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The AI assistant for hardware sales reps

You visit hardware shops, paint and decorating stores, builders’ merchants and tool suppliers with price lists running to thousands of codes. Ugo finds products and prices in your files, remembers this month’s promotions, plans your round and writes the order emails.

Try UgoUgo for hardware sales reps, at the counter and in the car

A hardware sales rep works with the longest price list of all. Screws, wall plugs, hand and power tools, locks, adhesives, paint, garden products, plumbing and electrical: thousands of codes, often from several principals, with tiered discounts, net prices, seasonal promotions and different minimum pack sizes for every range. Every year brings new lines, discontinued items and replacement codes, and the price list in your head goes out of date fast.

Your customers are independent hardware shops, paint and decorating stores, builders’ merchants, industrial tool suppliers, agricultural merchants and the odd DIY store. The owner gives you ten minutes at the counter between customers and wants answers straight away: “how much is code 4521?”, “is the wall plug offer still on?”, “when’s the restock due?”. If you can’t answer on the spot, someone else takes the order.

Ugo reads the Excel price lists and PDF terms from the OneDrive or Drive folder you choose, finds the right code and prepares the order to send to your principal. It plans your round by area, reminds you who needs to restock before the season, finds the data sheets on the manufacturer’s website and, before sending anything, asks you to confirm.

The job of a sales agent in the hardware trade

A few minutes at the counter, lots of products, lots of principals.

Endless price lists and similar codes

Searching for a product in a 400-page PDF or an Excel file with thousands of rows, with the owner waiting, is the slowest part of the visit. And the codes all look alike.

Promotions and terms that keep changing

Spring garden promotion, autumn campaign on tools, an invoice discount above a certain amount. Every principal has its own rules and remembering them all is impossible.

Seasons and restocking

De-icer, rock salt and shovels in November, hoses and watering in March. If you don’t call at the right time, the customer has already ordered from the wholesaler or a competitor.

Lots of small, scattered customers

Dozens of hardware shops in different towns, each with small but frequent orders. Planning the round so every visit is worth the drive is a job in itself.

Ugo for hardware sales reps, at the counter and in the car

Quick requests, made in front of the customer or between visits.

Code and price from the price list, in seconds

The owner asks for a product and you ask Ugo. It reads the Excel price list on OneDrive and replies with code, description, pack size and price, so you carry on the conversation without flicking through anything.

Skills used

Ugoonline

  1. 8 mm nylon wall plugs, pack size and price?

  2. From the price list “Fixings 2026”: • TN-08-50, nylon wall plug 8x40, pack of 100, £6.90 • TN-08-200, nylon wall plug 8x40, pack of 200, £12.40 October offer: 10% off above 20 packs.

The order dictated at the counter and sent to the principal

Dictate the order in a voice message while the customer chooses. Ugo transcribes it, sorts it by code and writes the email to the principal’s order office, which goes after your “Confirm”.

Skills used

Ugoonline

  1. 🎤 Voice message (0:34)

  2. Order for Bates Hardware, Wakefield: 1. TN-08-200 × 10 2. VT-4X40 × 20 3. SIL-CLEAR × 24 4. GLOVES-L × 12 I’ll email the Northern Fixings order office with the summary and a request for delivery by Friday. Shall I go ahead?

A round of the local paint shops

Launching a new paint range? Ugo searches paint and decorating stores and hardware shops in an area with address, phone and ratings, and works out the times between them with real traffic.

Skills used

Ugoonline

  1. Paint and decorating shops in and around York?

  2. I found 7, the closest: 1. Minster Paints, Gillygate 2. Colour & Co., Acomb 3. Riverside Decorating Centre, Fulford From Minster Paints to Colour & Co. takes 11 minutes right now.

  3. Book me in at Minster Paints Tuesday at 9

  4. I’ll create “Visit Minster Paints – new paint range” Tuesday 9:00-9:45, Gillygate, York. Shall I go ahead?

Who needs to restock before the season

At the end of October you ask Ugo which customers bought winter products last year, reading the order history on Drive. It gives you the list and drafts an email with the offer for each one.

Skills used

Ugoonline

  1. Who bought rock salt and snow shovels last year?

  2. From the history “Orders 2025”: • Bates Hardware, Wakefield • Ouse Valley Farm Supplies, Selby • Homebuild Supplies, Pontefract • Bridge Hardware, Castleford Shall I draft an email with the winter offer for all four?

A day in the life of a hardware sales agent

Lots of short visits, lots of codes, with Ugo as an archive always within reach.

  1. 7:30

    Ugo sends you the day’s visits: five hardware shops and a paint store, with the times between them.

  2. 8:45

    At the first shop’s counter you ask for the price and pack size of three codes. Ugo finds them in the price list.

  3. 10:00

    You dictate the order in a voice message. Ugo drafts the email for the order office and waits for your “Confirm”.

  4. 12:30

    You get a summary of the morning’s emails: one principal has changed the prices of its garden range.

  5. 15:00

    A customer asks about the differences between two drills. Ugo reads them from the manufacturer’s website and quotes the page.

  6. 18:00

    You ask who you haven’t visited for over a month: Ugo reads it from the history and adds them to next week’s round.

Price lists, catalogues and orders connected to Ugo

The material your principals send you becomes searchable from WhatsApp.

Excel price lists on OneDrive

Put your principals’ price lists in a OneDrive folder. Ugo reads the Excel sheets and answers on codes, pack sizes and prices, even when there are several suppliers.

The manufacturer’s online catalogue

With Company websites, Ugo learns your principals’ websites, with data sheets and specifications. It answers on the differences between two products, quoting the page.

The order form template with {{client}}

If your principal wants orders on a form, set it up on Google Drive or Word with placeholders. Ugo fills it in with customer, products and quantities and saves it in the folder.

Your principal’s CRM or Odoo

If your principal uses Odoo, Ugo reads your customers’ sales orders and quotations, as well as contacts and opportunities. With HubSpot or Zoho CRM it adds notes and tasks.

The skills to switch on

The most useful Ugo features for this job, starting with the first one to turn on. You switch them on from the portal in a few minutes.

Questions hardware sales agents often ask

How can I check a hardware price list on my phone during a visit?

A PDF on a phone is hard work with price lists running to hundreds of pages. It’s better to keep your principals’ Excel files in a shared folder and search by code or description. With Ugo you just type “8 mm wall plugs” on WhatsApp: it reads the price lists from the OneDrive or Drive folder you chose and replies with code, pack size and price.

How can a sales rep increase sales to hardware shops?

Get ahead of the season, offer promotions before the customer goes looking for them and bring something new to every visit, not just the catalogue. It also helps to know what the customer bought at the same time last year. Ugo reads the order history and tells you who to restock, so the visit starts with a concrete proposal.

Does Ugo enter orders into my principal’s system?

Only if the system offers a way to connect it, such as an MCP server. Otherwise Ugo prepares the order and emails it to the order office, or fills in the order form on Drive, always after you confirm. With Odoo it can read orders and quotations, but not create them.

Which are the most important hardware trade shows?

The best-known internationally is the Eisenwarenmesse in Cologne, dedicated to tools, hardware and industrial supplies. For the North American market there’s the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas. At a trade show Ugo helps you keep track of contacts: dictate a voice message after each meeting and it creates the contact in the CRM once you confirm.

Does it work if I have five different principals?

Yes. You can keep all their price lists in the same folder and ask “who has clear silicone at the best price?”. If your principals use different CRMs, you connect the accounts they give you. The price stays €50 a month or €550 a year, excl. VAT, however many principals you have.

Useful references

Associations, bodies and official sources for the sector: external websites, independent of Ugo.

The whole price list, in one chat

Connect your price list folder and your diary. On your next visit, you find the codes with a message.

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