly when announcing a new Ohio facility: "Our distribution centers are the heart of our supply chain," said Al Byrd, the company's senior vice president of supply chain. The site itself shows the logic in practice: a 400,000-square-foot distribution center on a 77-acre site in Celina, Ohio, chosen specifically for its proximity to Ferguson's other Midwest locations, letting the company reach customers even next-day. None of those decisions get made on a hunch. They get made by comparing dozens or hundreds of candidate sites against the same set of questions: how big is the available parcel, what's already built on it, how close is it to the customers and suppliers that matter, and how much room is there to expand later. The evaluation process. Answering those questions at the scale a national network operates at means working from data that covers the whole country consistently, not a patchwork of local surveys pulled together site by site. A network strategy team comparing a candidate site in Texas against one in Oregon needs both evaluated the same way, on the same resolution, updated on the same schedule, or the comparison isn't really apples to apples. If you're evaluating a single site, this is easier than it sounds. You commission a survey, you walk the property, you make the call. The moment you're comparing that site against dozens of others in different states, the math changes. You can't schedule a site visit for every candidate before a quarterly planning deadline, and you can't trust a different local vendor in each state to have measured a parking lot or a floodplain the same way. What you need instead is one dataset, built the same way everywhere, so a site in Ohio and a site in Texas are actually being judged on the same terms. That's where building footprint and land cover data earn their keep. Knowing the precise footprint, height, and layout of what's already built on a parcel tells a site-selection team how much of a lot is usable before they ever schedule a site visit. Land cover data shows what's actually on the ground around a candidate site, pavement, vegetation, open land, which shapes both site readiness and how much future expansion room realistically exists. And because a distribution center's footprint typically includes acres of parking and staging area, parking and lot data matter just as much as the building itself when comparing candidate sites for truck court capacity and dock access. What the data needs to deliver. EarthDefine's Building Footprints 3D dataset covers over 183 million commercial and residential structures across the continental United States, derived from LiDAR and 60-centimeter-resolution aerial imagery, precise enough to distinguish a building from the trees around it. Land Cover and Impervious datasets classify what's on the ground at the same resolution, and Parking lot data maps and staging capacity directly. All three are built to be compared consistently, market to market, which makes a nationwide site-selection process comparable rather than relying on region-specific data. Good data narrows a long list of candidates down to the handful worth that kind of scrutiny; it doesn't replace the scrutiny itself.

Ferguson HVAC sales rise 11% amid mixed markets. August 19, 2026 Distribution giant Ferguson Enterprises Inc. reported solid second-quarter sales despite what company officials said was an uncertain economic climate, a sluggish U.S. residential market, and "tough" markets in Canada. CEO Kevin Murphy and CFO Bill Brundage were upbeat about the remainder of the year as they discussed the quarter's financial results during an August 10 call with investors. Investor guidance was upgraded, with company officials predicting mid-single-digit sales growth for 2026, up from low- to mid-single-digit growth. "Our associates continued to execute for our customers, driving market outperformance in the second quarter," said Murphy in a press release. "We delivered another strong quarter of non-residential growth and we returned to growth in residential despite the challenging market backdrop." Sales by Ferguson's HVAC group were up 11% for the quarter, Murphy said during the call. "This was principally driven by healthy organic performance alongside contributions from M&A," Murphy told investors, referring to mergers and acquisitions. Ferguson acquired three HVAC-related companies, including two distributors, during the quarter. Ferguson is a major distributor of HVAC products, though its HVAC group typically accounts only for roughly 11% or 12% of U.S. sales. HVAC products, however, may also be included in sales reported by other Ferguson customer groups, such as the commercial/mechanical and industrial groups. The company, which also distributes appliances plus plumbing, waterworks, lighting, fire protection, and building products, does not categorize sales by product type. Sales in the commercial/mechanical group, Murphy said, were up 15%, led by growth in the data centers, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and general manufacturing sectors. Sales in the industrial group were up 18%, driven by growth in the life sciences, pharmaceutical, chemical, and power-generation markets, Murphy said. Looking for quick answers on air conditioning, heating and refrigeration topics? Try Ask ACHR NEWS, its new smart AI search tool. Ask ACHR NEWS Ferguson's overall sales for the quarter were $8.8 billion, a year-over-year increase of $4.6%. The gross profit margin was 31%, a decrease of less than 1%. "We expect to continue delivering market outperformance by deploying scale locally and leveraging the long-term growth drivers of water infrastructure, large capital projects, climate and comfort, and aging and underbuilt housing," Murphy said. In the U.S., the company said, the residential end market, which accounts for about half of company revenue, "remained subdued," with weak new construction activity and "soft" home repair, maintenance, and improvement market. Nevertheless, residential revenue was up 2% for the quarter. The non-residential sector was healthier, the press release said, and saw an 8% revenue increase for Ferguson in the quarter. "Our scale, expertise, multi-customer group approach, and value-added solutions drove strong share gains in a mixed market," the press release said. "Large capital project activity remained healthy with growth in open-order volumes and strong bidding activity." In Canada, net sales were down 1.9%, as growth of 1.7% was offset by 3.6% because of the divestment of a non-core business. "Markets have remained challenging in Canada, particularly in residential," the company's press release said. Overall, through the first six months of the year, Ferguson's sales were just over $16.2 billion, a 4.2% increase over the first six months of 2025. Ferguson completed five acquisitions during the second quarter, including, for its HVAC group, the distributors Carrier Great Lakes, which has seven locations across Michigan and Ohio, and Dealers Supply Co., which has 17 locations in the Southeast. For its commercial/mechanical group, it acquired New England Applied Products, a manufacturers' representative and engineering firm specializing in commercial HVAC in the Northeast. Looking for a reprint of this article? From high-res PDFs to custom plaques, order your copy today! SPONSORED BY Hi there. I'm Ask ACHR NEWS. You can ask me anything about HVACR trends, news, and insights. Go ahead, type something below, and let's get started! Matt Jachman is an editor at the ACHR NEWS. He has 30-plus years of experience in community journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from Wayne State University in Detroit. JOIN TODAY To unlock your recommendations. Already have an account? Sign In