Wild West to Pricing GPS: How Robertson Unlocked $1M+ in Margin Dollars

Profile

Founded in 1934 and headquartered in Alliance, Ohio, Robertson Heating Supply is a family-owned leader in HVAC and plumbing wholesale distribution, operating 40 branches across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, and West Virginia, including seven kitchen and bath retail showrooms.

Beyond HVAC and plumbing, Robertson specializes in kitchen and bath, delivering a wide range of HVAC, plumbing, and hydronic products to contractors across its regional footprint. Now in its ninth decade of operation, the company has built its reputation on the hands-on relationships that come with being a multi-generation family business.

That same relationship-driven culture continues to shape how Robertson works with epaCUBE today. As Kurt Keller, HVAC Product Manager, put it: “epaCUBE is the GPS.”

The Challenge

• Pricing driven by emotion, not data
• Overrides happened at will
• No consistent source of truth
• Counter staff could change prices on the fly
• Homegrown ERP with no built-in pricing analytics
• Margin leaking with no way to see or fix it

The Turning Point

Robertson didn't need another spreadsheet telling them what they already knew. They needed a system that could bring consistency to every pricing decision. With epaCUBE, base pricing became the base price. Full stop — counter staff could no longer override it on a whim.

For a team with decades of institutional memory built around “taking you at your word,” that was a real shift. Pricing decisions used to run on trust alone; now they run on numbers. The bigger change happened beneath the surface: Robertson revamped their entire customer segmentation strategy, which — paired with epaCUBE's guardrails — finally gave the sales team a pricing structure they could trust, and one that pushed back when it needed to.

More Than Software

If you ask Kurt what made the difference, the software alone is only half the answer. Robertson meets with their epaCUBE team twice a week — a routine they've kept for three years running.

Lexi and Sharon have become more than a vendor contact; they've become an integral part of Robertson's internal pricing team. That partnership turned epaCUBE from a one-time project into a continuous improvement process — pricing became a discipline to practice daily, not a problem to solve once.

Consistency, Not Chaos

Pricing that used to shift depending on who picked up the phone now holds steady across the board. Base pricing holds firm, and the team leans far less on overrides than it once did.

With a structure they can trust, the internal conversation changed. Instead of debating individual prices, Robertson can focus on segmentation, consistency, and the disciplined decisions that compound into real margin gains.

Results

Pricing that used to shift depending on who picked up the phone now holds steady across the board. That consistency — fast, repeatable, accurate pricing — is what unlocked the margin gains. The $1M+ benefit didn't come from a single bold move; it came from thousands of small, disciplined decisions applied consistently across 3,419 price records.

• Pricing consistency across reps, branches, and the counter
• Reduced override dependence, with base pricing holding firm
• Fast, repeatable, accurate pricing across the board
• Pricing shifted from a one-time project to continuous improvement

What Comes Next

Today, Robertson runs pricing as a controlled system rather than a collection of adjustments. Base pricing holds, the counter follows structure, and the sales team trusts the numbers behind every quote.

With a stable foundation in place, Robertson continues to refine its customer segmentation and reinforce pricing discipline — compounding the gains that have already delivered more than $1 million in additional margin dollars.

Every distributor has pricing. The question is whether it's guided by strategy or individual opinion. Robertson replaced uncertainty with structure — and the same data is likely already sitting inside your ERP, waiting to be put to work.