好市多 (COST) 2016 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, my name is Brandy and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q1 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

早安，我叫布蘭迪，今天將擔任你們的會議接線生。此時此刻，我謹代表全體與會者歡迎參加第一季財報電話會議。所有線路均已靜音，以防止任何背景噪音。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Mr. Richard Galanti, CFO, Sir, you may begin your conference.

財務長理查德·加蘭蒂先生，先生，您可以開始您的會議了。

Thank you, Brandy, and good morning, to everyone. This morning's press release reviews our first quarter of FY16 operating results for the 12 weeks ended November 22. Before I begin, please note that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

謝謝你，布蘭迪，大家早安。今天早上的新聞稿回顧了我們截至 11 月 22 日的 2016 財年第一季（12 週）的經營業績。在開始之前，請注意，這些討論將包含 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》所界定的前瞻性陳述。

These statements address risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results and/or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in today's call as well as other risks identified from time to time in the Company's public statements and reports filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and we do not undertake to update these statements except as required by law.

這些聲明涉及風險和不確定性，可能導致實際事件、結果和/或績效與此類聲明所指出的內容有重大差異。這些風險和不確定性包括但不限於今天電話會議中概述的風險和不確定性，以及公司不時在公開聲明和提交給美國證券交易委員會的報告中確定的其他風險和不確定性。前瞻性聲明僅代表其發布之日的情況，除法律要求外，我們不承擔更新這些聲明的義務。

To begin with, our 12-week first quarter of FY16, for the quarter our reported earnings per share came in at $1.09, $0.03 below last year's reported figure of $1.12. There are several items of note, six to be exact, that impacted this year-over-year comparison of Q1 earnings.

首先，我們公佈的 2016 財年第一季（12 週）每股收益為 1.09 美元，比去年公佈的 1.12 美元低 0.03 美元。有幾項值得注意的因素，確切地說是六項，影響了第一季收益的年比比較。

First, FX, in first quarter the foreign currencies where we operate were weaker year over year versus the US dollar, primarily in Canada, Mexico and Korea. Such that foreign earnings in Q1, when converted into US dollars for reporting purposes, were lower by approximately $42 million or $0.10 a share than those earnings would've been had FX exchange rates been flat, year over year.

首先是外匯方面，第一季我們營運所在地的外幣兌美元較去年同期走弱，主要集中在加拿大、墨西哥和韓國。因此，第一季的海外收益，按報告目的換算成美元後，比匯率保持不變的情況下，每股收益減少了約 4,200 萬美元或 0.10 美元。

The big weaknesses started about a year ago. While I certainly don't know what's going to happen tomorrow and there's been continued weakness, certainly the biggest impacts look like the last four quarters. One of the benefits, of course, is it has made purchasing land and building units in some of these countries a little cheaper over the last year.

主要的弱點大約從一年前開始出現。雖然我當然不知道明天會發生什麼，而且市場持續疲軟，但可以肯定的是，最大的影響似乎出現在最近四個季度。當然，好處之一是，在過去一年裡，這使得在這些國家購買土地和建造房屋的成本略微降低了一些。

Number two, stock compensation expense was $36 million higher year over year in the first quarter, or $0.05 a share. We have over 4,600 people who received restricted stock units. For many of them, it is a significant part of their annual compensation. These grants are made annually each October, in our fiscal first quarter.

第二，第一季股票補償支出比去年同期增加了 3,600 萬美元，即每股 0.05 美元。我們有超過4600人獲得了限制性股票單位。對他們中的許多人來說，這是他們年收入的重要組成部分。這些撥款每年十月發放，這是我們財政第一季的撥款。

While these grants typically vest over a five-year period, accelerated vesting occurs when a recipient reaches 25, 30 and 35 years of employment with the Company. So, factors driving this $36 million increase included additional levels of accelerated vesting given the rising number of employees achieving long tenure with the Company. This by the way is most impactful each Q1, given our October, our issue grant cycle.

雖然這些獎勵通常會在五年內逐步歸屬，但當受益人在公司工作滿 25 年、30 年和 35 年時，就會加速歸屬。因此，推動這 3,600 萬美元成長的因素包括：由於越來越多的員工在公司長期任職，加速歸屬的層級也隨之提高。順便一提，鑑於我們的撥款週期在十月份，這種情況在每季的第一季影響最大。

Two, appreciation in our stock price and of course the larger number of employees in the plans. I would like to note that because of the significant price appreciation in our stock this past year, this year's annual RSU grant which occurred in late October, was reduced by an average of 12%.

第二，股價上漲，當然還有計畫中員工人數的增加。我想指出，由於我們股票在過去一年中價格大幅上漲，今年 10 月下旬發放的年度 RSU 平均減少了 12%。

That is the number of RSUs granted to each recipient. So while there was a $36 million year-over-year increase in Q1, in the upcoming second, third and fourth quarters of this fiscal year, the anticipated year-over-year increases are estimated to be about one-third of this dollar amount in each of the fiscal quarters. So, $0.01 to $0.02 earnings year-over-year impact each quarter in second, third and fourth quarters, versus the $0.05 a share impact in Q1.

這是授予每位受益人的限制性股票單位 (RSU) 數量。因此，雖然第一季同比增長了 3,600 萬美元，但預計本財年第二、三和季的同比增長率約為該金額的三分之一。因此，第二、三、第四季每季的收益年比影響為 0.01 至 0.02 美元，而第一季每股收益較去年同期影響為 0.05 美元。

Third point I'd like to note, there are two SG&A items that together, negatively impacted this year's Q1 earnings. In the first quarter, we recorded a $22 million charge related to two nonrecurring legal and regulatory matters. The $22 million figure represented an 8 basis point hit to SG&A and impacted our first quarter earnings per share by $0.04.

第三點我想指出，有兩項銷售、一般及行政費用加起來對今年第一季的收益產生了負面影響。第一季度，我們計入了一筆與兩項非經常性法律和監管事項相關的 2,200 萬美元費用。2,200萬美元的支出使銷售、一般及行政費用減少了8個基點，並使我們第一季的每股收益減少了0.04美元。

Point number four, IT modernization. As discussed in each of the past many quarters over a couple years now, our major IT modernization efforts continue to impact our SG&A expense percentages, especially as new systems are placed into service and depreciation begins. In the first quarter on an incremental year-over-year basis, these costs impacted SG&A by an estimated $20 million pretax or 7 basis points, 6 basis points without gas deflation, which was about a $0.03 hit to earnings in the quarter versus last year.

第四點，IT現代化。正如過去幾年裡每個季度所討論的那樣，我們主要的 IT 現代化工作繼續影響著我們的銷售、一般及行政費用百分比，尤其是在新系統投入使用和折舊開始之後。第一季度，這些成本按同比計算，估計對銷售、一般及行政費用造成了 2000 萬美元的稅前影響，即 7 個基點；若不計天然氣價格下跌，則為 6 個基點；與去年同期相比，這相當於對本季度收益造成了約 0.03 美元的損失。

Point number five, last year in the first quarter we did call out that we had a $17 million benefit to gross margin related to a nonrecurring legal settlement. So that benefited last year's first quarter by $0.03 a share.

第五點，去年第一季我們確實提到，由於一筆非經常性法律和解金，我們的毛利率獲得了 1700 萬美元的收益。因此，去年第一季每股收益增加了 0.03 美元。

And lastly, point number six, our co-branded credit card transition in the US. As you know, we'll be transitioning to a new co-branded credit card relationship in the US next year. As we wind down our current relationship, new co-brand sign-ups have greatly slowed and in fact, are now, have now ceased. The short-term negative impact relates to monies we earned for new co-brand sign-ups.

最後，第六點，我們在美國進行的聯名信用卡轉型。如您所知，明年我們將在美國過渡到新的聯名信用卡合作關係。隨著我們目前合作關係的逐步結束，新的聯名品牌簽約數量已經大大減少，事實上，現在已經停止了。短期負面影響與我們透過新的聯名合作註冊所獲得的收入有關。

Year over year in Q1, this represented a $15 million or $0.02 per share hit to our earnings. This will continue to be a small, negative impact to earnings in Q2 and Q3 and possibly into Q4 based on timing. At which time I'll be able to better outline how the new relationship should directionally impact our future results and the future rewards to our members under the new co-branded credit card program. I look forward to sharing more information at that time.

與去年同期相比，第一季我們的收益損失了 1,500 萬美元，即每股損失 0.02 美元。這將持續對第二季和第三季的收益產生較小的負面影響，並且根據時間推移，這種影響可能會延續到第四季。屆時，我將能夠更好地闡述新的合作關係將如何對我們未來的業績以及新的聯名信用卡計劃將如何為我們的會員帶來未來的回報產生積極影響。屆時我將與大家分享更多資訊。

So, six items of note. I added it up, it's about $0.27 an impact to our year-over-year earnings comparison. I know many of these things you may have in your numbers. I know some of them you don't. Turning to our first quarter sales, in terms of sales for the quarter, our 12-week reported comp sales figure for Q1 showed a minus 1% decrease, plus 2% in US, minus 9% in Canada and minus 5% in other international.

所以，有六點值得注意。我算了一下，這會對我們的年比收益比較產生大約 0.27 美元的影響。我知道你們的資料裡可能有很多這類資訊。我知道其中一些你不認識。再來看我們第一季的銷售額，就本季銷售額而言，我們第一季 12 週的同店銷售額數據顯示下降了 1%，其中美國增長了 2%，加拿大下降了 9%，其他國際地區下降了 5%。

As we stated in our release, if you take out the two big impacts of gas price deflation year over year and the impact of negative FX, the plus 2% reported US comp would've been a plus 6% for the first quarter, the minus 9% in Canada would have been a plus 9%, and the minus 5% other international would've been a plus 7%, such that the minus 1% reported comp would've been a plus 6%. And, as we reported last Wednesday in our November sales results for the four-week month ended November 29, our comp sales increase, excluding the impact of FX and gas, was similar to the 12-week first fiscal quarter, with total Company comp increase of 6% and again, ex gas and FX, in the US a plus 6%, in Canada, a plus 8% and other international, a plus 7%.

正如我們在新聞稿中所述，如果剔除汽油價格同比下降和匯率負面影響這兩大影響，美國報告的 2% 同店銷售額增長率將變為第一季的 6%，加拿大報告的 9% 同店銷售額增長率將變為第一季的 9%，其他國際市場報告的 5% 同店銷售額將變為第 6% 的銷售額增長率7%，因此，銷售額的 1% 將銷售額同店的 7%，因此銷售額將銷售額第 7%。正如我們在上週三發布的 11 月截至 11 月 29 日的四周銷售業績報告中所述，我們的同店銷售額增長（不包括外匯和天然氣的影響）與第一財季 12 週的情況類似，公司總同店銷售額增長 6%，同樣，不包括天然氣和外匯的影響，美國增長 6%，加拿大增長 8%，其他國際地區增長 7%，其他國際地區增長 7%，其他國際地區增長 7%，其他國際地區增長 7%，其他國際地區增長 7%。

In terms of opening activities and plans, we opened 13 new locations in Q1, including two relos for a net of 11 new warehouses during the quarter, which ended November 22. That included seven in the US, one in Canada; one in Australia, our eighth in that country; one in Japan, our 24th in Japan; and our second in Spain, just outside of Madrid in Getafe. That's our second unit in Spain. Two relocated locations were in Woodland Hills, California and Teterboro, New Jersey.

在開幕活動和計畫方面，我們在截至 11 月 22 日的第一季開設了 13 個新地點，其中包括兩個搬遷地點，淨增加 11 個新倉庫。其中包括美國的 7 家，加拿大的 1 家；澳洲的 1 家（我們在該國的第八家）；日本的 1 家（我們在日本的第二十四家）；以及西班牙的第二家，位於馬德里郊外的赫塔菲。那是我們在西班牙的第二個計畫。兩個搬遷地點分別位於加州伍德蘭希爾斯和新澤西州泰特伯勒。

In the second quarter, we had two new business centers planned to open. One each in Westminster, California, and in Hackensack, New Jersey. And for all of FY16, we have a current plan to open up 32 net new locations. That could come down a little bit based on timing as we get into the second half of the year, a few may be delayed, but that is our current plan.

第二季度，我們計劃開設兩個新的商務中心。加州威斯敏斯特和新澤西州哈肯薩克各有一座。2016 財年，我們計劃淨增 32 個營業地點。隨著我們進入下半年，這個數字可能會根據時間安排略有下降，一些項目可能會延期，但這是我們目前的計劃。

Of those, assuming we were able to do all 32, 22 of them would be in the US, three in Canada, two each in Japan and Australia and one each in the UK, Taiwan and Spain. Later in the call, I'll review with you our e-commerce activities, our membership trends, additional discussion about gross margin and SG&A in Q1, and recent stock purchase activities.

假設我們能夠完成全部 32 項任務，其中 22 項將在美國，3 項在加拿大，日本和澳洲各 2 項，英國、台灣和西班牙各 1 項。在稍後的電話會議中，我將與大家回顧我們的電子商務活動、會員趨勢、關於第一季毛利率和銷售、管理及行政費用的進一步討論，以及最近的股票購買活動。

Again, very briefly, sales for the quarter reported were up 1.3% to $26.6 billion, up from $26.3 billion a year ago. Again, on a comp basis, reported number was down 1% but ex gas and FX was up 6%. For the quarter, our minus 1% reported comp sales results were a combination of an average transaction size down 4% for the quarter. Again, taking out gas and FX, it would be up 3% excluding those items. And an average shopping frequency of about 3.5% for the quarter.

再簡單概括一下，本季銷售額成長1.3%，達到266億美元，高於去年同期的263億美元。再次，以同店銷售額計算，報告數字下降了 1%，但剔除天然氣和外匯因素後，增加了 6%。本季度，我們報告的同店銷售額下降了 1%，這是由於本季平均交易規模下降了 4% 造成的。再次強調，剔除汽油和外匯因素後，股價將上漲 3%。該季度平均購物頻率約為 3.5%。

In terms of sales comparisons by geography, geographically for Q1, the better operating performing regions in the US were all three regions in California and the Midwest as well. Internationally in local currencies, the better performing countries were Australia, Taiwan, Mexico, and Canada. In terms of merchandise categories for the quarter, during the quarter, we look at September, October and November, excluding FX and gas, within food and sundries, which were up in the mid single-digits year over year, sundries, meat deli, and spirits were the relative standouts.

從地理銷售比較來看，第一季美國營運表現較好的地區是加州的三個地區以及中西部地區。從國際上以當地貨幣計算，表現較好的國家為澳洲、台灣、墨西哥和加拿大。就本季商品類別而言，在本季度，我們檢視了 9 月、10 月和 11 月（不包括外匯和汽油），在食品和日用品中，同比增長了中等個位數，日用品、肉類熟食和酒類是相對突出的。

Our hard line sales were up in the mid to high single-digits for the quarter. Majors were electronic came in positive for the quarter in the low double-digit range. In addition to electronics, better performing departments included hardware and garden patio. Within the mid single-digit soft line comps at domestics, women's apparel and home furnishings were standouts. And in fresh foods where our comp sales were in the mid to high single-digits, produce was at the top of the four sub categories.

本季我們的硬線產品銷售額實現了中高個位數的成長。本季主要電子產品的增幅在兩位數低點範圍內。除了電子產品部門外，業績較好的部門還包括五金和花園庭院部門。在國內軟商品銷售額中個位數百分比的波動中，女裝和家居用品表現突出。在新鮮食品領域，我們的同店銷售額成長了中高個位數，而農產品在四個子類別中位居榜首。

Moving down the line items of the income statement, membership fees. In the first quarter, membership fees were up 2% and 2 basis points or up $11 million, coming in at $593 million versus $582 million a year ago. Again, without FX, the dollars would've been up 6%. I noticed in several of the preliminary notes from some of the sale side analysts out there, they'd expressed some questions about the strength in membership. And I might point out a couple of things. In addition to being up 6% FX, on a cash basis, there was about another percentage point higher than these numbers. As well anecdotally, a year ago, we did a couple of things outside with social media in which we didn't do. Small impact year-over-year, but something versus nothing.

繼續查看損益表項目，會員費。第一季度，會員費上漲 2.2 個百分點，增加了 1,100 萬美元，達到 5.93 億美元，而去年同期為 5.82 億美元。再說一遍，不考慮外匯因素，美元本應上漲 6%。我注意到在一些銷售方分析師的初步報告中，他們對會員實力提出了一些疑問。我還要指出幾點。除以外匯匯率計算上漲 6% 外，以現金匯率計算，漲幅比這些數字還要高出約一個百分點。此外，據傳聞，一年前，我們在社交媒體上做了一些我們以前從未做過的事情。與去年相比影響不大，但總比沒有強。

In terms of membership, we continue to benefit from good sign-ups in existing and new locations, continued increasing penetration of our $110 a year executive membership and strong renewal rates, a 91% averaging up to 91% in the US and Canada and averaging up to 88% worldwide. Our new membership sign-ups in Q1 year over year, company-wide were up 7%.

在會員方面，我們繼續受益於現有和新地點的良好註冊情況，每年 110 美元的高級會員資格的滲透率持續提高，續訂率強勁，在美國和加拿大平均續訂率高達 91%，在全球範圍內平均續訂率高達 88%。公司第一季新會員註冊量年增 7%。

In terms of members at Q1 end, gold star came in at the quarter end at 34.7 million, up from 34.0 million at year end. Primary business, 7.2 million at quarter end versus 7.1 million a quarter ago. Business add-on remained at 3.5 million. So total memberships 45.4 million at quarter end, up from 44.6 million, and including extra cards, 82.7 million cards out there versus 81.3 million, 12 weeks earlier.

截至第一季末，金星會員人數為 3,470 萬，高於去年年底的 3,400 萬。主營業務，季末為 720 萬，上一季為 710 萬。業務附加費維持在 350 萬。因此，截至季末，會員總數為 4,540 萬，高於 4,460 萬；加上額外卡，現有卡片數量為 8,270 萬張，而 12 週前為 8,130 萬張。

At Q1 end, paid executive memberships came in at 16.4 million which was an increase of 307,000 or 26,000 new executive members increased each week in the 12-week fiscal first quarter. As you know, executive members are over one-third of our member base and over two-thirds of our sales in those countries where executive membership is available.

截至第一季末，付費高級會員人數達到 1,640 萬，比上一季增加了 30.7 萬，也就是說，在第一財季的 12 週內，每週新增高級會員 2.6 萬。如您所知，高級會員占我們會員總數的三分之一以上，在提供高級會員資格的國家，高級會員的銷售額占我們銷售額的三分之二以上。

In terms of renewal rates, in the US and Canada, at quarter end we were at 90.6%. It rounded up to 90.6%, rounded down to 90.5% at the end of Q1. The impact that I mentioned a quarter ago in Canada with having to re-sign up the members with the new credit card program, at the nova program, that was a small impact. I think there was little impact in the US perhaps based on what I said earlier. Total worldwide remained at 87.8% at quarter end and at fiscal year end.

就續約率而言，在美國和加拿大，截至季末，我們的續約率為 90.6%。第一季末，數值向上取整為 90.6%，向下取整為 90.5%。我之前提到的在加拿大，由於需要重新註冊新信用卡計劃（nova計劃）而對會員造成的影響很小。我認為，根據我之前所說，這在美國可能影響不大。全球總成長率在季度末和財年末均維持在 87.8%。

Going down the gross margin line, our reported gross margin in the quarter was up 26 basis points coming in at 11.29% up from 11.03%. As you know, gas deflation is a big impact to these figures, so I will give you a couple numbers. I'll ask you to write down the normal four columns for all of FY15, columns 1 and 2 would be reported and then without gas deflation, two columns for Q1 2016 reported and without gas deflation. Of course these basis points figures are the year-over-year change from a year ago.

從毛利率來看，本季報告的毛利率上升了 26 個基點，達到 11.29%，高於先前的 11.03%。如你所知，天然氣通貨緊縮對這些數據有很大的影響，所以我會給你幾個數字。我會請你寫下 2015 財年的所有正常四列數據，其中第 1 列和第 2 列需要報告，而沒有考慮氣體通縮；然後，我會寫下 2016 年第一季度的兩列數據，其中兩列需要報告，而沒有考慮氣體通縮。當然，這些基點數據是與去年同期相比的同比變化。

Merchandise core was reported was plus 11 basis points for all of FY15, but without gas deflation was minus 12 year over year. For Q1, it was plus 24 and minus 3. Ancillary businesses for the year, plus 29 and plus 23. For the quarter, plus 11 and plus 4. 2% (sic - see press release ) super [cent] reward, minus 4 and minus 2 and for the quarter, minus 3 and minus 1. LIFO for all of last year was a 5 basis point pickup for both reported and without deflation and for the quarter it was plus 1 and plus 1. Other, for the whole all of last year, plus 2 reported and plus 1 without gas deflation.

據報道，2015 財年商品核心價格上漲 11 個基點，但若不計入汽油價格下跌，則較去年同期下降 12 個基點。第一季度，淨利為+24，淨利為-3。全年輔助業務淨利為+29，淨利為+23。本季度，加 11 和加 4.2%（原文如此 - 參見新聞稿）超級[美分]獎勵，減 4 和減 2，本季度，減 3 和減 1。去年全年，無論是否考慮通貨緊縮，後進先出法 (LIFO) 均上漲 5 個基點，本季為加 1 和加 1。其他，去年全年，無論是否考慮通貨緊縮，均加 2，不考慮通貨緊縮，均加 1。

And this year, that nonrecurring legal settlement impacted gross margin, that benefited gross margin a year ago, such that it was minus 7 basis points reported and minus 7 without gas deflation. You add up those columns for all of FY15, reported gross margin was up 43 basis points but up 15 ex gas deflation. This year Q1 reported up 26, but without gas deflation minus 6, with minus 7 of that minus 6 being the one-time benefit a year ago. So again, overall those are the numbers.

今年，這筆非經常性法律和解金影響了毛利率，而一年前的毛利率則因此受益，報告的毛利率為 -7 個基點，即使不考慮天然氣價格下跌，毛利率也為 -7 個基點。將 2015 財年的這些列加起來，報告的毛利率上升了 43 個基點，但剔除天然氣價格下跌的影響後上升了 15 個基點。今年第一季報告成長了 26%，但不包括天然氣通縮減 6%，其中減去 6 的 7 是去年的一次性收益。所以，總而言之，這些就是全部數據。

In terms of core gross margins, which is the core business food and sundries, hard lines, soft lines and fresh foods, as a percent of their own sales, they were positive year over year in Q1 by 13 basis points and they were higher year over year across all four of these merchandise categories. With both hard lines and soft lines showing stronger year-over-year improvement than the year-over-year improvement in food and sundries and fresh foods. But nonetheless, all four were positive year over year.

就核心毛利率而言（即核心業務食品和日用品、硬線、軟線和生鮮食品佔自身銷售額的百分比），第一季度同比增長 13 個基點，並且這四個商品類別的毛利率均同比增長。硬商品和軟商品的年增幅均強於食品雜貨和生鮮食品的年增幅。但儘管如此，這四項指標都比去年同期成長。

Ancillary and other business gross margin was up 11 on a reported basis, up 4 without gas deflation through the quarter. Many of these businesses, gas, pharmacy, food court, hearing aids, and mini labs, all showed higher year-over-year gross margins as a percent of their own sales. Offsetting this a little was slightly lower e-commerce gross margins but overall, net positive there.

以報告數據計算，輔助業務和其他業務的毛利率上升了 11%，若不計入本季天然氣通貨緊縮的影響，則上升了 4%。這些企業，包括加油站、藥局、美食廣場、助聽器店和小型沖印店，其毛利率佔自身銷售額的百分比均較前一年增加。雖然電子商務的毛利率略低，但整體而言，淨收益為正。

The 2% reward was higher year over year due to higher sales penetrations for executive members. This impacted gross margin in Q1 by 3 basis points to the negative, 1 basis point to the negative ex gas. LIFO, last year in Q1, we had a $2 million credit representing slight deflation in the US inventory pools and a credit of $5 million this year, also relatively small but a net pickup of 1 basis point year over year in terms of that recovery.

由於高階主管會員的銷售滲透率更高，2% 的獎勵比前一年有所提高。這導致第一季毛利率下降 3 個基點，不計天然氣則下降 1 個基點。去年第一季度，我們透過後進先出法（LIFO）獲得了 200 萬美元的信貸，這反映了美國庫存池的輕微通縮；而今年，我們獲得了 500 萬美元的信貸，雖然數額相對較小，但就復甦而言，與去年相比淨增長了 1 個基點。

Lastly, I mentioned the quarterly adjustment, a 7 basis point hit in terms of the comparison benefiting a nonrecurring benefit last year versus nothing this year. So overall, gross margins excluding gas were down 6 basis points year over year, but up 1 basis point excluding that one year charge, that nonrecurring benefit from last year.

最後，我提到了季度調整，由於去年受益於一項非經常性福利，而今年沒有受益，因此比去年同期下降了 7 個基點。因此，總體而言，不計入天然氣的毛利率年減了 6 個基點，但若不計入那一年的費用（即去年的一次性收益），則毛利率上升了 1 個基點。

Moving on to SG&A. Our SG&A percentages Q1 over Q1 were higher by 28 basis points coming in at 10.54 this year versus 10.26 last year. But excluding gas deflation, were lower or better by 2 basis points. I'll go into some detail and you'll see that the core expense components of that actually were pretty good. So again four columns, columns 1 and 2 would be FY15 for the year reported and without gas deflation and then, columns 3 and 4 would be Q1 2016 reported and without gas deflation.

接下來是銷售、一般及行政費用。今年第一季度，我們的銷售、一般及行政費用百分比比去年第一季高出 28 個基點，達到 10.54%，而去年同期為 10.26%。但若不計入天然氣價格下跌，價格會降低或上漲 2 個基點。我會詳細說明，你會發現其中的核心支出部分實際上相當不錯。所以，同樣有四列，第 1 列和第 2 列是 2015 財年（報告年度）且不考慮天然氣通貨緊縮，然後，第 3 列和第 4 列是 2016 年第一季（報告季度）且不考慮天然氣通貨緊縮。

First line item, core operations, minus 6 reported and plus 16 without deflation for all of last year on a year-over-year basis. In Q1, 0 and plus 26; central, minus 7 and minus 5 for the year; and minus 8 and minus 6 for the quarter. Stock compensation minus 5 and minus 4 for the year and minus 12 and minus 10 for the quarter. Quarterly adjustments, nothing last year in columns 1 and 2. This year, a minus 8 and minus 8. That represents that $22 million item that I mentioned early on.

第一行項目，核心運營，去年全年同比報告減少 6，不考慮通貨緊縮增加 16。第一季為 0 和 +26；中部地區，全年為 -7 和 -5；季度為 -8 和 -6。股票補償分別為：年度減 5 和減 4，季減 12 和減 10。季度調整，去年第 1 列和第 2 列均為零。今年，分別為 -8 和 -8。這代表了我之前提到的 2200 萬美元項目。

So total, last year for the year over year, we reported SG&A up or minus 18 basis points. And without gas deflation, better or lower, so plus 7 basis points. This year, higher by 28 so minus 28 basis points for the quarter reported and without deflation, plus 2.

因此，去年全年來看，我們的銷售、一般及行政費用較去年同期上升或下降了 18 個基點。如果沒有天然氣通貨緊縮，情況會更好或更糟，所以加 7 個基點。今年，比上一季高出 28 個基點，因此本季報告的基點為 -28 個基點，且未考慮通貨緊縮，加上 2 個基點。

Within operations, again without deflation, showed plus 26 or lower by 26. Within that, our core warehouse payroll was better year over year in the mid to high single-digits. Benefits were lower, or better in the high single-digits and the combination of other expenses, a variety of them, were better or lower by 10 basis points year over year. So again, kind of a core controlled or operating expenses were all in pretty good shape this quarter.

在營運中，同樣沒有通貨緊縮，顯示加 26 或降 26。其中，我們的核心倉庫薪資較去年同期下降了5%到10%。福利有所下降，或在個位數百分比範圍內有所提高，其他各種費用的總和同比下降或改善了 10 個基點。所以，本季核心控製或營運費用都控制得相當不錯。

Central expense was higher year over year by minus 8 or minus 6 basis points without gas. As I mentioned earlier in the call, increased IT spending related to modernization showed higher year-over-year costs of 7 basis points, 6 without gas deflation.

中心支出較去年同期下降 8 或 6 個基點（不包括天然氣）。正如我之前在電話會議中提到的，與現代化相關的 IT 支出增加，年比成本上升了 7 個基點，不考慮天然氣通貨緊縮的情況下上升了 6 個基點。

I already mentioned earlier the stock compensation which was 12 basis points or 10 basis points without deflation. I also mentioned that again, because of certainly the stock price increase but also importantly, the fact that there is more and more employees hitting 25, and in some cases 30, and even in a few cases 35, because they started back at Price Club, the total impact for the year, more than half of it based on our estimates, is the impact in Q1 with about one-third or less of that amount in each of the upcoming three quarters year over year. So still going to be higher year over year, but not as high as that increase was in Q1.

我之前已經提到股票補償，如果沒有通貨緊縮，則是 12 個基點或 10 個基點。我還再次提到，這當然是因為股價上漲，但更重要的是，越來越多的員工達到 25 歲，有些甚至達到 30 歲，少數甚至達到 35 歲，因為他們最初是在 Price Club 開始工作的。根據我們的估計，全年總影響的一半以上來自第一季度，而接下來三個季度每年的影響約為第一季的三分之一或更少。所以年比仍會更高，但不會像第一季那麼高。

Finally, quarterly adjustments, again related to the $22 million nonrecurring legal and regulatory items that I discussed. So overall good expense control, other plenty of things hopefully I've been able to elaborate and shed some light on the onus of that. Moving down the income statement, pre-opening expense was higher by $11 million or 4 basis points higher. We had nine openings last year, including one relocation, 13 this year including two. There's other pre-opening items in terms of countries and some other things, but overall, no big surprises there. All told, reporting operating income in Q1, reported operating income in Q1 was down $3 million from $770 million last year to $767 million this year.

最後，季度調整，同樣與我之前提到的 2,200 萬美元非經常性法律和監管項目有關。所以總體來說，費用控制得很好，其他方面也有很多，希望我已經能夠詳細說明並闡明其中的責任。從損益表上看，開業前費用增加了 1,100 萬美元，即增加了 4 個基點。去年我們有 9 個職位空缺，其中 1 個是搬遷職位；今年有 13 個職位空缺，其中 2 個是搬遷職位。還有一些關於國家和其他方面的開業前事項，但總的來說，沒有什麼大的驚喜。總的來說，第一季報告的營業收入比去年同期減少了 300 萬美元，從 7.7 億美元降至 7.67 億美元。

Below operating income, reported interest expense in Q1 came in at $33 million versus $26 million a year ago. Interest income, I'm sorry, lower by $7 million. Interest income itself was lower year over year by about $4 million and the other component was lower by $3 million year over year. That's primarily related to various FX related transactions. Sometime that's a positive, sometimes that's a negative. Never that meaningful for the year in its entirety, generally.

除營業收入外，第一季報告的利息支出為 3,300 萬美元，而去年同期為 2,600 萬美元。很遺憾，利息收入減少了700萬美元。利息收入本身比去年同期減少了約 400 萬美元，其他部分則較去年同期減少了 300 萬美元。這主要與各種外匯交易有關。有時這是好事，有時這是壞事。一般來說，就全年而言，這並沒有什麼特別重要的意義。

Overall, reported pretax income was down 2% versus last year coming in at $762 million down from $779 million pretax a year ago. Again, several items impacted the year-over-year earnings comparison which I discussed earlier in the call.

總體而言，報告的稅前收入比去年下降了 2%，從一年前的 7.79 億美元稅前收入降至 7.62 億美元。同樣，有幾個因素影響了同比收益的比較，我在之前的電話會議中已經討論過這些因素。

In terms of tax rates, our corporate tax rate this quarter was up about 1 percentage point coming in at 36.1% compared to last year's first quarter rate of 35.2%. The higher tax rate year over year resulted from a few discrete items going to the increasing tax rate not reducing it and to a little extent, lower earnings penetration from our foreign country operations where tax rates are generally lower than in our income tax rates for the United States.

就稅率而言，本季我們的企業稅率比去年第一季的 35.2% 上漲了約 1 個百分點，達到 36.1%。稅率逐年上升的原因是，一些個別項目導致稅率上升而不是下降，以及我們在海外業務的收入滲透率略有下降，因為海外的稅率通常低於美國的所得稅率。

Now for a quick rundown of other topics. The balance sheet as has been in the recent past is included in today's press release. I'll point out a couple of items. Depreciated amortization for Q1 came in at $271 million. Accounts payable as a percent of inventory on a reported basis was pretty much the same year over year. Last year was 101%, this year 100%. Taking out non-merchandise payables, last year, non-merchandise payables as a percent of inventories was 92%. This year, at quarter end it was 90%.

接下來快速回顧其他主題。與近期一樣，資產負債表也包含在今天的新聞稿中。我指出幾點。第一季折舊攤銷額為 2.71 億美元。以報表資料計算，應付帳款佔庫存的百分比與上年基本持平。去年是101%，今年是100%。扣除非商品應付帳款後，去年非商品應付帳款佔庫存的百分比為 92%。今年季末，這一比例為 90%。

Average inventory per warehouse on a reported basis was up a little over 3% or $524,000 to $14.9 million. Again, ex FX it would have been up about 6.5%, up $960,000 assuming flat FX. About $0.25 million is electronics and what we call majors and about $160,000 is apparel. Both built up inventory heading into the Thanksgiving week, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

按報告數據，每個倉庫的平均庫存成長略高於 3%，即 52.4 萬美元，達到 1,490 萬美元。再次強調，剔除匯率因素後，股價將上漲約 6.5%，假設匯率不變，則股價將上漲 96 萬美元。其中約 25 萬美元是電子產品和我們所說的大件商品，約 16 萬美元是服裝。兩家公司都在感恩節、黑色星期五和網路星期一之前囤積了庫存。

As you could have extrapolated from our November reporting, where we reported the four weeks of November, the 12-week first quarter and a 13-week retail reporting calendar of 4-5-4. The implication there of course was that the last week, which is really the first week of Q2, which is Thanksgiving week, was pretty strong. The balance in the departments have been selling well like hardware, housewares and toys. So really no issues of inventory levels going into the last few weeks before calendar year end. We're in pretty good shape.

正如您從我們 11 月的報告中可以推斷出來的那樣，我們報告了 11 月的四周、第一季度的 12 週以及 4-5-4 的 13 週零售報告日曆。當然，這意味著最後一周（實際上是第二季度的第一周，也就是感恩節那一周）的業績相當強勁。各部門的平衡品銷售情況都很好，例如五金、家居用品和玩具。因此，在日曆年結束前的最後幾週，庫存水準方面確實不存在任何問題。我們情況相當不錯。

In terms of CapEx, in Q1, we spent a little over $700 million and our estimate for the year is to be into and most likely CapEx will be in the high 2's, say $2.8 billion to $3 billion. This compares to CapEx of last fiscal year of $2.4 billion. In terms of dividends, our quarterly dividend continues at $0.40 a share or $1.60 annualized. This represents a total annual cost to the Company of around $700 million. In terms of stock buybacks in Q1, we bought back a total of 898,000 shares for $130 million, so an average price of $144.88.

就資本支出而言，第一季我們花費了略高於 7 億美元，我們預計全年資本支出將達到 20 億美元以上，很可能在 28 億美元到 30 億美元之間。相較之下，上一財年的資本支出為 24 億美元。在股息方面，我們的季度股息仍為每股 0.40 美元，或年化 1.60 美元。這意味著公司每年的總成本約為 7 億美元。在第一季的股票回購方面，我們總共回購了 898,000 股，耗資 1.3 億美元，平均價格為每股 144.88 美元。

Next topic, Costco online. We're now in five countries having launched Korea, November 10. We're in the US, Canada, UK, Mexico, and Korea. For the first quarter, sales and profits were up over last year. Q1 e-commerce total sales were up 15%. On a comp basis, a total and comp basis up 19% on a comp basis excluding FX. And again, it represents a little over 3% of our sales. We've been asked a lot of how again, the week of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you name it. E-commerce sales were quite strong, up 28% and up over 30% in local currencies.

下一個話題，Costco網路商城。繼11月10日在韓國推出後，我們目前已進入五個國家。我們在美國、加拿大、英國、墨西哥和韓國均設有分公司。第一季度，銷售額和利潤均較去年同期成長。第一季電子商務總銷售額成長15%。以可比口徑計算，總和及可比口徑增加 19%（不計匯率影響）。而且，這只占我們銷售額的3%多一點。我們常被問到這個問題，像是感恩節那週、黑色星期五、網路星期一等等。電子商務銷售額表現強勁，成長了 28%，以當地貨幣計算成長超過 30%。

New initiatives, again, it was a few years ago that we replatformed the sites. We've continued to improve our mobile apps and there's room to grow but they're a lot better than they used to be. Combined total e-commerce initiative efforts (technical difficulties) with our in line efforts. We've added a few categories like apparel, (inaudible) and KS items. We've greatly improved timing of shipments by shipping out of more than just one depot across the country. And again, we'll expect to see e-commerce in other international markets in the future.

新的舉措，再說一下，幾年前我們對網站進行了平台重構。我們一直在不斷改進我們的行動應用程序，雖然還有提升空間，但它們比以前好多了。綜合考慮電子商務計劃的所有努力（技術難題）以及我們的內部努力。我們新增了一些類別，例如服裝、（聽不清楚）和 KS 商品。我們透過在全國多個倉庫出貨，大大提高了出貨速度。而且，我們預計未來電子商務將在其他國際市場出現。

In terms of some of the others out there that are buying from us, we continue to provide merchandise for sale on the Google shopping express. This is now being offered in six markets. The Bay Area has recently been expanded, LA, Manhattan and more recently, Chicago, DC, and Boston.

至於其他一些從我們這裡購買商品的客戶，我們將繼續在 Google Shopping Express 上提供商品進行銷售。目前已在六大市場推出。灣區最近擴大了範圍，洛杉磯、曼哈頓以及最近的芝加哥、華盛頓特區和波士頓也加入了。

We've increased our offerings and categories and currently testing fresh foods available on a limited group in each of the San Francisco and LA markets. We're also providing merchandise to Instacart now in 16 markets through the West of the United States. Boxed in three markets and we're also selling, doing some business with jet.com in the three cities where they have their distribution centers.

我們增加了產品種類和供應量，目前正在舊金山和洛杉磯市場對部分顧客提供新鮮食品進行測試。我們現在也透過 Instacart 向美國西部 16 個市場供應商品。我們的產品已在三個市場上市，同時我們也在 jet.com 設有配送中心的三個城市進行銷售，與他們開展一些業務。

Outside of here, Alibaba Tea Mall, we currently offer just over 200 skews on the Tea Mall site with a heavy emphasis on Kirkland Signature items. It's going well and we're certainly building some recognition for the cost in Kirkland Signature names. We had a very successful singles day on Alibaba Tea Mall receiving over 300,000 orders.

除了這裡，阿里巴巴茶商城，我們目前在茶商城網站上提供 200 多種茶飲，其中 Kirkland Signature 的產品佔了很大比例。一切進展順利，我們確實正在提升 Kirkland Signature 品牌的價格認知。我們在阿里巴巴茶商城雙十一活動上取得了巨大成功，獲得了超過30萬份訂單。

Next on the discussion list, expansion. Again, last year, we opened net new units of 23. So it's about 3.5% square footage growth. This year, again, plans for up to 32 units. If we achieve that it will be about 5% square footage growth and I already mentioned where those would be. Also, as of Q1 end, some of you want to know what our square footage is. At Q1 end, it stood at 100.547 million square feet.

接下來要討論的是擴張問題。去年，我們又新增了 23 個單元。所以建築面積增加了約3.5%。今年，計劃再次建造多達 32 套單元房。如果我們能實現這個目標，建築面積將成長約 5%，我已經提到這些建築會建在哪裡。另外，截至第一季末，你們中的一些人想知道我們的建築面積是多少平方英尺。第一季末，該建築面積為 1.00547 億平方英尺。

Lastly, our second quarter FY16 scheduled earnings release, that will be for the 12 weeks ended on February 14, will be after the market closes on Wednesday, March 2, with earnings the following morning on Thursday, March 3.

最後，我們 2016 財年第二季（截至 2 月 14 日的 12 週）的預定收益發布將於 3 月 2 日星期三股市收盤後進行，收益將於第二天早上（3 月 3 日星期四）公佈。

With that, I'll turn it back to Brandy and be happy to open it up for questions. Thank you.

這樣，我就把話題交還給布蘭迪，她很樂意接受大家的提問。謝謝。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Charles Grom, Sterne, Agee.

查爾斯·格羅姆、斯特恩、阿吉。

Hey, Richard. Thanks for that. First question, a lot of moving parts with some of the one-time items. I know you guys don't give guidance anymore, but I'd be curious how the quarter overall performed relative to the expectations that you would have budgeted back in August?

嘿，理查德。謝謝。第一個問題，涉及很多環節，其中一些是一次性項目。我知道你們不再發布業績指引了，但我很想知道本季整體業績與你們8月份的預算預期相比如何？

We beat them.

我們打敗了他們。

You beat them? Okay.

你打敗了他們？好的。

Yes.

是的。

Second question, when you look at new member sign-ups, how has the trend been by age group? I'm curious your ability to attract younger customers given the success of Prime and other programs out there. Have you guys started to look at the sign-ups by age group, et cetera?

第二個問題，從新會員註冊情況來看，依年齡層劃分的趨勢如何？鑑於 Prime 和其他類似項目的成功，我很想知道你們吸引年輕客戶的能力如何。你們開始查看按年齡組別等劃分的報名情況了嗎？

We have and I don't have the most current month's detail, but from our monthly budget meeting, we're getting, first of all, the average age of a Costco member has come down. I think a few years ago we were about four years older than the average in the US. Now we're a little under two years older. About one-third of our new sign-ups in recent months have been millennials and I'll make a point to provide a little more color on that at each quarterly earnings release.

我們有相關數據，雖然我沒有上個月的詳細數據，但從我們每個月的預算會議來看，首先，Costco 會員的平均年齡有所下降。我認為幾年前，我們的年齡比美國平均年齡大了大約四歲。現在我們又老了將近兩歲。近幾個月來，我們新註冊的用戶中約有三分之一是千禧世代，我會在每季財報發布會上對此進行更詳細的介紹。

Okay. The last question for me just on the gross margin. It's the first time in a long time that all four categories have been positive. Just curious if there's, if you could provide a little color maybe by category what's driving that?

好的。我最後一個問題是關於毛利率的。這是很長一段時間以來，首次所有四個類別都為正值。我只是好奇，如果可以的話，能否按類別稍微解釋一下，是什麼因素導致了這種情況？

Well I think the one that's historically in the last many quarters that's always the one that's a little volatile and volatile is mostly defined as down year-over-year, is fresh foods. And that has to do with the fact that as commodity prices have increased, we maintain prices. No doubt things like rotisserie chickens and the like.

我認為，在過去的幾個季度裡，一直波動較大的一個產業，也就是年減的產業，就是生鮮食品。這與大宗商品價格上漲後我們維持價格不變這一事實有關。毫無疑問，像烤雞之類的東西也包括在內。

And that's, I think there's been a little bit of deflation in some of those categories and some meat. But also, our volumes are particularly strong. When you've got a low double-digit comp in produce as an example, that's going to help you because sales are strong, availability of products is good and spoilage is less. So those are the types of things that help you in fresh foods.

我認為，在某些類別和一些肉類產品中，出現了一些通貨緊縮。而且，我們的銷售也特別強勁。以農產品為例，如果同店銷售額下降兩位數，這對你來說是有利的，因為銷售額強勁，產品供應充足，損耗較少。所以這些都是有助於你攝取新鮮食物的要素。

I think the strength in electronics has probably helped us. Those are the things that come to mind. I don't have -- organics is helping. Organics as I mentioned before, it's kind of a win-win for us. We get, for us, a fuller margin, a more fair margin within the confines of what we limit ourselves to. And in our view, creates even a greater, competitive mode given that that's where sometimes retailers will try to make more.

我認為電子技術的實力可能對我們有幫助。我能想到的就這些。我沒有—有機食品很有幫助。正如我之前提到的，有機食品對我們來說是一種雙贏。對我們來說，我們獲得了更大的餘地，在我們所設定的範圍內獲得了更公平的餘地。我們認為，這會造成更大的競爭局面，因為零售商有時會試圖在這種情況下賺取更多利潤。

And your organic penetration stands at what at the current time?

你們目前的有機滲透率是多少？

Organic -- well, it's $4 billion plus. It's still growing very strongly. But I don't have the detail in front of me, sorry.

有機產品——嗯，市場規模超過 40 億美元。它仍然保持著非常強勁的成長勢頭。抱歉，我手邊沒有詳細資料。

That's alright. Okay, great. Thank you.

沒關係。好的，太好了。謝謝。

One other point, on the soft lines I know our apparel has been pretty strong too in terms of apparel basics. So that's generally a full margin business.

還有一點，關於軟裝系列，我知道我們在基本款服裝方面也表現得相當出色。所以這通常是一個利潤率很高的行業。

John Heinbockel, Guggenheim Securities.

John Heinbockel，古根漢證券。

Richard, a question on the fresh food deflation as we -- and I guess maybe it behaves a little bit differently by category. But if you think about meat and dairy in particular, is that less of a benefit to you margin-wise and more of a volume benefit in terms just because you pass the declining prices through more quickly than most of your competitors by design and so it's probably more of a help to volume than margin or no?

理查德，關於新鮮食品價格下跌的問題，我們——我想它在不同類別中的表現可能略有不同。但如果你特別考慮肉類和乳製品，從利潤率的角度來看，這是否對你的銷售更有利，而對銷售的益處較小？因為你透過設計比大多數競爭對手更快地將價格下降轉嫁給消費者，所以這可能對銷量的幫助大於對利潤率的幫助，對嗎？

Yes it's more of a help to volume. If anything, we'll bring the price down and we'll always err to the low side. So if we have a calculated margin that's -- I'm making the numbers up, but $8.15 a pound, it's going to be $7.99. You have all those things working towards that. But that's what drives --

是的，它對音量更有幫助。如果有什麼變化，我們會降低價格，而且我們總是會盡量壓低價格。所以，如果我們計算出的利潤率是——我只是隨便舉個例子，每磅 8.15 美元，那麼最終價格就是 7.99 美元。所有這些因素都在朝著這個方向發展。但這正是驅動力所在——

The price elasticity on that is pretty high?

這個價格彈性相當高？

Well when you have got a hot price on strip steaks or items like that, yes. When you can hit another $1 a pound if you will lower, or a few dollars a pound on some items, that can drive business. And needless to say, you've been at a Costco and talked about maxing out big, good-looking stuff, that's fresh foods is where we shine.

如果牛排之類的食材價格很優惠，那當然可以。如果能降低價格，每磅商品再賺 1 美元，或某些商品每磅再賺幾美元，就能促成銷售。毋庸置疑，你去過 Costco，也討論過要買很多又大又好看的東西，而新鮮食品正是我們的強項。

You said eCommerce gross was down a little bit. Is that purely mix?

你說過電子商務總額略有下降。那純粹是混合物嗎？

There's been no comment, nothing that was called out specifically of why that is. So I assume it's mix.

目前還沒有任何解釋，也沒有具體說明原因。所以我認為它是混合的。

All right and lastly, the leverage that you've gotten in core operations was better than we've seen in a couple of quarters. It was pretty broad-based. Is there anything you're doing differently whether it's managing labor, benefit design that would have -- because comp wasn't that different versus prior quarters. So is it something you're doing internally to manage those items?

好的，最後一點，你們在核心業務方面取得的進展比我們過去幾季看到的都要好。它的覆蓋範圍相當廣。你們在勞動力管理、福利設計等方面是否做了一些不同的調整，導致薪資與前幾季相比並沒有太大變化？所以這是你們內部用來管理這些物品的措施嗎？

I wish we knew more here, but I mean everything we do everyday and I'm not trying to be cute here, but certainly, we continue to focus on things like basics like overtime hours. Every four weeks when we have an all hands budget meeting here, each of the 16 or so Senior VPs are country managers of operations get up and talk about things that they've done in their region to be more efficient. And I think that pays off. We have focus items that they talk about each month. They talk about other things, working with buyers to create more seamless movement. All of those things, we really spend a lot of time on.

我希望我們能了解更多，但我的意思是，我們每天所做的一切，我不是在賣弄，但我們確實繼續關注加班時間等基本事項。每四周一次的全員預算會議上，大約 16 位高級副總裁（他們都是營運部門的國家經理）都會站起來，談談他們在各自區域內為提高效率所採取的措施。我認為這是值得的。我們每個月都會重點討論一些議題。他們談論其他事情，與買家合作，創造更順暢的交易流程。所有這些東西，我們都花了很多時間。

One of the things that I think benefited us, our assumptions for healthcare costs, notably US where it's most expensive and it's most inflationary, we've done a little better job of that. It was over a little over a year ago that we made a few changes in plan in terms of our primary caregivers, primary within the plan and that changed a little behavior. Not that big of an impact to the employee, but a better management of that. So I think we're still getting a little benefit of that there. But it's in the core payroll as well and I think that's a combination of lots of little things like I mentioned.

我認為對我們有利的一點是，我們對醫療保健成本的假設，尤其是在醫療保健成本最高、通貨膨脹最嚴重的美國，我們在這方面做得更好一些。一年多前，我們對主要照顧者（計畫中的主要照顧者）的計畫進行了一些更改，改變了一些行為。對員工的影響力不算太大，但需要更好地管理。所以我覺得我們還是從中受益匪淺。但這筆費用也包含在核心薪資單裡，我認為這是很多小因素綜合造成的，就像我剛才提到的那樣。

All right, thank you.

好的，謝謝。

Simeon Gutman, Morgan Stanley.

西蒙古特曼，摩根士丹利。

Thanks. Thanks, Richard. Good morning. Curious if you can help diagnose the consumer? I know we saw some volatility in your monthly comps and there's been some unevenness in other parts of retail. You gave us some good color in November, but what do you think is going on? Does spending appear back to normal? I don't know if it was just a temporary hiccup?

謝謝。謝謝你，理查。早安.您是否可以協助診斷消費者的病情？我知道你們的月度同店銷售額出現了一些波動，零售業其他領域也出現了一些不均衡的情況。11月你們為我們帶來了一些精彩的色彩，但你覺得現在發生了什麼事？消費支出是否已恢復正常？我不知道這是否只是暫時的故障？

I mean remember I think it was October when we said one month does not make a trend. And then the first couple weeks of November weren't terribly exciting and then it got more exciting. And middle of November and late November was quite a bit stronger than the first part of November. So again, I think we're really concerned when it was -- when frequency was a 3 instead of a 4 but overall comps continue to be well. Our markdowns are in good shape even though inventory is a little higher. So I think we feel cautiously optimistic and certainly confident about what we're doing right now.

我的意思是，記得我們好像在十月說過，一個月的時間並不能說明什麼趨勢。11 月的前兩週並不太精彩，之後就變得越來越精彩了。11月中旬和下旬的疫情比11月初嚴重許多。所以，我認為我們真正擔心的是——當頻率是 3 而不是 4 的時候，但整體比較情況仍然很好。儘管庫存略高，但我們的降價促銷活動進展順利。所以我覺得我們既謹慎樂觀，也對現在所做的事情充滿信心。

I think if you ask me what surprises me in the last month versus the last couple of months, electronic has finally turned and that's a think a function of people coming in. Pricing keeps coming down. I think our fresh foods has been great. The fact that many times I'm explaining that fresh foods year-over-year margins are down a little, they were up a little. That's all good. So I think that reflects well on us. I can't speak to the consumer outside of that though.

如果問我上個月和過去幾個月相比有什麼讓我感到驚訝的地方，我認為電子行業終於發生了轉變，我認為這與人們的湧入有關。價格持續下降。我認為我們的新鮮食材一直都很棒。我多次解釋說，生鮮食品的年利潤率略有下降，但實際上卻略有上升。一切都很好。所以我認為這對我們很有好處。不過除此之外，我無法代表消費者發言。

Right. So other than electronics, the complexion of what consumers are spending on looks back to normal, back to the old cadence?

正確的。所以除了電子產品之外，消費者支出的其他方面似乎已經恢復正常，恢復到以前的節奏？

Yes, but that doesn't mean anything for tomorrow. What's nice is when I look at the November results, which I have in front of me, underlying in the US, which is the big piece here, so as it relates to the FX issue, soft lines was low double-digits, fresh notwithstanding some deflation and the average sale on meat, was good. And so I hope it will continue. Stay tuned.

是的，但這並不意味著明天會發生什麼。令人欣慰的是，當我查看我面前的 11 月份業績報告時，美國的基礎數據（這是其中的關鍵部分）顯示，就外匯問題而言，軟線產品實現了兩位數的低增長，儘管出現了一些通貨緊縮，但新鮮食品和肉類的平均銷售額都表現良好。所以我希望它能繼續下去。敬請關注。

Okay. And just a follow-up gross margin because I guess the printed number is the highest number since our model goes back to 2003. And you mentioned the four core categories were good and I think you attributed somewhat to mix. But big picture, the mix of product, that will probably keep benefiting you. Can you give us a sense though on the leverage with suppliers? How much of that side of the coin is helping you as well?

好的。另外，我想補充毛利率，因為我猜列印出來的數字是我們模型從 2003 年推出以來的最高數字。你提到這四個核心類別都很好，我認為你把部分原因歸功於混合。但從長遠來看，這種產品組合可能會繼續讓你受益。您能否大致介紹一下您在與供應商談判時的籌碼情況？硬幣的這一面對你又有多大幫助呢？

I don't think -- I haven't heard anybody talking about major changes in leverage. We are -- I think if you ask our suppliers, generally we are typically front and center with them. When freight rates have come down as you might expect, some suppliers are reluctant to -- they are waiting for us to call them, not offer it up. And global sourcing I think is helping us competitively a little bit.

我不認為——我還沒聽說有人談論槓桿率的重大變化。我想，如果你問我們的供應商，他們通常會說我們與他們保持密切的合作關係。正如你所預料的那樣，當運費下降時，一些供應商不願主動提供——他們等著我們打電話給他們，而不是主動提供。我認為全球採購在一定程度上提升了我們的競爭力。

So overall, I think we're still tough. I mean there have been some suggestions out there that some retailers are going back to manufacturers to insist on extra monies. When we read that and hear that, we hear it from as you might expect, and we have to understand that there's some people out there that sell to all of us and will share things each way, that you're going to find we're going to go back and make sure we get our share of that. So I think we continue to be tough. I don't think there's been any change in that.

所以總的來說，我認為我們依然很強硬。我的意思是，有消息稱一些零售商正在向製造商索取額外的費用。當我們讀到或聽到這些話時，我們聽到的來源正如你所料，我們必須明白，有些人會向我們所有人推銷產品，並且會以各種方式分享，你會發現我們會回去確保我們得到我們應得的那一份。所以我認為我們還要繼續保持強硬作風。我認為情況沒有任何改變。

Okay, thank you.

好的，謝謝。

Michael Lasser, UBS.

瑞銀集團的麥可·拉塞爾。

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Can you describe what you're doing to prepare for the transition to VISA? And as you make that transition, how are you going to inform your existing members and new, potential members of the switch?

早安.謝謝您回答我的問題。您能描述一下您為過渡到 VISA 系統所做的準備嗎？在進行這種轉變的過程中，您將如何告知現有成員和潛在的新成員這項變更？

Well I'm glad a lot of that's in the operations and membership marketing areas. There's a lot going on, needless to say, between our Company and the new issuer, Citi, that's going to be coming out. There is -- Citi and American Express are currently discussing what they need to be doing in terms of that transition. And again contractually, there's not a lot we can say at this point but rest assured, it's going to take several weeks, that transition.

我很高興其中很多都集中在營運和會員行銷領域。毋庸置疑，我們公司和新的發行方花旗集團之間有很多事情正在發生，這些事情即將公佈。確實如此——花旗銀行和美國運通目前正在討論他們需要在過渡期間做些什麼。再次強調，從合約角度來看，目前我們能說的並不多，但請放心，過渡期將持續數週。

But the assumption is is that existing members with the existing co-branded card will be getting new cards in the mail on or about the time of the actual transition. And it will be hopefully as seamless as possible to them. Once we're allowed to communicate to our members about the new program, which again contractually we can't do that until that time, as you would expect, like anything we do, we're going to let everybody know and put it in big letters.

但假設是，持有現有聯名卡的現有會員將在實際過渡期當天或前後收到郵寄的新卡。希望對他們來說，這個過程能夠盡可能地順暢。一旦我們被允許向我們的成員宣傳新計劃（根據合同，在此之前我們不能這樣做），正如你所預料的那樣，就像我們做的任何事情一樣，我們會通知所有人，並且大張旗鼓地宣傳。

And should we factor into our models a potential disruption from the transition? Will there be a period of when you take both VISA and American Express for a period of time?

我們是否應該將轉型可能帶來的干擾納入我們的模型中？你們是否會在一段時間內同時接受VISA卡和美國運通卡？

There may be. Again, that's still in flux. There's some possibilities of that. But whether there's an exact transition, a binary transition or an overlap period of time, I don't really see a lot of disruption on that side. It's, as you might expect, it's a royal pain to do this but it's like -- it's what we do.

或許有。同樣，這種情況仍在變化之中。存在一些可能性。但無論是精確的過渡、二元過渡或重疊時期，我看不到這方面會有什麼大的混亂。正如你所料，這樣做非常麻煩，但這就是我們該做的。

You've got teams of people in operations that are working with our people in membership marketing and they're working with the outside, the new outside provider to make it as seamless as possible to have the communication out there both in-store, via e-mail, via letter. So I think it's going to go a lot better than one might think. Is just a lot of work to be done.

你們的營運團隊與我們的會員行銷團隊合作，並與外部的新供應商合作，力求使溝通盡可能順暢，無論是在店內、透過電子郵件或信件。所以我認為事情會比人們想像的要好得多。確實有很多工作要做。

Understood. And coming back to the topic of traffic, three out of the last four months, traffic has been a little slower than the 4% you had been seeing consistently before that period. Are you just running into a point where there's now either limitations on how frequently some of your members, some of your most loyal members can shop? Or limitations on the throughput that some of the stores are having based on the level of traffic that you already see in those locations?

明白了。回到交通流量的話題，在過去的四個月中，有三個月的交通流量比之前一直保持的 4% 略低。您是否遇到這樣的情況：部分會員，尤其是部分最忠實的會員，購物頻率受到了限制？或者，某些門市的吞吐量是否受到限制，而這種限制是基於您目前在這些門市看到的客流量水平？

I think there's a level of through-put. We keep doing a better job of that. We keep in my own calculations keep raising the number of amount of annual volume that a warehouse can do. Certainly, there will be somebody in line saying God, why did I come on Saturday afternoon? But at the end of the day, that's not an issue.

我認為存在一定的吞吐量。我們在這方面一直在不斷進步。根據我自己的計算，我們一直在提高倉庫的年吞吐量。肯定會有人排隊說：“上帝啊，我為什麼要在星期六下午來這裡？”但歸根究底，這並不是個問題。

I remember in calendar 2009, for calendar 2009, the first year after the bad economy hit, we had a frequency number of around 4. And I was reminding people that if calendar 2010 was 0, that compounded number of plus 2 for those two years would've been better than our average over the prior 20 years. And now, we've enjoyed seven years, calendar 2009 through calendar 2015, that have been slightly above 4 on average on a compounded basis.

我記得在 2009 年，也就是經濟衰退後的第一年，我們的發生頻率約為 4。我當時提醒大家，如果 2010 年的發生頻率為 0，那麼這兩年的複合發生頻率加上 2 將會比我們過去 20 年的平均值還要好。從 2009 年到 2015 年，我們已經享受了七年平均複合成長率略高於 4% 的時期。

So, at some point it has to come down a little bit. We feel very good about where it is. We can't look at any specific factor to say this is why it used to be a 4 and the last couple months it's been a 3.5. We feel very good about where it is.

所以，總有一天它會下降一些。我們對其所在位置非常滿意。我們無法找到任何具體因素來解釋為什麼以前是 4 分，而最近幾個月變成了 3.5 分。我們對其所在位置非常滿意。

Thanks so much and have a good holiday.

非常感謝，祝您假期愉快。

You too.

你也是。

Robbie Ohmes, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

羅比‧奧姆斯，美國銀行美林證券。

Thanks for taking my questions. Richard, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about partnering with Instacart and Google and Google and maybe how that's going versus your expectations? And also, can you remind us how the membership is impacted by that if it were to roll out nationally? How does membership fee get accounted for in that? And then I have a follow-up question. Thanks.

謝謝您回答我的問題。理查德，我想請你再詳細談談與 Instacart 和 Google 的合作，以及合作進展與你的預期相比如何？另外，您能否提醒我們一下，如果這項措施在全國推廣，會對會員產生什麼影響？會員費該如何計入其中？我還有一個後續問題。謝謝。

Sure. Well, each one is a little different. I believe with Google you have to be a Costco member to go through the Google Shopping Express network. So, it doesn't impact membership at all. Perhaps it gets a few members because there's some people that aren't going to come in but now they can get some things delivered to them.

當然。嗯，每個都略有不同。我認為，要透過 Google Shopping Express 網路購物，你必須是 Costco 會員。所以，這完全不會影響會員資格。也許它能吸引一些會員，因為有些人以前不會來店裡，但現在他們可以收到送貨上門的東西了。

With respect to Instacart I believe it is the Instacart memberships and of course they by multiple memberships. That might be a slight decline. (Technical difficulty). All trying to grow their businesses. Starting from the point that many out there were concerned that everything's going to go this way and what's going to happen to all this brick-and-mortar. In our case, we see some changes and that increase in some of these is that there is a slightly improvement in total comp. Recognizing you've got a few more visits that are delivered but it's still a very small thing. Not a lot of knowledge I can give you beyond that.

關於 Instacart，我認為是 Instacart 會員制，當然他們會購買多個會員資格。那可能略有下降。（技術故障）他們都想發展自己的業務。從很多人擔心事情會朝著這個方向發展，以及這些實體建築將會發生什麼變化這一點開始。就我們而言，我們看到了一些變化，其中一些變化體現在整體薪酬略有提高。我知道你還有幾次拜訪機會，但這仍然只是一件小事。除此之外，我能告訴你的也沒什麼了。

Thanks just the other question was on with the success in fresh food and organic and everything, are you seeing space allocation grow to that area? And if so, where is it mostly been coming from and is there a maximum allocation? (Technical difficulty).

謝謝。我剛才還有一個問題，關於新鮮食品、有機食品等等的成功，您是否看到空間分配向該領域成長？如果屬實，這些資金主要來自哪裡？是否有最大分配額度？（技術故障）

-- of refrigerator and frozen, putting in more vertical stand up coolers versus the coffin coolers in the deli and cheese areas. So we are getting more out of our space. We've added space. My guess is is that there is less incremental space that we can do but we're still doing it to some extent.

——冷藏和冷凍區，在熟食和起司區，更多地使用立式冷藏櫃，而不是棺材式冷藏櫃。所以我們能更有效地利用空間。我們增加了空間。我的猜測是，我們可以做的增量工作已經不多了，但我們仍然在某種程度上進行這項工作。

The other thing is, that's an area where we can benefit by turning it faster as well. A lot of our expansion was to enable us to turn it fast -- not only more square footage and more lineal footage of doors, but our more vertical cases, but have more merchandise out there that are presented and easier to grab. I think we have done a great job in that area.

另一方面，在這個領域，如果我們加快轉速，也能從中受益。我們進行了許多擴張，目的是為了提高週轉速度——不僅增加了營業面積和門的長度，還增加了垂直展示櫃的數量，讓更多的商品擺放在顯眼的位置，方便顧客取用。我認為我們在這方面做得非常出色。

Lastly, the CapEx I think you're saying is going to be up like $0.5 billion or so versus last year. Can you remind us what that extra $0.5 billion compared to last year is for?

最後，我想您是說資本支出將比去年增加約 5 億美元。可以提醒我們一下，比去年多出的那5億美元是做什麼用的嗎？

Sure. Roughly 8 or 10 more locations. Roughly a few more expensive locations internationally. There is all that other stuff I talked about where we are still adding a few gas stations, still adding a few hearing aid centers. Depots, our infrastructure, which is we think is a big competitive and profitable advantage to us. 84%, 85% of our goods now go through our cross dock operations where the average life of the majority of that inventory is less than half a dozen hours. So we've got a lot there. I believe IT is -- hold on. I've got that number here. IT is -- I don't have it on here. I think that will be year-over-year, it's going to be $60 million to $80 million. I don't have in front of me. I'm sorry. But that's a piece of it as well.

當然。大約還有 8 到 10 個地點。國際上大致比這裡貴幾個地方。還有我之前提到的那些其他事情，像是我們還在增加一些加油站，還在增加一些助聽器中心。倉庫，我們的基礎設施，我們認為這是我們巨大的競爭優勢和獲利優勢。現在，我們 84%、85% 的貨物都要經過我們的交叉轉營運業，其中大部分庫存的平均壽命不到六個小時。所以我們有很多東西要分享。我相信是——等等。我這裡有那個號碼。是的——我這裡沒有。我認為與前一年相比，應該在 6000 萬美元到 8000 萬美元之間。我面前沒有。對不起。但這也是其中的一部分。

Got it. Thanks very much.

知道了。非常感謝。

Christopher Horvers, JPMorgan.

克里斯多福‧霍弗斯，摩根大通。

Thanks, good morning, guys. So Richard, I understand your comments on the MFI growth and the underlying trend being very strong. But as you look at the MFI ex FX, it seemed to have slowed off a strong four quarter trend that you saw through the third quarter of last year. So how much of this is social media offers? Are we lapping some big international openings as well? Basically trying to understand what the right underlying trend in MFI growth is?

謝謝，各位早安。理查德，我理解你對小額信貸成長以及潛在趨勢非常強勁的評論。但如果你看一下除外匯外的MFI，它似乎已經放緩了從去年第三季開始的強勁的四個季度的趨勢。那麼，這其中有多少是社群媒體帶來的呢？我們是否也搶佔了一些大型國際市場的先機？基本上是想了解小額信貸機構成長的正確潛在趨勢是什麼？

I don't see a big concern there. Some of it is the social media. Anecdotally, one thing we did was a Living Social thing a year ago which was very good. We've not done that again at a corresponding time this year. I've not seen any comments from our membership marketing people when we reviewed the quarter with them of any concerns. There may be a little timing of openings of international openings, but again, we don't see any big trend there that concerns us. Trend change.

我覺得這沒什麼大問題。一部分原因是社群媒體。就我個人經驗而言，我們一年前參加的 Living Social 活動效果非常好。今年同期我們沒有再這樣做。在與會員行銷人員回顧本季工作時，我沒有看到他們提出任何擔憂。國際市場的開放時間可能會有一些巧合，但我們並沒有看到任何值得我們擔憂的大趨勢。趨勢變化。

No trend change? Okay. Understood. And then, can you help us think about the gas? I know you get this question a lot, but you had some nice gas benefits last year. In the next quarter, you're going to lap I think what was an even stronger quarter, the second quarter a year ago. So maybe anything on how much gas was a net benefit or a net detriment on a year-to-year basis, quantitative hopefully, but any qualitative comments just to help as we think about this upcoming quarter?

沒有趨勢變化？好的。明白了。那麼，您能幫我們思考一下氣體的問題嗎？我知道你經常被問到這個問題，但你去年確實享受了一些不錯的燃油補貼。我認為，在下一個季度，你們的業績將會超越去年同期，也就是去年第二季度，而去年第二季度的業績甚至更加強勁。所以，能否提供一些關於天然氣使用量與往年相比的淨收益或淨損失情況的數據？最好是量化數據，但也歡迎提供一些定性意見，以幫助我們思考即將到來的季度？

We'll tell you each quarter but in Q1, again, one would have thought, one includes you guys and me, that gas profitability would have fallen down a little bit. Still very good, historic relative to our history, but versus very strong numbers Q1 a year ago. We had pretty good numbers this time. I think year-over-year it was within $0.01 of profitability, flat to down less than $0.01 year-over-year.

我們會每季告訴你們，但就第一季而言，人們可能會認為（包括你我），天然氣的獲利能力會略有下降。仍然非常好，相對於我們的歷史而言具有歷史意義，但與去年第一季非常強勁的數字相比。這次我們的數據相當不錯。我認為與去年同期相比，獲利與虧損相差不到 0.01 美元，或與去年同期持平或下降不到 0.01 美元。

I think we also had very strong Q2 profitability. That may be tough to match, but we are early in the quarter. Q1 surprised me. I can only be surprised there but if it does come in a little bit, we'll certainly share with you if it is more than $0.01 or $0.02 of delta.

我認為我們第二季度的獲利能力也非常強勁。這或許很難達到，但現在才季度初。Q1 讓我感到意外。我對此感到驚訝，但如果真的有所增加，如果超過 0.01 美元或 0.02 美元，我們一定會與您分享。

Right. So, a tougher compare but you were surprised to the upside on this case and taking that all into account maybe it is not as bad as people fear out there?

正確的。所以，這是一個更難比較的情況，但你對這個案例的結果感到驚訝，考慮到所有因素，也許情況並沒有人們擔心的那麼糟糕？

Right. And again when you say surprised as to the upside, we're still down year-over-year a shade. But again, last year was pretty strong and Q2 was even stronger. We'll see how this quarter goes. The fact that gas prices and oil prices have dripped down a little bit, that generally bodes well for us. But again, I'm not suggesting it can be as well as last year. We'll see.

正確的。再說，你說對上漲感到驚訝，但我們同比仍然略有下降。但話說回來，去年業績相當不錯，第二季業績甚至更好。我們看看這季度情況如何。汽油價格和石油價格略有下降，這通常對我們來說是個好兆頭。但我再次強調，我並不是說今年的情況會跟去年一樣好。我們拭目以待。

Understood. And just one last question on the traffic side. I know you said you'd don't really see a change in the box in the consumer. Does the fact that November was largely driven in the back half of the month concern you at all? Or is that just an indication of the consumer continuing to wait for the deals that come around Black Friday?

明白了。關於交通方面，最後一個問題。我知道你說過你不會在消費者身上看到包裝盒的任何變化。11 月的業績主要集中在下半月，你是否對此感到擔憂？或者這只是表明消費者仍在等待黑色星期五的促銷活動？

If I knew, I'd be doing something else. We actually looked at it as a positive. We were starting to get a little concerned as it slowed down a little bit. And I think the fact that we don't put as much emphasis on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it still did well, but we've got a lot of people coming in earlier that week for crazy numbers of pumpkin pies and the like. All those things I think help us. The fact that electronics was as strong was a surprise to us. So I don't think we look at it that way at all.

如果我知道，我就會去做別的事了。我們其實把它看作是一件好事。速度稍微慢了下來，我們開始有點擔心了。我認為，我們之所以沒有像其他人那樣重視“黑色星期五”和“網絡星期一”，生意依然不錯，是因為很多人在那週早些時候就來買南瓜派之類的東西，銷量非常驚人。我認為所有這些都對我們有幫助。電子產品的堅固程度讓我們感到驚訝。所以我覺得我們根本不該那樣看待這個問題。

Okay. Understood. Thanks very much.

好的。明白了。非常感謝。

Paul Trussell, Deutsche Bank.

保羅‧特魯塞爾，德意志銀行。

Hey, good morning, Richard. I apologize for any background noise. I am in the airport. But I wanted to just go back first to your color that you provided on margins just to make sure that I captured some of the details that you listed out. When it comes to gross margins to start, I believe you spoke to the actual core of four categories up once again 13 basis points, similar to what we saw in the fourth quarter.

嘿，早上好，理查。如有背景噪音，請諒解。我在機場。但我首先想再看一下您在頁邊距上提供的顏色，以確保我捕捉到了您列出的一些細節。就毛利率而言，我相信您提到的四個核心類別再次上升了 13 個基點，與我們在第四季度看到的情況類似。

You noted that ex the cycling of the one-time benefit from last year, gross margins would have been up an additional 7 basis points. And regarding the inventory levels, you stated that you feel pretty comfortable with those levels just given how strong the first week of the second quarter was. Is that a fair representation of your color on gross margins and how should we think about that going forward?

您指出，如果剔除去年一次性收益的影響，毛利率將再提高 7 個基點。至於庫存水平，您表示鑑於第二季第一週的強勁表現，您對目前的庫存水準感到相當滿意。這是否真實反映了貴公司在毛利率上的表現？我們今後該如何看待這個問題？

Yes, but mind you the 7 basis points of a one-time item, that's outside -- the 13 is the core business. It's not like it's 13 becomes 20.

是的，但請注意，一次性專案的 7 個基點是額外計算的——13 個基點是核心業務。這不像13變成20那麼簡單。

Correct, on the core. Absolutely.

沒錯，核心部分就是這樣。絕對地。

Yes, we feel pretty good about that.

是的，我們對此感覺相當不錯。

And then regarding just SG&A again, just for my clarification, making sure my table is clear. Stock compensation, you mentioned was up meaningfully year-over-year, $36 million I believe you said. So about a $0.05 hit or so on a go-forward basis. That will only be about one-third of the hit in the next few quarters?

然後，關於銷售、一般及行政費用，為了確認一下，請確保我的表格已清空。您提到股票補償金年增率顯著，我記得您說過是 3,600 萬美元。所以，未來一段時間內，損失大約是 0.05 美元左右。那隻會是未來幾季損失的三分之一左右？

What I was trying to convey is that because of timing, our annual grant to everybody is in late October. Because more and more of the recipients, particularly the recipients like myself who have been here 32 years almost, so you've got accelerated vesting. So the entire hit is now, not spread over five years. So really, that's a timing issue. That's going to help you a little in the future.

我想表達的是，由於時間安排的原因，我們每年向所有人發放的補助金是在十月下旬。因為越來越多的受益人，特別是像我這樣在這裡工作了近 32 年的受益人，所以他們的權益得到了加速兌現。所以，全部打擊現在就發生了，而不是分散在五年內。所以說，這其實是時機問題。這將來會對你有幫助。

But the fact of the matter is, is because it's October, you've got a big hit in October or Q1. Just taking the math of what -- if you think about it, the actual hit to P&L this year is a function of those grants that would have been made over the last five years, that, then vest ratably one-fifth a year. Adjusted, when it vests faster than that accelerated, based on tenure.

但事實是，因為現在是十月，所以你在十月或第一季會迎來一個大熱門。簡單計算一下——如果你仔細想想，今年損益表受到的實際影響取決於過去五年本應獲得的那些撥款，而這些撥款每年按比例分攤五分之一。根據任期，當股權歸屬速度快於加速歸屬速度時，將進行調整。

So not only do have more people on the plan today than you had -- as a piece from five years ago gets fully extinguished, you're adding a new piece. A, this new piece has many more people from five years ago, it has a stock price per share a lot higher and you've got the vesting. The vesting in my view being one of the key ones.

所以，不僅今天參與該計劃的人數比以前更多了——隨著五年前的某個部分完全消失，你又增加了一個新的部分。A，這支新球隊比五年前多了許多隊員，每股股價也高很多，還有股份歸屬機制。在我看來，股權授予是關鍵因素之一。

So the way it hits just simple math is that $36 million year-over-year change is more than half of our expected year-over-year increase in that line item. So if it was half, in each of the next three quarters it would be about one-third of 50% in each of those quarters. Is not quite that, but instead of being 36, it's going to be in the 10 to 13 range, or 8 to 13 range each period.

因此，簡單計算一下就會發現，3,600萬美元的年比變化超過了我們預期該專案年增幅的一半。所以如果是二分之一，那麼接下來的三個季度，每季大約是 50% 的三分之一。不完全是這樣，但不是 36，而是每週期 10 到 13，或 8 到 13。

Got it and then the legal hit, is that fully contained into this particular quarter? Also, on the IT modernization, what -- how should we think about the cadence of those expenses going forward relative to what we saw in Q1?

明白了，那麼法律方面的影響，是否完全包含在這個季度內？另外，關於IT現代化，我們該如何看待未來這些支出相對於第一季的節奏？

In terms of the $22 million, again, it's a couple of items that we're still in the process of. That's our best guess of the impact. We don't think there will any big surprises there. If anything, you try to be reasonable and conservative.

至於那 2200 萬美元，我們仍在處理其中的幾個項目。這是我們對影響的最佳估計。我們認為那裡不會有什麼大的意外。無論如何，你都盡量做到理性保守。

Outside of that, in terms of IT modernization, it's a little bit of a broken record here. But there is a light at the end of this tunnel incrementally and I'm hopeful that sometime next year, we'll see that flatten out and come down. But we've got a lot going on there. And again, it's part of our operations. It will come down as a percent of sales at some point in the future or come down certainly relative to the types of increases we've seen. But it's necessary and we're starting to see some deliverables finally.

除此之外，在IT現代化方面，這方面的內容有點老生常談了。但隧道盡頭已經出現了一絲曙光，我希望明年某個時候，我們會看到情況趨於平穩並最終下降。但我們那邊有很多事情要做。再次強調，這是我們營運的一部分。未來某個時候，它佔銷售額的百分比會下降，或至少相對於我們所看到的成長幅度而言會下降。但這是必要的，我們終於開始看到一些成果了。

Thanks, Richard I appreciate that clarification. Last for me is just on the international side. The Canada and international segment have been able to have a reasonable spread versus the US in margins. I believe some of that's due to a little bit maybe less competition, maybe a little bit less labor costs. As you continue to grow the business and expand into new markets, how do you think about the margins in those segments going forward? Can it maintain a little bit of a reasonable spread versus the US?

謝謝理查德，你的解釋讓我很感激。最後一點，就我個人而言，就是國際面。加拿大和國際市場的利潤率與美國市場相比，已經實現了合理的差距。我認為部分原因是競爭可能減少，勞動成本可能降低。隨著業務的不斷發展和新市場的拓展，您如何看待這些細分市場未來的利潤率？它能否與美國保持一定程度的合理價差？

I think all things being equal, Canada is going to continue to be more profitable than the US and some of these other countries are going to continue to be even more profitable than that. Not all of them, but some of them. We have no illusion that some of the ones that are really outsized profit will come down a little over time.

我認為，在其他條件相同的情況下，加拿大將繼續比美國更有利可圖，而其他一些國家的獲利能力甚至會比加拿大更強。不是全部，但有些是。我們很清楚，有些利潤特別高的項目，隨著時間的推移，利潤會下降。

But Canada is mature. Still growing a little in terms of new units. Still growing nicely in terms of local currency comps and it's nice that we're the only club in town. That being said, we're still our own toughest competitor. We have a little extra margin there, not a lot. We have a lot lower healthcare cost as a percent of sales. So there's other things that help us up there, not just a little extra gross margin.

但加拿大已經成熟了。新單元數量仍在小幅增加。就本地貨幣結算而言，我們的業績仍然穩定成長，而且我們是鎮上唯一的俱樂部，這感覺真好。話雖如此，我們最大的競爭對手仍然是我們自己。我們還有一些額外的餘地，但不多。我們的醫療保健成本佔銷售額的比例要低得多。所以，除了增加一點毛利率之外，還有其他因素幫助我們提升績效。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Brian Nagel, Oppenheimer.

Brian Nagel，奧本海默。

Hi, good morning. Thank you for all the color at the beginning of the call on the kind of one-time items impacting in the quarter. The question I have, Richard, you called out electronics as a point of strength. Could you comment specifically on the TV category? And to what extent some of the new innovations in TVs are helping drive better electronic sales? And a follow-on to that is, as the holiday season has gotten underway, what type of price promotions you've seen throughout the sector on TVs?

您好，早安。感謝您在電話會議開始時對本季可能出現的各類一次性項目所做的精彩闡述。理查德，我有個問題，你曾指出電子技術是你們的優勢領域。能否具體談談電視這個類別？電視領域的一些新創新在多大程度上促進了電子產品的銷售？其次，隨著假期季節的到來，您在電視領域看到了哪些類型的價格促銷活動？

I don't have the quarter in front of me but for the four weeks of November reporting, which would be through the Sunday after Thanksgiving, those four weeks ended then. Within majors which was up again, ex FX, in the mid-teens for the month. I think I said it was in the low double-digits for the quarter. TVs for the month were up both in dollars and sales in the mid-20s, so it's quite strong. Now that may be because last year was a little weak. I don't know. I don't have that in front of me. But it certainly was strong.

我手邊沒有季度報告，但對於 11 月的四周報告期（到感恩節後的那個星期日結束），那四周的報告期就是在那時結束的。主要股指（除外匯外）本月再次上漲，漲幅約十幾個百分點。我想我說過，這個季度的增幅在兩位數的低點。當月電視機的銷售額和銷量均成長了20%以上，表現相當強勁。這或許是因為去年的表現略顯疲軟。我不知道。我手邊沒有那個東西。但它的確很強大。

I think there is a little bit more promotions. Cell phones are strong, tablets are strong -- I'm sorry, tablets have come down a little bit. But phones are strong and those are the big things. Video games are strong. Again, all those other strongs or a little weakers are dwarfed by television sales within electronics.

我認為促銷活動稍微多了一些。手機很受歡迎，平板電腦也很受歡迎——抱歉，平板電腦的受歡迎程度有所下降。但手機功能強大，這才是最重要的。電子遊戲產業發展勢頭強勁。再說一遍，所有其他表現強勁或稍遜一籌的產品，與電子產品中的電視銷售相比都相形見絀。

And speak then on TVs.

然後上電視講話。

I think new technology, the 4K, is helping but the prices are coming down as well. I was there across the street yesterday and you've got smaller flat screens with great quality, less than $200. You've got bigger TVs less than $1,000. You've got as well the giant HD 4K whatever, under $3,000 and under $2,000 depending on the size and the item and some of the new technology.

我認為新技術，例如 4K，起到了一定的作用，而且價格也在下降。我昨天去了街對面，你們那裡有質量很好的小型平板電視，價格不到 200 美元。1000美元以下就能買到更大的電視。此外，還有巨型高清 4K 顯示器，價格在 3000 美元以下，甚至 2000 美元以下，具體取決於尺寸、產品以及一些新技術。

So I think all those things are helping us a little bit on that category. I point it out also because it's one of those that we continue to get asked about as dot com continues to take market share of electronics and the impacts to other brick and mortars over the last few years. I think Best Buy has been a little better on TVs as well but certainly, this has been a standout for us of late.

所以我覺得所有這些因素都對我們在這方面有所幫助。我之所以指出這一點，是因為在過去幾年裡，隨著網路公司不斷蠶食電子產品市場份額，並對其他實體店造成影響，我們不斷被問到這個問題。我認為百思買在電視方面也做得更好一些，但就我們最近的體驗而言，這家店絕對是佼佼者。

Got it. That's helpful. And one follow-up question. I know you addressed this in your prepared comments too but the inventory growth in the quarter, so if you look at it on a sequential, year-on-year sequential basis, it did tick higher here in fiscal Q1. What explains that?

知道了。那很有幫助。還有一個後續問題。我知道您在準備好的評論中也提到了這一點，但是本季度的庫存增長，如果按環比、同比來看，確實在第一財季略有上升。這該如何解釋？

The two biggest components of that $900,000 ex FX number year-over-year, is electronics which is about $0.25 million and that's planned and doing fine as expressed in these sales numbers. And apparel, and again, we are out there en masse and these are basics. We're not going to be left over with a lot of red and green Christmas dresses because that's not what we sell. I mean you're going -- we're during fine. We feel we have no concerns about our inventories, our markdowns. Something I know we learned years ago, the cheapest markdown is the first markdown and the quicker you get rid of stuff that had problems. And our markdowns overall have been nothing to be concerned about.

90萬美元（不含外匯影響）年增幅中，最大的兩個組成部分是電子產品，約為25萬美元，這部分銷售額已按計劃進行，並且表現良好，正如這些銷售數據所顯示的那樣。還有服裝，我們成群結隊地走上街頭，這些都是基本款。我們不會囤積很多紅色和綠色的聖誕連身裙，因為我們不賣那種款式的。我的意思是，你要走了——我們一切都好。我們對庫存和降價促銷沒有任何擔憂。我知道我們多年前就學到了一點，最划算的降價就是第一次降價，而且越快處理掉有問題的東西越好。整體而言，我們的降價幅度並沒有什麼值得擔憂的。

Thanks a lot.

多謝。

Matthew Fassler, Goldman Sachs.

馬修法斯勒，高盛。

Thanks a lot. Good morning, Richard. Thanks for taking my question. My first question just wants to get a little more clarity around this transitional period as you have to cease sign-ups for the card. You talked about it in terms of EPS impact on the quarter that you just reported and some residual impact over the next couple quarters. As we think about where this shows up in the P&L, is there any discernible impact on the top line? And if you could kind of dimensionalize the impact on the member fees as well, just to understand where we would model for that to happen?

多謝。早上好，理查德。謝謝您回答我的問題。我的第一個問題只是想更清楚地了解這個過渡期的情況，因為你們必須停止接受新的信用卡申請。您談到了它對您剛剛公佈的季度每股收益的影響，以及對未來幾季的一些後續影響。當我們思考這在損益表中會如何體現時，對營收會有明顯的影響嗎？如果您還能從維度上分析一下對會員費的影響，以便我們了解應該如何模擬這種情況的發生，那就太好了？

Well, we don't have any new co-branded cards being signed up right now, so that's impactful a little bit to the membership line. Not a lot. 99% -- that's going to go to sales. You've got everybody who has a co-brand cards currently is still using it so there is no impact there. Again, what I try to do recognizing that the $1.09 reported figure was going to raise some questions, we just looked at what are the things that we can really look at? We have not, given that our sales continue to be strong, we're not really looking at that line to see how much sales do we estimate we're losing.

目前我們沒有任何新的聯名卡簽約，所以這對會員業務產生了一定的影響。不多。99%——都將用於銷售。目前所有持有聯名卡的人都還在使用，所以這方面沒有受到影響。再次強調，我意識到報道中的 1.09 美元數字會引發一些疑問，所以我們只是研究了我們可以真正關注哪些方面？鑑於我們的銷售額持續強勁，我們並沒有真正關注這條線，以了解我們估計損失了多少銷售額。

I assume we're losing, in theory you're losing a sale for somebody that signed up as a member that can't sign up for the co-brand card. They are still buying from us. They don't have the co-brand card. They don't have that reward. They're probably using some other AmEx reward card. Recognizing at its current strength, AmEx is about 40% of our sales. There is still 60% of the people that aren't using AmEx, whether they are using debit or a very limited of an old house card, we don't own it, from years ago, or another AmEx card.

我估計我們虧本了，理論上，你會失去一筆銷售，因為有人註冊成為會員後卻無法申請聯名卡。他們仍然在向我們進貨。他們沒有聯名卡。他們沒有那種獎勵。他們可能使用的是其他美國運通獎勵卡。以目前的實力來看，美國運通卡約占我們銷售額的 40%。仍有 60% 的人未使用美國運通卡，他們要么使用借記卡，要么使用功能非常有限的舊家用卡（我們自己都不擁有這張卡，可能是幾年前的），要么使用另一張美國運通卡。

We don't see a big impact from that. Is it greater than 0, the negative impact? Of course. But again, given where our sales numbers have been, this is something that there's specific pieces that are monies earned for new sign-ups in the equation and so we pointed that out.

我們認為這不會產生太大影響。負面影響是否大於 0？當然。但是，鑑於我們目前的銷售數據，其中一部分是新用戶註冊帶來的收入，所以我們指出了這一點。

Got it. Second question, you talked about the seasonality of stock comp expense and the bulge you saw this quarter. Just to confirm what you talked about we saw this past Q1 and what you talked about for the rest of the year. It seems to be seasonally a lot like what you had last year even though it's a bit different from what you had over the prior few years. Is that an accurate way to think about it?

知道了。第二個問題，您談到了股票補償費用的季節性以及本季出現的激增。為了確認您剛才所說的內容，我們在第一季以及您所說的今年剩餘時間都看到了。雖然與前幾年的情況略有不同，但從季節性上看，它似乎與去年的情況非常相似。這種思考方式準確嗎？

Yes. By the way, comp is -- it is part of our comp and it is part of SG&A. We have always prided ourselves -- for many years, we never changed the number of shares. So as the stock compounded at 19% a year, that piece of 3,000 or 4,000 people's compensation improved dramatically. As you may recall, a couple of years ago we reduced the number per recipient at whatever level that was by I think 15%. And again, we just did it again in the grant that just happened. Notwithstanding, you're still seeing this big increase because of just how that works.

是的。順便說一下，comp是——它是我們公司的一部分，也是銷售、一般及行政費用的一部分。我們一直引以為傲的是——多年來，我們從未改變過股份數量。因此，隨著股票以每年 19% 的複合成長率成長，3000 或 4000 人的薪酬也大幅提高。您可能還記得，幾年前，我們把每個受助者的數量減少了 15%（無論當時的等級是多少）。而且，我們剛剛又在新獲得的撥款中再次做到了這一點。儘管如此，你仍然會看到這種大幅成長，原因就在於此。

Great, and just another quick follow-up on the demographic piece. You give us a couple of interesting numbers. A couple different ways to come at that question I guess, is the average age of a new member changing for you? Has that been moving in one direction? You talked about it relative to the national average and presumably that couldn't happen without the average age coming down. But without knowing what the national average has done at our fingertips, kind of hard to know.

好的，關於人口統計數據，我再補充一點。你提供了一些有趣的數據。我想這個問題可以從幾個不同的角度來回答：你們那裡新成員的平均年齡是否改變了？這件事一直朝著一個方向發展嗎？你談到它是相對於全國平均而言的，而如果沒有平均年齡下降，這種情況想必是不可能發生的。但是，如果我們無法立即得知全國平均水平，就很難知道結果。

And then also, members in multifamily dwellings versus single family, if you think about millennials staying in that kind of environment and multifamily in general gaining share from single family. I'm not sure if you're able to look at it that way. Any sense of how you're faring with that cohort?

此外，考慮到千禧世代更傾向於居住在多戶住宅中，以及多戶住宅總體上從單戶住宅中奪取市場份額，還可以考慮多戶住宅與單戶住宅的居住人數差異。我不確定你是否能這樣看待這個問題。你覺得你和那批學生相處得怎麼樣？

Well I've never -- I haven't and I haven't seen any figures presented to me that way. I've said a couple times in the last many months when people talk about millennials, I think the good news is we're getting more of them and things like organic certainly help. Social media helps a little bit.

我從來沒有——我沒有，也沒有見過以這種方式呈現給我的任何數據。在過去的幾個月裡，我曾多次說過，當人們談論千禧世代時，我認為好消息是千禧世代的人數正在增加，而有機食品等因素無疑對此有所幫助。社群媒體起到了一定的作用。

Millennials is going to be an issue for the total pie in general if people move home after college for a period of time, if they move into a smaller place, if they get married later, if they have fewer kids. It's going to rain on all of us. So we certainly having increasing the share that we get of those people will help, but we're going to keep driving value and given the flexibility of the types of things we can continue to sell and we'll see where it goes. We have not looked at that. If we start looking at that, I'd be scared.

如果千禧世代在大學畢業後回家住一段時間，如果他們搬到更小的房子裡，如果他們晚婚，如果他們少生孩子，那麼千禧世代對整體經濟來說將是一個問題。所有人都要遭雨淋了。因此，提高我們獲得的這部分人群的份額肯定會有幫助，但我們會繼續創造價值，並考慮到我們可以繼續銷售的產品類型的靈活性，我們會看看最終結果如何。我們還沒有研究過這個問題。如果我們開始關注這件事，我會感到害怕。

Thank you so much.

太感謝了。

Oliver Chen, Cowen and Company.

Oliver Chen，Cowen and Company。

Yes, good morning. This is Steven Zaccone on for Oliver Chen. Thanks for taking our questions. Just two quick questions. As you look to the remainder of 2016, are there any areas of the assortment that you have an opportunity for improvement in your view?

是的，早安。這裡是史蒂文‧札科內，替奧利佛‧陳報道。謝謝您回答我們的問題。問兩個問題。展望 2016 年剩餘時間，您認為產品系列中有哪些方面還有改進的空間？

And then secondly, we just had a quick question regarding the E. coli situation. Have you seen any traffic disruption from the headlines? It does appear that you have the situation contained but just curious have you seen any traffic disruptions? Thanks very much, Richard.

其次，我們還有一個關於大腸桿菌情況的簡短問題。你從新聞報道中看到任何交通中斷的情況嗎？看起來你們已經控制住了局面，但我很好奇你們有沒有看到任何交通中斷的情況？非常感謝，理查德。

On the latter, no. It was contained pretty quickly and the information was communicated pretty quickly. And I believe that the last possible episode related to Costco of someone falling ill was November 1. So we're kind of past that. Thankfully, nobody was extremely hurt. There were a couple, there was a few that did go to the hospital and I understand that they are all doing better now. So, nothing new as it relates to that.

關於後者，答案是否定的。事態很快就得到控制，訊息也很快傳達出去。我相信，最後一次有人因在 Costco 購物而生病的事件發生在 11 月 1 日。所以，這件事已經過去了。所幸無人受重傷。有幾個人去了醫院，據我了解，他們現在情況都好多了。所以，在這方面沒有什麼新情況。

I'm sorry, in terms of the other question in terms of what's new? Again, it's more of the same. I can't give you anything specific that's at top of mind. Organics continues. And [KS], we're doing a few more things but that's kind of steady as we go.

抱歉，關於您提出的另一個問題，即“有什麼新進展？”情況依舊如此。一時想不出什麼具體的事。有機食品產業仍在持續。至於[KS]，我們還在做一些其他的事情，但總體來說，一切都在穩步進行。

Great, thanks.

太好了，謝謝。

Kelly Bania, BMO Capital Markets.

Kelly Bania，BMO資本市場。

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to ask another question on the transition to Citi. As we get closer to that transition in the spring, just curious how you feel about it? Sounds like there is a lot of preparations involved. And maybe you can just remind us what's different about this in the US versus what you did in Canada a couple years ago? And maybe what you learned in that transition process?

您好，感謝您回答我的問題。我還想問一個關於過渡到花旗銀行的問題。隨著春季的臨近，我很好奇你對此有何感想？聽起來需要做很多準備。您能否提醒我們一下，在美國，這件事與您幾年前在加拿大所做的事情有何不同？或許你在那段過渡過程中學到了什麼？

Well, it just takes time. I think the big difference is in Canada, the new issuer was not able, did not purchase the portfolio from American Express. And therefore, it's what's referred to as a de novo program where customers, members have to sign up and re-apply for credit. So that's a little more disruptive. It impacts -- now it's a MasterCard up there, so there are many people up there that have a MasterCard in his or her wallet already so they still have something to use.

這需要時間。我認為最大的區別在於加拿大，新的發行機構未能從美國運通手中收購其資產組合。因此，這就是所謂的全新計劃，客戶、會員必須註冊並重新申請信用額度。所以這會造成更大的干擾。這會產生影響——現在那裡用的是萬事達卡，所以很多人錢包裡本來就有萬事達卡，他們仍然有卡可用。

And then in terms of auto renewals, part of our renewal rate is the fact that you have some members that do auto renewal, which as you might expect, statistically has a slightly higher renewal rate because it is auto. And the assumption here in the US is that the portfolio will be, the transition will include the purchase of the portfolio. And I think the language we've used in the past is that is what we anticipate because there's always a chance that something can happen. But we're working towards that end as you'd expect the issuers out there.

至於自動續費，我們的續費率部分取決於一些會員是否選擇自動續費，正如你所預料的那樣，自動續費的會員續費率在統計上略高一些。而美國這邊的假設是，投資組合將會…過渡將包括購買該投資組合。我認為我們過去使用的語言表達的是我們所預期的，因為總是有可能發生一些事情。但正如你所預料的那樣，我們正在朝著這個目標努力。

So again, recognizing that Canada is 10% of our Company and the US is 70%. So these are bigger numbers. I would guess that if you look at the $15 million I pointed out as related to just revenues we get for signing up new co-brand cards, even if the same percentages occurred up there, it wouldn't even be worth calling out in terms of the Company as a whole. So it's just going to take some time. I'm just trying to share with you what I can at this point. Nothing big is going to happen. We'll get through it and we're very excited about the next many years under a great program.

再次強調，加拿大占我們公司的 10%，美國佔 70%。所以這些數字比較大。我猜想，如果你把我指出的 1500 萬美元僅僅看作是我們透過註冊新的聯名卡獲得的收入，即使同樣的百分比出現在那裡，就公司整體而言，也根本不值得一提。所以這需要一些時間。我目前只能盡我所能和你們分享這些資訊。不會發生什麼大事。我們會渡過難關，我們對未來多年在這個優秀計劃下的發展感到非常興奮。

That's helpful. Any color you can provide on what percent of members do use the auto renewal and anything else we should think about just modeling?

那很有幫助。您能否提供一些關於使用自動續費功能的會員比例以及其他我們應該考慮的建模因素的數據？

I don't have that at my fingertips, but I probably -- we wouldn't share that. As many as possible would be the answer. It makes it easier for the customer and certainly it gives them a reason to more likely renew.

我手頭上沒有相關信息，但我可能——我們不會分享這些信息。答案是越多越好。這讓客戶操作更便捷，也無疑會讓他們更有理由續約。

Got it. And then, just another question. You mentioned I think two new business centers planned for this year. I was just curious if you could talk about how those are working? Any relative profitability versus a typical club and just what you think about that format going forward?

知道了。還有一個問題。您曾提過今年計劃新建兩個商務中心。我只是好奇您能否談談這些設備是如何運作的？與傳統俱樂部相比，這種模式的獲利能力如何？您對這種模式未來的發展有何看法？

First and foremost, we're opening regular warehouse clubs. For a number of years, we had anywhere from I think six to eight business centers that were doing okay, slightly profitable but not setting the world on fire. There were a lot of changes that were made to it a couple of years ago and they are growing nicely. They are more profitable than they had been. It's another avenue.

首先，我們將開設常規的倉儲式超市。多年來，我們大概有六到八個商務中心經營狀況尚可，略有獲利，但並沒有取得顯著的成功。幾年前這裡進行了很多改造，現在發展得很好。它們比以前更賺錢了。這是另一條途徑。

It's going to be a lot smaller footprint in terms of how many units we have than a regular warehouse, than a regular Costco warehouse is. But we'll keep adding -- we're doing this just like we've done everything, pretty methodically. On a base of 10 or so, we're going to open a couple. So it's not like we've discovered something that we're going to go from 10 to 20 overnight in one year.

就單元數量而言，它的佔地面積將比普通倉庫，或者說普通的 Costco 倉庫小得多。但我們會繼續添加——我們做這件事的方式和我們做其他所有事情的方式一樣，都是有條不紊的。我們打算以大約 10 家門市為基準，開設幾家分店。所以，這並不是說我們發現了什麼，可以讓我們一夜之間在一年內從 10 個增加到 20 個。

So it's good. It's a positive business for us. It certainly is a focus on the business member. We also will from time to time identify items in the business center that makes sense to sell in all of our locations. So we think it's a positive. Some of the examples also, is where we've taken an old Costco which is smaller footprint, perhaps not as well located for our general population member, where as we are relocating an old unit, we will convert that other one in that city into a business center. So that's been helpful to us as well.

所以這很好。這對我們來說是一項利好業務。這無疑是以企業會員為重點的。我們也會不時在商務中心挑選一些適合在我們所有門市銷售的商品。所以我們認為這是件好事。例如，我們曾將一家佔地面積較小、地理位置可能不太適合我們普通會員的舊 Costco 門市搬遷，同時將該城市的另一家門市改造成商業中心。所以這對我們也很有幫助。

We did that in South Atlanta. We did that in Chicago I think in Bedford Park. I believe the New Jersey location is a relocation where Hackensack went to Teterboro. I mentioned that we opened a new one in Teterboro that is a reloc from Hackensack which now over that several month period is being converted into a business center. We think it's good. When asked what's driving our earnings growth and what's driving our whatever, I've always said it's a lot of little things and this would be one of them.

我們在亞特蘭大南部做了這件事。我想我們是在芝加哥的貝德福公園做的。我認為新澤西州的這個地點是搬遷後的地點，哈肯薩克搬到了泰特伯勒。我提到過，我們在泰特伯勒開設了一家新店，這家店是從哈肯薩克搬遷過來的，現在經過幾個月的時間，它正在被改造成一個商務中心。我們認為這很好。當被問到是什麼推動了我們的獲利成長以及其他種種因素時，我總是說，是很多小事促成了這一切，而這就是其中之一。

Great, thank you.

太好了，謝謝。

Meredith Adler, Barclays.

梅雷迪思·阿德勒，巴克萊銀行。

Thanks. I have one quick question. Can you just remind me of the timing of the new credit card?

謝謝。我有一個問題想問一下。可以提醒我一下新信用卡的辦理時間嗎？

Well our current relationship expires March 31, and there's a window of a few months in there post that, that this could extend. So it will be sometime between April and December is my best guess at this point.

我們目前的戀愛關係將於3月31日到期，之後還有幾個月的時間，這段關係可能會延長。所以，我目前最好的估計是會在四月到十二月之間。

Great. And then you guys are still working very hard on your technology modernization. Can you talk about whether you've been pleased with the timing of everything and whether all the new systems have been rolled out smoothly? Technology is notoriously late, but how is it going for you guys?

偉大的。而且你們還在為科技現代化而努力。您能否談談您對所有事情的進度安排是否滿意，以及所有新系統是否都順利推出？科技發展總是滯後，但你們那邊情況如何？

Smoothly would be an overstatement. I think in the beginning of time when we talked about this starting about three or four years ago, we said this is our best guess. And I half jokingly said, whatever you think it's going to do, it's going to take twice as long and cost twice as much. Anybody that has gone through it I think generally experiences that. We are experiencing some level of that as well.

說「順利」有點誇張了。我認為，大約三、四年前，當我們開始討論這個問題時，我們說這是我們最好的猜測。我半開玩笑地說，不管你認為它會做什麼，它都需要兩倍的時間和兩倍的成本。我認為經歷過這件事的人通常都會有這種感受。我們也感受到了這種程度的影響。

That being said, we've got everybody's supportive of it. The deliverables that we have had sometimes they have taken longer, they've cost more. We've learned from what we didn't know and as we find out, we do a better job on the next thing. So again overall, I think again, it's costing a little more than we thought. It's taking a little longer but we're getting some deliverables over the last year like a new membership system, a new point-of-sale system, a big rollout of really the foundation of our accounting system will be at the beginning of the new fiscal year. So we've got a lot going on but we're getting through it and I wouldn't -- I certainly wouldn't gloat about it because we know it's tough and it takes a long time. We're getting there.

也就是說，我們已經得到大家的支持了。我們交付的成果有時耗時更長，成本也更高。我們從未知中學到教訓，隨著經驗的積累，我們在下一步做得更好。所以總的來說，我認為它的成本比我們預想的要高一些。雖然進度稍微慢了一些，但我們在過去一年裡取得了一些成果，例如新的會員系統、新的銷售點系統，以及在新財年開始時大規模推出的會計系統基礎架構。所以我們有很多事情要處理，但我們正在努力克服，我不會——我當然不會為此沾沾自喜，因為我們知道這很艱難，而且需要很長時間。我們正在接近目標。

Great, thank you very much.

太好了，非常感謝。

Chuck Cerankosky, Northcoast Research.

Chuck Cerankosky，北海岸研究公司。

Good morning, everyone. Richard, can you give us a little bit of color or some range on how many stores might be open this year? You said 32 on the top end. How low could that be and where would you expect some of the shortfalls to be?

各位早安。理查德，你能透露一下今年可能會有多少家門市開業嗎？還是大概估算一下範圍？你說最高是32。這個數字能低到什麼程度？你認為缺口會反映在哪些方面？

32 is my best guess. If I had to guess what's the low end, 27 or 28. That just simply means that under 27 example, that means five in the latter half of the year and the original budget would have been skewed out a little bit. Right now, I'm looking we've got seven new units coming in Q3 in this plan and 15 in Q4, with about half of those, probably eight of those, in August.

我猜是32。如果讓我猜最低值是多少，應該是 27 或 28。也就是說，如果低於 27，則表示下半年會有 5 場，原始預算將會略有偏差。目前來看，根據該計劃，第三季我們將新增 7 個單元，第四季將新增 15 個單元，其中約一半，可能是 8 個單元，將在 8 月推出。

So I'm sure a few those are going to slip. Some of those have slipped back because the December was 35. So I'm guessing, so 28 to 32. Again, it's fluid number. I don't think we've lost any. But I know in a couple of them we've already delayed. Might be a year of delay for zoning issues. One example again, we found some things underground that original core testings didn't find. So you're always going to find some things out there like that.

所以我相信一定會有一些人失手。其中一些排名下滑了，因為12月份的排名是35。所以我猜，應該是 28 到 32。這又是一個動態變化的數字。我認為我們沒有損失任何球員。但我知道其中幾個項目我們已經延期了。由於分區規劃問題，可能會延誤一年。再舉一個例子，我們在地下發現了一些最初核心測試中沒有發現的東西。所以你總是會發現一些類似的事情。

Okay. Can you talk a little bit about a competitive behavior that you're seeing out there whether it's a reaction of a more conventional stores to what you been doing? There's not many retailers out their showing the comps that Costco is. Are you seeing any reaction in your channel and outside your channel and especially as you enter some new countries?

好的。您能否談談您目前觀察到的競爭行為，這是否是傳統商店對您所做事情的反應？很少有零售商像 Costco 一樣展示如此全面的對比數據。您在頻道內外，尤其是在進入一些新的國家時，是否觀察到任何反響？

Overall, no. We are, and I've said it many times, we are our own toughest competitor and I mean that. In our industry, notably Sam's and to a little extent BJ's, certainly many locations where we compete head to head, we're in their locations literally every week. And I would assume they're in our locations every week. And we feel good about the competitive posture there. I think it helps that our average volumes are dramatically higher and that allows you to do a lot of things. The nature of our member. I don't think we've seen any big changes there other than we keep doing pretty good.

總體而言，沒有。我們已經說過很多次了，我們最大的競爭對手就是我們自己，我說的就是這個意思。在我們這個行業，特別是山姆會員店，以及在某種程度上還有 BJ's，當然，在我們直接競爭的許多地方，我們幾乎每週都會出現在他們的商店裡。我估計他們每週都會來我們這裡。我們對那裡的競爭態勢感到滿意。我認為我們平均銷量大幅提高這一點很有幫助，這使我們能夠做很多事情。我們成員的性質。我認為除了我們一直做得很好之外，那方面並沒有發生什麼重大的改變。

As it relates to traditional competitors, regionally, we look at all kinds of things. In the Northeast, we look at companies like Wegmans which is a great supermarket retailer and they're opening more units. That's in our view our customer, a high-end customer particularly in the quality of fresh foods. Although our fresh foods are pretty good. I think we're during a pretty good job. We're helping by the fact that we can choose to do things like women's athletic wear, activewear, where we can literally create $100 million of sales on full margin items that didn't exist a few years ago.

就傳統競爭對手而言，從區域角度來看，我們會考慮各種因素。在東北地區，我們關注像 Wegmans 這樣的公司，它是一家很棒的超市零售商，而且他們正在開設更多分店。在我們看來，我們的客戶是高端客戶，尤其註重新新鮮食品的品質。雖然我們的新鮮食材相當不錯。我認為我們目前做得相當不錯。我們之所以能達到這樣的成就，是因為我們可以選擇做女式運動服、運動服之類的產品，在這些產品上，我們能夠創造高達 1 億美元的銷售額，而這些產品在幾年前是根本不存在的。

And I think our global sourcing initiatives and things gives us we believe and edge on things like produce. But you can't do it if you don't do the kinds of volumes we do. I think we've got some good advantages out there and we are, I think, one of the best and not resting on our laurels. In terms of dot com, again we're pretty methodical about it. Some of the things we're doing are helping albeit from a (technical difficulty) in a lot of ways and I think we're getting better at that too.

我認為我們的全球採購措施和措施讓我們在農產品等領域擁有了優勢。但如果你不做我們這樣的出版量，你就做不到。我認為我們擁有一些不錯的優勢，而且我認為我們是最優秀的球隊之一，但我們不會因此而沾沾自喜。至於.com網站，我們同樣採取了相當有條不紊的做法。儘管存在一些技術難題，但我們正在做的一些事情在很多方面都起到了幫助作用，而且我認為我們在這方面也在不斷進步。

All right, thank you, Richard.

好的，謝謝你，理查。

Scott Mushkin, Wolfe Research.

Scott Mushkin，Wolfe Research。

Hey guys, I'll be quick. I know the call is going long. I just wanted Richard to get your thoughts here and maybe have the numbers even, what the penetration rate for eCommerce and services like rental cars and travel services and that type, insurance services, what the penetration rate is among your members? And if you have, has it been growing?

嘿，各位，我很快就說完。我知道這場電話會議會持續很久。我只是想讓理查德聽聽你的想法，或許還能得到一些數據，例如電子商務以及租車、旅遊服務等類似服務、保險服務的滲透率是多少，你們會員的滲透率是多少？如果你有的話，它一直在成長嗎？

They're growing nicely. We do not give out that information. They're all pretty good businesses. They've all grown slowly over time. Travel is doing very well. Things like car rentals. I can tell you I visited some shareholders recently on some proxy issues and during that, I was just giving an example though of our rental car business, which has grown dramatically in the last year to well over 2 million rentals a year. A lot of that is on line.

它們長得很好。我們不會洩漏這類資訊。它們都是相當不錯的企業。它們都是隨著時間的推移慢慢長大的。旅遊業發展勢頭良好。例如租車之類的。我可以告訴你們，我最近就一些代理權問題拜訪了一些股東，期間我舉了一個例子，那就是我們的租車業務，該業務在過去一年中實現了大幅增長，每年租車量超過 200 萬輛。很多東西都可以在網路上找到。

And in two different meetings, individuals who prided themselves on knowing how to get the best deal on car rentals went online during the meeting and were able to save on the same car from the same third (technical difficulty) go try it and we got to do a better job of communicating that. Those businesses are growing. They're all generally small percentages of the total so I think that creates more opportunity for us.

在兩場不同的會議上，一些自認為知道如何以最優惠的價格租車的人，在會議期間上網，發現從同一家第三方租車公司（技術難題）租到同一輛車竟然更划算。我們得更好地傳達這一點。這些企業正在發展壯大。它們通常只佔總數的一小部分，所以我認為這為我們創造了更多機會。

I think I read recently where if we were a car dealer, we'd be the second-largest car dealer in the country based on number of new cars purchased by our members through the Costco auto program. All of those are additional reasons to be a member. They are all very profitable and growing. If they're very profitable, it means we're going to keep getting even better values. So it's all good.

我最近讀到一篇文章，說如果我們是一家汽車經銷商，根據我們的會員透過 Costco 汽車計劃購買的新車數量計算，我們將是全國第二大汽車經銷商。以上這些都是成為會員的額外理由。它們都非常賺錢，而且都在不斷發展壯大。如果它們利潤豐厚，那就意味著我們將持續獲得更優惠的價格。一切都很好。

And your eCommerce penetration rate? Do you have that or is that something you don't want to talk about either?

你們的電子商務滲透率是多少？你有那種經驗嗎？還是說你也不想談那種事？

E-commerce in terms of -- what do you mean penetration?

就電子商務而言——你指的是滲透率嗎？

What percentage of the members are using your eCommerce offer?

有多少百分比的會員使用你們的電子商務服務？

I don't have that in front of me. It's probably not as much as it should be and it will keep growing. I'm not trying to be cute, I just to have that number in front of me.

我手邊沒有那個東西。可能還沒有達到應有的水平，而且還會繼續成長。我不是想賣萌，我只是想把那個號碼記在眼前。

That's fine. And when we're looking at these things and we're looking at frequency, I would guess that these are outside your frequency? They don't get counted? Is that true?

沒關係。當我們觀察這些事物並觀察頻率時，我猜想這些頻率超出了你的範圍？他們不被計入嗎？是真的嗎？

Correct. Our frequency is front end transactions at the warehouse. It doesn't include gas, pharmacy, optical. If you shop the front end, now matter where else you shop, it's just one transaction. If you shop just at the gas station, it's not a transaction in terms of our shopping frequency.

正確的。我們的交易頻率是倉庫的前端交易。不包括汽油、藥品、眼鏡。如果你在前端購物，那麼無論你在其他任何地方購物，都只是一次交易。如果你只是在加油站購物，那就不算是一次購物頻率意義上的交易。

And the eCommerce is not ringing up as transactions either? Frequency? It's transactions but not frequency.

電子商務交易也沒有結算嗎？頻率？是交易次數，但不是交易頻率。

E-commerce is like a warehouse. So that it is adding up. But it's 3% of our business. So even if it's growing at three times at 20% plus versus 7%, it's de minimis that number.

電子商務就像一個倉庫。所以，這些費用正在累積。但這只占我們業務的3%。所以即使它的成長率是原來的三倍（20% 以上），而不是原來的 7%，這個數字也微不足道。

All right, perfect. That's it for me. Thanks, guys.

好的，完美。就這些了。謝謝各位。

Why don't we take two more questions? Hello?

我們何不再回答兩個問題呢？你好？

Bob Drbul.

鮑勃·德布爾。

Hi, Richard. I had two quick questions. On the credit card, the $0.02 hit this quarter, is that expected to be something similar over the next few quarters in terms of the impact? I guess the question is when you start to get to the new relationship, will there be additional marketing expense that you would also incur in addition to what is impacting the business today?

你好，理查德。我有兩個問題想問一下。信用卡方面，本季損失了 0.02 美元，預計未來幾季影響也會類似嗎？我想問的是，當你開始建立新的合作關係時，除了目前影響業務的因素之外，是否還會產生額外的行銷費用？

In terms of the first piece of that question, yes. I mean I don't know if it around to $0.01 or to $0.03, if we call it, $0.02 is a guess and it's a guess. At the time of transition, there are monies baked into the deal. So I don't see any big impact to that, anything in our numbers.

關於問題的第一部分，答案是肯定的。我的意思是，我不知道它大概是 0.01 美元還是 0.03 美元，如果非要說的話，0.02 美元只是個猜測而已。過渡時期，交易中已經包含了資金。所以我認為不會對此產生任何重大影響，我們的數據也不會受到任何影響。

And you mentioned the Alibaba singles day. Can you just give us any insight in how you're looking at China and essentially what you're learning so far from that relationship?

你也提到了阿里巴巴雙十一購物節。您能否談談您如何看待中國，以及目前從與中國的關係中學到了什麼？

We've been asked about China for 20 years and about every two or three years -- it used to be Jeff and Jim and our head of international Jim Murphy, and now of course, it's Craig and Jeff in our international Jim Murphy and a few others in real estate. We keep looking. At some point we'll probably open a couple of units but we haven't pulled that trigger yet to actually go forth.

20 年來，我們一直被問到中國市場的問題，大約每兩三年就會有人問一次——以前是 Jeff、Jim 和我們的國際業務負責人 Jim Murphy，現在當然是 Craig 和 Jeff，以及我們國際業務負責人 Jim Murphy 和房地產部門的其他幾位負責人。我們繼續尋找。我們可能在某個時候會開設幾家分店，但我們還沒有真正下定決心去推進這件事。

I would say it's probable in the next five years but we got a lot going on. For 20 years we've never been terribly concerned about we've got to get there now. So this gets our name known a little bit, but it's not like we've strategically sat down and said hey lets get our name known for a few years and then go. The Alibaba team, the whole thing happened because they came to us and we did not appreciate how many Kirkland Signature items we're selling on their site before we sold them directly and at a better value.

我認為未來五年內很有可能，但我們有很多事情要做。20年來，我們從來沒有特別擔心過「我們必須現在就到達那裡」。所以這讓我們稍微出了名，但這並不是說我們事先有策略地坐下來，說「嘿，讓我們花幾年時間讓大家都知道我們的名字，然後就走人」。阿里巴巴團隊，這一切的起因是他們找到了我們，而我們之前並沒有意識到，在我們直接以更優惠的價格銷售之前，我們在他們的網站上銷售了多少 Kirkland Signature 的產品。

Thank you, Rich.

謝謝你，里奇。

Dan Binder, Jefferies.

丹賓德，傑富瑞集團。

I got the last one. I'll try and be quick. You mentioned earlier in the call, there was some of these one-time items that we were aware of. Some that we were not. Just in terms of things like legal and regulatory, is there anything that we should anticipate in Q2 based on what you know today that we should be factoring in?

我拿到了最後一個。我會盡量快一點。您之前在通話中提到過，我們知道有一些這類一次性事項。有些我們不在。就法律和監管方面而言，根據您目前掌握的信息，我們在第二季度應該預期哪些方面需要考慮？

No.

不。

You mentioned a little contribution from international which contributed to the tax rate difference. I was just curious, is that related to start up costs in areas like Spain? Just higher losses associated with that or is it something --?

您提到國際方面有一些貢獻，這導致了稅率的差異。我只是好奇，這是否與西班牙等地區的創業成本有關？只是與此相關的損失增加，還是有其他原因？

No, not at all. What I was talking about is if you have $100 in Canada earned and year-over-year in the quarter, the Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar is down 15%. We bring it down at $85 of income, not $100 of income. So it's just -- and in Canada, the marginal tax rate like federal tax rate I believe is 26% currently versus, I could be off a little bit, versus 39% in the US. In some other countries, it's actually a little lower or higher but generally speaking, I believe the US versus in the nine countries you are, our affected US tax rate on earnings in the US is quite a bit higher than anywhere else. So as the penetration of foreign earnings to total earnings, it's that simple.

不，完全不是。我指的是，如果你在加拿大賺了 100 美元，而與去年同期相比，該季度加元對美元貶值了 15%。我們把收入門檻降到 85 美元，而不是 100 美元。所以情況是——在加拿大，邊際稅率（例如聯邦稅率）目前我認為是 26%，而美國（我可能記錯了）是 39%。在其他一些國家，稅率實際上可能略低或略高，但總的來說，我認為美國與你們所在的九個國家相比，美國的收入稅率要高得多。因此，海外收入佔總收入的比例就是這麼簡單。

Got you. So we had an opportunity to visit your Getafe club in Spain. It was pretty impressive. I think one of the areas that was surprising was the amount of local sourcing you're doing especially in areas like fresh and we heard about some of the export activities with local vendors. I was just curious if you could expand a little bit on what that opportunity looks like when you -- not just for Spain, but other countries you're operating in. How much you're doing in terms of cross-border type sourcing for other clubs and whether it's the US or Japan, et cetera? It seemed like it was growing.

抓到你了。我們有機會參觀了你們在西班牙赫塔菲的俱樂部。真是令人印象深刻。我認為最令人驚訝的領域之一是你們在本地採購方面投入的大量資源，尤其是在生鮮領域。我們也聽說了你們與當地供應商進行的一些出口活動。我只是好奇您能否詳細闡述一下，當您——不僅限於西班牙，還包括您在其他國家開展業務時——這個機會具體是什麼樣的。你們在跨國採購方面為其他俱樂部做了多少工作？採購對像是美國、日本等等嗎？它似乎在生長。

First and foremost, the big thing is, on multinational vendors getting the -- and a lot of times with multinational vendors you've got two or three or four geographic world regions. I remember when we went into Australia, and now we have eight units instead of one or two or three a few years ago.

首先，最重要的是，跨國供應商往往擁有兩到三個甚至四個地理區域的業務。我記得我們剛進軍澳洲市場的時候，現在已經有八家公司了，而幾年前只有一、兩家或三家。

Still with only eight, there's some divisions of even multinationals that aren't prepared quite to sell us, make available certain things and certainly sell us at a global pricing. That can only change when they get us involved. And again, since we have that meeting here every four weeks, the budget meeting, that is when that happens. So I think a focus on that has helped us.

儘管只有八個部門，但即使是跨國公司的一些部門也還沒有做好向我們銷售產品的準備，沒有提供某些產品，當然也沒有做好以全球價格向我們銷售產品的準備。只有當我們參與進來，這種情況才能改變。而且，因為我們每四周都會在這裡召開預算會議，所以這種情況就是在那時發生的。所以我認為，專注於這一點對我們有所幫助。

As it relates to going into these markets, to the extent there are items in those countries that helps us both ways. I think that's, if you will, I think we do a good job of that. Those are all small little things that help long-term. I give you an example back in Japan a few years ago, I forget the name of the -- there's a very well-known, what's considered a very premium tea that's a Japanese branded product. That they initially were reluctant to sell us when we entered Japan. Even as we had ten or so units.

至於進入這些市場，如果這些國家有對我們雙方都有幫助的商品，那就更好了。我認為，如果可以這麼說的話，我認為我們在這方面做得很好。這些都是一些小事，但長遠來看卻很有幫助。我給你舉個例子，幾年前在日本，我忘了那個茶的名字——有一種非常有名的、被認為是非常高級的茶，是日本品牌的產品。他們最初在我們進入日本市場時並不願意把我們賣掉。即使我們只有十來個單元。

Once we worked with them to provide a co-branded Kirkland Signature by that brand name, not only in Japan, but it sells very well in Eastern Canada and along the West Coast in California. All those things are net positive. It not only afforded us an ability to have a premium item with a decent margin and a new item in these other markets where we're strong, that market potential allowed us I think to procure items faster in some of those countries. So, it's a win-win. But these are small. Again, another small example.

我們曾與他們合作，推出了以該品牌名稱命名的 Kirkland Signature 聯名產品，該產品不僅在日本銷售良好，而且在加拿大東部和加利福尼亞州西海岸也銷售良好。所有這些都是積極的。它不僅使我們能夠以可觀的利潤率在其他我們實力雄厚的市場推出高端產品和新產品，而且我認為，這種市場潛力還使我們能夠在某些國家更快地採購商品。所以，這是雙贏。但這些都是小問題。再舉個小例子。

Great, thank you.

太好了，謝謝。

Okay, well thank you very much. We're around today if you have any further questions. Have a good day.

好的，非常感謝。如果您還有任何疑問，我們今天隨時為您解答。祝你有美好的一天。