好市多 (COST) 2017 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. My name is Samantha, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q3 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Richard Galanti, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

午安.我叫薩曼莎，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。此時此刻，我謹代表公司歡迎各位參加第三季財報電話會議。（操作說明）謝謝。現在我將把電話交給財務長理查德·加蘭蒂。請繼續。

Thank you, Samantha, and good afternoon to everyone. I'll start by stating that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results and/or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. The 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.

謝謝你，薩曼莎，大家下午好。首先我要說明的是，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。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。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。

In today's press release, we reported our third quarter and year-to-date fiscal year 2017 operating results for the 12-week and 36-week periods ended May 7. For the 12-week fiscal third quarter, we reported earnings of $1.59 a share, $0.35 a share above last year's third quarter reported earnings of $1.24. As noted in this afternoon's release, the $1.59 reported EPS figure included an $82 million or $0.19 per share income tax benefit in connection with the $7 share special cash dividend that the company declared on April 25 and which is payable tomorrow, May 26. The realized tax benefit related to the special dividend payable to company 401(k) plan participants as it is considered compensation to employees under U.S. tax law. There's about 30 -- a little over 30 million shares, Costco shares held by employees in -- among other investments in the 401(k) plan.

在今天的新聞稿中，我們公佈了截至 5 月 7 日的 2017 財年第三季和年初至今的 12 週和 36 週期間的經營業績。在 12 週的第三財季，我們公佈的每股收益為 1.59 美元，比去年同期公佈的每股收益 1.24 美元高出 0.35 美元。正如今天下午發布的公告中所述，報告的每股收益為 1.59 美元，其中包括與公司於 4 月 25 日宣布的每股 7 美元特別現金股息相關的 8200 萬美元或每股 0.19 美元的所得稅優惠，該股息將於明天（5 月 26 日）支付。根據美國稅法，支付給公司 401(k) 計畫參與者的特別股息被視為員工薪酬，因此可享有相應的稅收優惠。401(k) 計畫中的其他投資中，約有 3 萬多股 Costco 股票（員工持有）。

In addition to this onetime earnings benefit, here are a few other items of note when comparing year-over-year results: number one, our co-branded credit card. As was the case in both the first and second fiscal quarters of this past year, the Citi Visa co-brand card program positively impacted year-over-year margins by 16 basis points and SG&A expenses by 20 basis points, and our overall bottom line in Q3 benefited earnings by $0.14 a share. By comparison, I believe, in Q1 and Q2, the numbers were $0.01 or $0.02 less than that per share but still significant as we're still in the first year of the program change.

除了這項一次性收益之外，在比較同比業績時，還有以下幾點值得注意：第一，我們的聯名信用卡。與去年第一季和第二季的情況一樣，花旗Visa聯名卡計畫使年比利潤率提高了16個基點，銷售、一般及行政費用提高了20個基點，第三季整體淨利潤使每股收益增加了0.14美元。相比之下，我認為，第一季和第二季的每股盈餘比這少了 0.01 或 0.02 美元，但考慮到我們仍處於專案變更的第一年，這仍然意義重大。

Number two, gas profitability. Our profits from gas during the quarter as compared to last year's third quarter were higher by $37 million pretax or better year-over-year by $0.05 a share.

第二，天然氣獲利能力。本季天然氣業務利潤與去年第三季相比，稅前利潤增加了 3,700 萬美元，比去年同期成長了每股 0.05 美元。

Gross margin. Last year's third quarter earnings included a $19 million pretax benefit from a nonrecurring legal settlement. This represented an improvement to gross margin of 7 basis points year-over-year or $0.03 a share, which was in last year and not this year.

毛利率。去年第三季的收益包括一筆非經常性法律和解金帶來的 1,900 萬美元稅前收益。這意味著毛利率年增了 7 個基點，即每股 0.03 美元，而去年同期毛利率為 0.03 美元，今年則沒有達到這一水平。

SG&A. This year's third quarter earnings included a $14 million or $0.02 share a hit to SG&A this year related to 2 nonrecurring legal items. So whereas last year had a benefit, this year had a detriment.

銷售、一般及行政費用。今年第三季收益包括 1,400 萬美元或每股 0.02 美元的銷售、一般及行政費用損失，這筆損失與兩項非經常性法律項目有關。所以，如果說去年是有利的，那麼今年則是不利的。

IT expenses. As a percent of sales, it was actually flat year-over-year as a percent of sales and in line with sales growth during quarter -- during the quarter.

IT費用。佔銷售額的百分比實際上與去年同期持平，與本季的銷售成長一致。

Number six, FX. There are 2 FX items, as compared to a year ago during the third quarter, foreign currencies where we operate were mixed relative to the U.S. dollar but on aggregate, weakened versus the U.S. dollar, most notably in Canada, the U.K. and Mexico. And this resulted in foreign earnings in Q3 when we convert back into U.S. dollars for reporting purposes being slightly lower by about $5 million or about $0.01 a share than if the exchange rates had been flat. Conversely, we had a gain reflected in our interest income and other line related to forward FX contracts and U.S. dollar holdings by our international subsidiaries. We do that when they're used to pay for U.S.-dollar-denominated merchandise payables. In Q3, that benefited the P&L by $9 million or about -- a little over $0.01 a share year-over-year.

第六名，FX。有兩項外匯相關事項，與去年同期相比，我們營運所在地的外幣兌美元匯率漲跌互現，但總體而言，兌美元匯率走弱，其中加拿大、英國和墨西哥的匯率走弱最為明顯。因此，當我們為了報告目的將第三季的海外收益換算回美元時，其金額比匯率保持不變時略微減少了約 500 萬美元，即每股約 0.01 美元。相反，我們的利息收入和其他與遠期外匯合約和國際子公司持有的美元相關的收入反映了收益。當它們用於支付以美元計價的商品應付帳款時，我們會這樣做。第三季度，這為損益表帶來了 900 萬美元的收益，相當於每股收益略高於 0.01 美元。

LIFO. There was no LIFO charge or credit in this year's third quarter results, whereas last year in the quarter, we had a LIFO credit of $13 million, reflecting deflation in our LIFO indices. That represented about a $0.02 a share benefit last year -- or a credit last year versus nothing this year. While we do have deflation, there's no LIFO reserve to draw from, and you -- essentially, you can't go below 0.

後進先出。今年第三季業績中沒有 LIFO 費用或收益，而去年同期，我們有 1,300 萬美元的 LIFO 收益，反映了 LIFO 指數的通貨緊縮。這相當於去年每股收益約 0.02 美元——或者說，去年是收益而不是今年的收益。雖然我們確實面臨通貨緊縮，但沒有後進先出儲備可以動用，而且從本質上講，你不可能低於 0。

Income tax rate. As previously discussed, our third quarter tax rate was very favorable due to the treatment of the special dividend. As a result, the reported tax rate in Q3 was 26.8%. Excluding the impact from the special dividend, our normalized tax rate would have been 35.3% for the quarter.

所得稅稅率。如前所述，由於特別股息的處理方式，我們第三季的稅率非常優惠。因此，第三季報告的稅率為 26.8%。如果不計入特別股利的影響，我們本季的正常稅率將為 35.3%。

Turning to our third quarter sales. Reported sales were up 8%, and our 12-week total company reported comparable sales figure was up 5%. For the quarter, the plus 5% comp sales figure was helped by gasoline price inflation to the tune of about 140 basis points and offset or hurt by -- from FX by about minus 60 basis points. By segment, the comp increases were as follows: U.S., 6%; Canada, 2%; international, 4%. Excluding the impacts from gas and FX, the 6% in the U.S. would have been a 5%; the reported Canada of 2% would have been a 3%; and the international reported at 4% would have instead been a 6%, still totaling up to 5% overall.

接下來來看看我們第三季的銷售情況。報告顯示銷售額成長了 8%，而我們公司 12 週的總報告可比銷售額成長了 5%。本季度，同店銷售額成長 5%，這得益於汽油價格上漲約 140 個基點，但同時也受到匯率波動約 60 個基點的抵銷或損害。依細分市場劃分，同店銷售額成長如下：美國，6%；加拿大，2%；國際，4%。如果排除天然氣和外匯的影響，美國的 6% 將變為 5%；加拿大報告的 2% 將變為 3%；國際報告的 4% 將變為 6%，總計仍為 5%。

In terms of new openings, our opening activities and plans, we opened 12 net new locations during the first 2 fiscal quarters, the first half of the year. In Q3, we opened a net of 2 new units, 3 total and 1 relo, so including our 37th location in Mexico and our first business center in Canada in Ontario. For all of fiscal '17, we have current plans to open a total of 12 more locations, so 26 net locations for the year. Of the 26 for the entire fiscal year, 13 were in the U.S.; 6 in Canada on a base of 91; 1 each in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Mexico and Australia as well as our first openings both in Iceland, which occurred 2 days ago, on their Wednesday, and France coming towards the end of next month in June.

就新店開幕而言，我們的開幕活動和計劃在前兩個財政季度（即上半年）淨增了 12 家門市。第三季度，我們淨增 2 家新門市，總共開設了 3 家門市和 1 家搬遷門市，其中包括我們在墨西哥的第 37 家門市和我們在加拿大安大略省的第一個商務中心。2017 財年，我們計劃再開設 12 家分店，全年淨增 26 家分店。在整個財政年度的 26 個項目中，13 個在美國；6 個在加拿大（基數為 91）；1 個在日本、韓國、台灣、墨西哥和澳大利亞；以及我們在冰島的首次開業（兩天前的星期三）和在法國的首次開業（將於下個月底，也就是 6 月底）。

This afternoon, I'll also review membership trends and renewal rates, the upcoming membership fee increases planned for the U.S. and Canada. Those become effective next week on June 1. An update on the Citi Visa Anywhere card program, additional discussion about our margins and expenses in the quarter, e-commerce results and recent -- and quickly, the recent special dividend and the related $3.8 billion debt offering that we completed recently.

今天下午，我也會回顧會員趨勢和續費率，以及美國和加拿大即將實施的會員費上漲計畫。這些措施將於下週 6 月 1 日生效。我們將更新花旗 Visa Anywhere 卡計劃，進一步討論本季的利潤率和支出、電子商務業績以及最近的——而且很快——特別股息和我們最近完成的 38 億美元債務發行。

So starting with third quarter results. As I mentioned, sales were up at $28.22 billion, up 8% over last year's $26.15 billion in the quarter. Again, on a reported basis and on an ex gas and FX basis, comps were up 5%. For the quarter, our 5% reported comp figure was a combination of an average transaction increase of 2% and an average shopping frequency increase of a little over 3%. And that little over 3% is companywide. It was 4% just in the U.S.

首先來看第三季業績。正如我之前提到的，銷售額達到 282.2 億美元，比去年同期的 261.5 億美元成長了 8%。再次強調，在報告數據和剔除天然氣和外匯影響後，同店銷售額成長了 5%。本季度，我們報告的 5% 同店銷售額成長數據是平均交易量成長 2% 和平均購物頻率成長略高於 3% 的組合。而且這略高於3%的比例是公司整體水準。光是在美國，這一比例就達到了4%。

In terms of sales comparison by geography, Texas and the Midwest regions were the strongest with Northwest, Southeast and California not far behind. Internationally, in local currencies, better performing countries included the U.K., Korea and Mexico.

從地理銷售比較來看，德州和中西部地區表現最為強勁，西北部、東南部和加州緊隨其後。從國際來看，以當地貨幣計算，表現較好的國家包括英國、韓國和墨西哥。

In terms of merchandise categories for the quarter, for the quarter -- for the third quarter within food and sundries, it was up in the low single digits. Spirits, deli and candy were the leaders. Tobacco continues to be a negative year-over-year, and as I've mentioned -- we've mentioned in the last 2 or 3 quarters, that'll anniversary itself by the end of June, the tobacco component. For hardlines, overall in the mid-single digits. Strongest department sales were in tires, hardware, and health and beauty aids. Our consumer electronics overall were down low singles. Softlines, also, we're up in the mid-single-digit range with apparel, housewares and domestic showing the best results. An in fresh foods, comps were up in the low single digits.

就本季商品類別而言，第三季食品和日用品的銷售額成長了個位數。酒類、熟食和糖果是銷量領先的品類。菸草業務年比持續下滑，而且正如我之前提到的——我們在過去兩三個季度中也提到過，到六月底，菸草業務的下滑將達到一年。對於強硬派來說，整體而言，人數在個位數中段。銷售額最高的部門是輪胎、五金和保健美容用品。我們的消費性電子產品整體表現低迷。此外，紡織品銷售也成長了個位數中段，其中服裝、家居用品和家用產品銷售表現最佳。在生鮮食品方面，同店銷售額僅成長了個位數。

Within ancillary, gas had great comps in the quarter aided by, of course, the higher average sale price per year, $2.42 this year versus $2.08 a year ago, as well as strong comp gallon growth. In addition, hearing aids were up in the mid-teens in terms of comps followed by optical in the high singles and pharmacy in the low to mid-singles.

在輔助業務方面，汽油在本季度實現了強勁的同店銷售增長，這當然得益於較高的年均銷售價格（今年為 2.42 美元，而去年為 2.08 美元）以及強勁的同店銷售量增長。此外，助聽器銷量增幅在十幾個百分點，其次是眼鏡銷量增幅在高個位數，藥局銷量增幅在低到中個位數。

In the third quarter, the U.S. front-end basket, U.S. -- units were just under up 1 percentage point, while the average basket value was slightly positive. These results are notwithstanding that we're still seeing a little deflation in the core business.

第三季度，美國前端商品籃子（美國-單位）略微上漲不到 1 個百分點，而平均籃子價值略微為正。儘管核心業務仍略有通貨緊縮，但這些結果仍然令人滿意。

Lastly, in Q3, the number of MVM promotional days, they were the same year-over-year in Q3, quite a change from Q2 when year-over-year during the 12-week second quarter there were 17 fewer MVM promotional days. And as we mentioned on the last call, we have made changes so that the lack of promotional days wouldn't impact the company as much as it had in the quarter.

最後，第三季 MVM 促銷日的數量與去年同期持平，與第二季的情況大相徑庭，當時第二季（12 週）的 MVM 促銷日比去年同期減少了 17 天。正如我們在上次電話會議上提到的，我們已經做出了一些調整，以避免促銷日的減少對公司造成像本季那樣大的影響。

Moving to the line items in the income statement. Membership fees, reported came in at $644 million, up 4% in dollars or $26 million and down 8 basis points as a percent of sales. FX had a little to do with the dollar increase and also, just the number of new openings year-over-year in the quarter. In terms of membership, we continue to enjoy strong renewal rates, 90.2% in the U.S. and Canada, 87.5% worldwide on a fully captured basis, and we continue to see increasing penetration of the Executive Membership in those countries where we offer that.

接下來查看損益表中的各項內容。據報道，會員費收入為 6.44 億美元，年增 4%（即 2,600 萬美元），佔銷售額的百分比下降了 8 個基點。匯率波動對美元上漲有一定影響，此外，本季新增營業額較去年同期也較高。在會員方面，我們繼續保持強勁的續會率，美國和加拿大為 90.2%，全球（按完全統計）為 87.5%，而且在我們提供高級會員資格的國家，高級會員資格的滲透率也在不斷提高。

At the end of the quarter, we had 37.8 million Gold Star members, up from 37.5 million at the end of -- 12 weeks earlier at the end of the second quarter. Business Primary, 7.4 million, the same year-over-year -- quarter-over-quarter for 12 weeks; Business add-on, 3.4 million and 3.4 million. All told, we had 48.6 million member households, up from 48.3 million 12 weeks earlier, notwithstanding the [effect] that we've just had a few openings in the quarter. Total cardholders came in at the end of the quarter 88.9 million, up from 88.1 million at the end of the second quarter.

本季末，我們的金星會員人數為 3,780 萬，比 12 週前第二季末的 3,750 萬增加。商業主要業務，740萬，與去年同期持平－按季度計算，連續12週；商業附加業務，340萬和340萬。總的來說，我們的會員家庭數量為 4,860 萬戶，比 12 週前的 4,830 萬戶有所增加，儘管本季度我們只新增了一些會員。本季末持卡人總數為 8,890 萬，高於第二季末的 8,810 萬。

Also, at the end of the third quarter, paid Executive Memberships stood at 18.3 million, an increase during the 12 weeks of 345,000 new Executive Members or about 29,000 a week increase in the quarter. Executive Members now represent about 38% of our member base and about 2/3 of our sales, closer to 70% of sales in those countries -- based on the countries where it operates.

此外，截至第三季末，付費高級會員人數為 1,830 萬，在 12 週內新增 34.5 萬高級會員，相當於該季度每週增加約 2.9 萬。執行會員目前約占我們會員總數的 38%，約占我們銷售額的 2/3，在這些國家/地區，執行會員的銷售額佔比接近 70%——這是根據其運營所在國家/地區的情況而定的。

In terms of renewal rates, Business Members renewed -- and these numbers would be U.S. and Canada, which is about -- a little over 80% of our business. Business came in at 94.1% at the end of the quarter, down from 94.3% at end of the prior quarter, consistent with what we've seen in the U.S. as we're still in the process -- in the first year of -- year-over-year from moving the card over to the new Visa Amex -- the Visa Citi card. Gold Star remained, both at second quarter end and at third quarter end, 89.5%, and its total was 90.2%, both at quarter end. So again, rounding causes some of that, but those are the numbers, 90.2% both at second quarter end and at third quarter end. Worldwide, which includes outside of the U.S. and Canada, at the end of the quarter, it was 87.5%. It rounded up to 87.7% at the end of the second quarter, which had been up from 87.5% at the end of the first quarter.

就續約率而言，商業會員的續約率——這些數字指的是美國和加拿大，約占我們業務的 80% 以上。本季末業務完成率為 94.1%，低於上一季末的 94.3%，這與我們在美國看到的情況一致，因為我們仍在將信用卡轉移到新的 Visa Amex 卡（即 Visa Citi 卡）的過程中——這是第一年——同比數據。在第二季末和第三季末，金星持股比例均為 89.5%，季末總持股比率均為 90.2%。所以，四捨五入會造成一些誤差，但這些數字就是實際數字，第二季末和第三季末均為 90.2%。截至本季末，全球（包括美國和加拿大以外的地區）的比例為 87.5%。第二季末，比例上升至 87.7%，高於第一季末的 87.5%。

Regarding the increases in annual membership fees in the U.S. and Canada, these go into effect, again, next week on June 1. Recall that we had taken fee increases in several other countries this past September 1 at the beginning of our current fiscal year. Our primary membership will increase $5 to $60, and Executive Memberships will increase to $120, up $10. And with regard to Executive Membership, the 2% reward cap associated with the Executive Membership was -- is being increased from the current $750 per year level to $1,000 per year level based on eligible purchases by the Executive Members.

關於美國和加拿大年度會員費的上漲，這些漲價措施將於下週6月1日生效。請記住，我們在今年9月1日，也就是本財年開始的時候，已經在其他幾個國家提高了會員費。我們的基本會員費將增加 5 美元至 60 美元，高級會員費將增加 10 美元至 120 美元。至於高級會員資格，與高級會員資格相關的 2% 獎勵上限將從目前的每年 750 美元提高到每年 1000 美元，具體取決於高級會員的合格購買情況。

In all, the fee increase impacts about 35 million member households -- will be impacted by it. About half of whom are Executive Members and half who are primary members, so $10 or $5. Note that the membership fees are accounted for on a deferred basis, so in terms of when it'll benefit the membership fee income line of the P&L, the full P&L impact would be over a 20-month -- a 23-month time line based on the fact that it's -- over the next 12 months that renewers will get their first increase and then it's deferred over a year period from which -- during -- from the time that they originally pay it.

總的來說，此次費用上漲將影響約 3,500 萬個會員家庭。其中大約一半是執行會員，一半是普通會員，所以會費分別是 10 美元和 5 美元。請注意，會員費是按遞延方式核算的，因此，就何時能從損益表中的會員費收入項受益而言，完整的損益影響將在 20 個月到 23 個月的時間範圍內顯現，這是因為續費者將在接下來的 12 個月內獲得第一次漲價，然後將遞遞一年漲價，從他們最初支付。

Before continuing down the income statement, a quick update -- a few updated stats on the Citi Visa card offering, which began last June, early in our fiscal fourth quarter of fiscal '16. Recall that we began last June with approximately 11.4 million co-branded cards, which represented 7.4 million accounts that were transferred to Citi at the conversion. As of Q3 end, we now have about 1.5 million new approved member accounts, which represents about 2 million new cards since last June 20, and that 1.5 million represents about 290,000 additional accounts over the past 12 weeks since Q2 end. Overall, we're seeing the Citi Visa co-brand portfolio total spend higher year-over-year both organically from cards converted to Citi last June and from these new accounts. In terms of the conversion, the usage and the new sign-ups for the card, I think, as I've said a quarter ago and a quarter before that, so far so good.

在繼續分析損益表之前，先快速更新一下花旗Visa卡的統計數據，該卡於去年6月開始銷售，當時正值我們2016財年第四季初。回想一下，去年六月我們開始發行聯名卡時，大約有 1,140 萬張聯名卡，其中 740 萬個帳戶在轉換過程中轉移到了花旗銀行。截至第三季末，我們新增了約 150 萬個已核准的會員帳戶，相當於自去年 6 月 20 日以來新增了約 200 萬張卡，而這 150 萬個帳戶中，約有 29 萬個是自第二季末以來的 12 週內新增的。整體而言，我們看到花旗 Visa 聯名卡組合的總消費額年增，這既包括去年 6 月轉入花旗的信用卡帶來的自然成長，也包括這些新帳戶帶來的成長。就轉換率、使用率和新註冊用戶數量而言，我認為，正如我上個季度和上個季度所說，目前為止一切都很好。

Going down the -- to the gross margin line. Gross margins reported were up 8 basis points. I'll ask you to do our little matrix here, 4 columns, and there'll be 2 columns for Q2 '17 and 2 for Q3 '17. Column 1 will be reported Q2 '17 year-over-year. Column 2 will be without gas inflation, and then columns 3 and 4, again, will be reported for Q3 '17 and then Q3 without gas inflation. So those would be the year-over-year basis points change.

向下走到毛利率線。報告顯示，毛利率上升了8個基點。請你在這裡做一個小矩陣，共 4 列，其中 2 列代表 2017 年第二季度，2 列代表 2017 年第三季度。第 1 列將報告 2017 年第二季年比數據。第 2 列將不包含氣體膨脹，然後第 3 列和第 4 列將分別報告 2017 年第三季和不包含氣體膨脹的第三季。所以這些就是同比基點變化。

The first line item is core merchandising. In Q2 year-over-year, it was plus 1 basis point and ex gas it was plus 9. And in Q3, reported plus 7 and ex gas, plus 20; ancillary businesses, minus 20 and minus 18 in Q2. And the 2 columns of Q3 would be plus 15 and plus 19; 2% Reward, 0 and minus 1 and then minus 2 and minus 4; LIFO, minus 5s across-the-board, again, having some deflation this year but comparing to a credit -- deflation last year to credit but nothing to credit since we're below 0 there; other, 0 and 0 in the 2 Q2 columns and minus 7 and minus 7 in the 2 Q3 columns. So all told, year-over-year in Q2, reported gross margins in Q2 down 24 basis points and ex gas, they were down 15. This year in the quarter, it was plus 8 reported and plus 23 ex gas.

第一項是核心商品。第二季較去年同期上漲 1 個基點，剔除天然氣後上漲 9 個基點。第三季度，報告數據上漲 7 個基點，剔除天然氣後上漲 20 個基點；輔助業務較去年同期下跌 20 個基點，第二季較去年同期下跌 18 個基點。第三季的兩列分別為 +15 和 +19；2% 獎勵分別為 0 和 -1，然後是 -2 和 -4；後進先出法，所有項目均為 -5，今年再次出現通貨緊縮，但與信貸相比——去年通貨緊縮導致信貸，但由於我們低於 0，所以沒有信貸；其他，第二季度的兩列均為 0 -7 和第三列。綜上所述，第二季報告的毛利率年減 24 個基點，若不計天然氣，則下降 15 個基點。今年該季度，報告數據顯示成長8%，剔除天然氣數據後成長23%。

Now if you take the numbers that I talked to you about on the benefit from this -- the change to Citi Visa as compared to what it would have been had we had the old program, we benefited, as I mentioned, by 16 basis points year-over-year in Q3, and I believe, in Q2, we also benefited year-over-year by 16. So again, if you just simply look at the total -- I'll just do Q3 here -- the reported plus 8 would have been minus 8 ex that single benefit of the Citi Visa and the plus 23 would have been plus 7 ex that. And that's how it shook out.

現在，如果你看看我之前跟你談到的關於這項變更帶來的好處的數據——與保留舊計劃相比，改用花旗Visa卡後，正如我提到的，我們在第三季度同比增長了16個基點，而且我相信，在第二季度，我們也同比增長了16個基點。所以，再說一遍，如果你只是簡單地看總數——我在這裡只看第三季度——報告的加 8 實際上是減去花旗 Visa 的那一項優惠後的 8，而加 23 實際上是加上去那一項優惠後的 7。事情就是這樣發展的。

Overall, Q3 reported gross margin, again, as I mentioned, was higher by 8 on a reported basis, 23% excluding. As I usually do, I'll go through the core merchandise component, which is about 80% of our sales, food and sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh foods. And the core merchandise component of gross margin was actually higher by 7 basis points year-over-year and up 20 basis points, excluding gas price inflation; excluding the benefit of Citi Visa, minus 9 and plus 4. So again, the plus 4, excluding gas inflation, would be the number that we would look at here.

總體而言，第三季報告的毛利率，正如我之前提到的，按報告基準計算增長了 8%，不計入報告基準則增長了 23%。像往常一樣，我將介紹核心商品部分，這部分約占我們銷售額的 80%，包括食品和雜貨、五金製品、紡織品和新鮮食品。毛利率的核心商品部分實際上同比增長了 7 個基點，若不計入汽油價格通脹，則增長了 20 個基點；若不計入花旗 Visa 卡的收益，則分別為 -9 個基點和 +4 個基點。因此，我們這裡要關注的，是扣除汽油通膨後的 +4 個基點。

Subcategories within core -- I'm sorry, I said something wrong. The plus 7 was what I had already told you about the whole company. In terms of the subcategories of the core, food and sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh food, as a percent of their own sales, they were actually positive year-over-year in the quarter by 12 basis points with food and sundries and hardlines both higher year-over-year while softlines and fresh foods a little bit lower year-over-year. But the net of all 4 on their own sales was up 12.

核心類別下的子類別——抱歉，我說錯了。那加 7 就是我之前跟你說過關於整個公司的情況。就核心品類（食品和日用品、五金、紡織品和生鮮食品）的子品類而言，佔其自身銷售額的百分比，本季度實際上同比增長了 12 個基點，其中食品和日用品以及五金品的同比增長率均高於去年同期，而紡織品和生鮮食品的同比增長率則略低於去年同期。但4家公司本身銷售額的淨成長了12%。

Second, ancillary and other businesses gross margins were up by about 15 basis points and up 19 ex gas deflation. About 2/3 of that year-over-year increase was due to higher gas profits as mentioned -- as I mentioned earlier in the call, but even without -- ex that, the other ancillary businesses net year-over-year were up a little bit.

其次，輔助業務和其他業務的毛利率上升了約 15 個基點，若不計天然氣價格下跌，則上升了 19 個基點。約 2/3 的同比增長是由於天然氣利潤增加所致——正如我之前在電話會議中提到的那樣，但即使不計入天然氣利潤，其他輔助業務的淨同比增長也略有增長。

2% Reward, the minus 2 basis points or minus 4 ex gas, that basically means more usage by members who get the 2% Executive Member award and who tend to spend more. LIFO, I talked about twice already. And lastly, the other, that minus 7, if you will, was the fact that last year, there was a $19 million nonrecurring legal settlement, which, of course, 0 this year, so that's a minus 7 year-over-year comparison.

2% 獎勵，減去 2 個基點或減去 4 個汽油費，這基本上意味著獲得 2% 高級會員獎勵的會員會更多地使用，而且他們往往會消費更多。後進先出法，我已經提過兩次了。最後，還有一點，也就是減去 7 的因素，那就是去年有一筆 1900 萬美元的非經常性法律和解金，而今年當然是 0 美元，所以同比減少了 7 美元。

Overall margins, we felt were good with solid results in the core, the plus 12 basis points on core sales and gas margins again also positively contributing not only in terms of higher gross margin within the gas but sales as well, offset by negative year-over-year comparisons from LIFO and the onetime settlement from last year.

我們認為整體利潤率良好，核心業務表現穩健，核心銷售額增長 12 個基點，天然氣利潤率再次做出積極貢獻，不僅提高了天然氣的毛利率，也提高了銷售額，但被 LIFO 法導致的同比下降以及去年的一次性結算所抵消。

Moving on to SG&A. Our SG&A percentage in Q3 year-over-year was lower or better by 14 basis points, and that plus 14 would be flat or 0 without gas inflation. Coming in -- but the plus 14 was basically 10.44 versus 10.30 last year. If you -- again, as I mentioned earlier, the benefit from effectively lower fees related to taking the new card versus our old program, year-over-year would have been better by 20 basis points, and those numbers are in here.

接下來是銷售、一般及行政費用。第三季我們的銷售、一般及行政費用百分比年減或改善了 14 個基點，如果沒有天然氣通膨，則該百分比加上 14 將與去年同期持平或為 0。進入正題——但 +14 基本上是 10.44，而去年是 10.30。如我之前所述，如果您——由於新卡與舊卡相比，費用降低的好處是，與舊卡相比，年復一年地降低 20 個基點，這些數字都在這裡。

So again, I'll ask you to do the little matrix with the same 4 columns, Q2 '17 reported and Q2 '17 ex gas and then Q3 '17 reported and Q3 '17 ex gas. In terms of core operations, reported in Q '17, we were up 8 basis points -- or I'm sorry, better or lower by 8 basis points year-over-year; without gas, better or lower by 1 basis point; and then in Q3 reported, lower or better by 21; and ex gas, lower or better by 9. Central, minus 2 and minus 3, so in other words, higher by that amount year-over-year, then minus 1 and minus 3. Stock compensation pretty much grew in line with sales, but it's always a big impact in Q1 when we do our big grant each year. Stock compensation was minus 1 and minus 2 or higher year-over-year in Q2, the 2 Q2 columns, and minus 1 and minus 1, again, a little higher in the Q3 columns. Other, 0 and 0 in Q2; and the 2 Q3 columns, minus 5 and minus 5. And again, that relates to the $14 million, the 2 legal items that were nonrecurring that impacted this year's Q3.

所以，我再次請你製作一個包含相同 4 列的小矩陣，分別是 2017 年第二季報告數據和 2017 年第二季不含氣數據，以及 2017 年第三季報告數據和 2017 年第三季不含氣數據。就核心業務而言，根據2017年季度報告，我們同比增長8個基點——或者更準確地說，是同比上下波動8個基點；剔除天然氣業務後，同比增長或下降1個基點；然後在第三季度報告中，同比上下波動21個基點；剔除天然氣業務後，同比上下波動9個基點。中部地區分別下降2個基點和3個基點，也就是說，年成長幅度分別為2個基點、1個基點和3個基點。股票激勵支出基本上與銷售額同步成長，但由於我們每年都會在第一季進行大規模的股票授予，因此總是會對銷售額產生很大的影響。第二季股票補償年減 1 或 2 或更高（第二季第 2 列），第三季股票補償年減 1 或 1，但略高一些。其他，第二季為 0 和 0；第三季的兩列分別為 -5 和 -5。此外，這與 1,400 萬美元有關，這是影響今年第三季的兩項非經常性法律支出。

All told, last year in Q2, SG&A reported was lower or better by plus 5 basis points and again, ex gas inflation, higher or slightly higher by 4 basis points. This year reported, better by 14; ex gas, 0, basically flat. And again, I'll just use the 2 Q3 columns. If you take out the benefit from the Citi Visa conversion, that was 20 of the 14, if you will, so ex that, it would have been higher or minus 6. And again, the 0 would have been higher or minus 20.

總的來說，去年第二季銷售、一般及行政費用報告比去年同期低 5 個基點或略高 5 個基點，若不計入天然氣通膨，則比去年同期高 4 個基點或略高 4 個基點。今年報告顯示，比上年增長 14%；除天然氣外，增長 0%，基本持平。我還是只用第三季的兩列數據。如果扣除花旗Visa卡轉換的優惠，也就是14分之20，那麼扣除這部分優惠後，結果會更高或更低6分。同樣，0分也會更高或更低20分。

Now within that, excluding the Citi Visa, central year-over-year was higher by 1 basis point reported and 3 without gas. Nothing unusual in the quarter. Depreciation expense was slightly higher year-over-year. Again, stock compensation expense was 1 basis point higher, and other was minus 5.

現在，如果排除花旗Visa卡，據報道，中心年增1個基點，不計天然氣費用則上漲3個基點。本季一切正常。折舊費用較去年同期略有增加。同樣，股票補償費用增加了 1 個基點，其他費用為 -5。

Next on the income statement line, preopening expense, $3 million lower this year coming in at $15 million versus $18 million. That -- quite a few less openings, 8 last year in the quarter and 3 this year and -- but that has to do with timing of locations to -- all the preopening doesn't actually happen in the quarter in which the actual opening occurs. And certainly, this year's figure also includes some of the preopening expenses related to our entry into 2 new countries, Iceland and France.

接下來是損益表中的開業前費用，今年減少了 300 萬美元，為 1500 萬美元，而去年為 1800 萬美元。開業數量確實減少了不少，去年同期只有 8 家，今年只有 3 家——但這與選址時間有關——所有開業前的準備工作實際上並沒有在正式開業的季度進行。當然，今年的數字也包括了我們進入冰島和法國這兩個新國家的一些開幕前費用。

All told, operating income in Q3 came in at $968 million or better by $110 million, which is 13% higher year-over-year. Below the operating income line, reported interest expense came in at $21 million. Interest expense in Q3 this year has had quite a bit of lower improvement from last year's Q3. It came in -- that $21 million is $9 million lower than last year's reported $30 million figure. Virtually, all of it is due to the payment back in March of the $1.1 billion 5.5% fixed note -- fixed rate note that we -- it was a 10-year note, and we paid it off on March 15. So that is about $60 million a year annualized interest savings since that March 15 date.

總的來說，第三季營業收入達 9.68 億美元，比上年同期成長 1.1 億美元，成長 13%。在營業收入項下，報告的利息支出為 2,100 萬美元。今年第三季的利息支出較去年第三季改善幅度較小。結果顯示，2,100萬美元比去年公佈的3,000萬美元少了900萬美元。實際上，這一切都是因為我們在 3 月償還了 11 億美元的 5.5% 固定利率票據——這是一張 10 年期票據，我們在 3 月 15 日償還了它。因此，自 3 月 15 日以來，每年可節省約 6,000 萬美元的年化利息。

As we reported last week, we successfully completed new debt issuances totaling $3.8 billion. That was done in 4 tranches. There was an $800 million 5-year tranche and then 3 $1 billion at 5, 7 and 10 years. The details of that can be found in the press dated May 9, but with the new debt having a blended rate of a little over 2.6%. As well on May 15, we gave notice of early payoff of our December 17 $1.1 billion 1 1/8% notes. The expected payoff date will be June 15, 2017.

正如我們上週報導的那樣，我們成功完成了總額達 38 億美元的新債務發行。這項工作分 4 批完成。首筆 8 億美元的 5 年期款項，隨後分別在 5 年、7 年和 10 年內分三筆 10 億美元款項到位。相關細節可在 5 月 9 日的新聞報導中找到，但新債務的總利率略高於 2.6%。此外，5 月 15 日，我們發出通知，提前償還 12 月 17 日到期的 11 億美元 1 1/8% 票據。預計支付日期為 2017 年 6 月 15 日。

Next line item on the income statement, interest income and other. It was higher year-over-year by $11 million coming in at $18 million in Q3 as compared to $7 million a year earlier. Now actual interest income for the quarter was better but better by -- year-over-year by $2 million. In addition, we benefited by about $9 million, I mentioned that earlier, in credits mostly relating to the various FX items discussed in -- that I discussed at the beginning of the call. So adding these 2 line items from -- to operating income, overall pretax income was higher by $130 million or 16%, coming in at $965 million this year during the 12 weeks as compared to $835 million a year ago.

損益表中的下一項是利息收入及其他收入。第三季營收為 1,800 萬美元，比去年同期成長了 1,100 萬美元，而去年同期為 700 萬美元。本季的實際利息收入有所改善，但比去年同期改善了 200 萬美元。此外，我們還獲得了約 900 萬美元的收益，我之前提到過，這筆收益主要與我在電話會議開始時討論的各種外匯項目有關。因此，將這兩項收入計入營業收入後，今年前 12 週的稅前總收入比去年同期增加了 1.3 億美元，增幅達 16%，達到 9.65 億美元，而去年同期為 8.35 億美元。

Again, in terms of income taxes, a reported tax rate this quarter of 26.8%. Normalized, that would be 35.3%, and that compares to last year at 34.2%, and we'd expect it to be in that 35.3-ish range for the year.

此外，就所得稅而言，本季公佈的稅率為 26.8%。標準化後，該數值為 35.3%，而去年為 34.2%，我們預計今年的數值將在 35.3% 左右。

Overall, reported net income came in right at $700 million, and that's compared to our reported $545 million a year ago.

總體而言，報告的淨收入恰好達到 7 億美元，而去年同期報告的淨收入為 5.45 億美元。

A quick rundown of the other usual topics. The balance sheet is included in this afternoon's release. A couple of quick items that I always go through, the one that is not on there is depreciation, amortization for the quarter totaled $320 million, year-to-date, $929 million. One of the metrics we always look at is accounts payable as a percent of inventories. As per the balance sheet, came in at 97%. It was 99% a year ago in the third quarter. We also then take out all the non-merchandise payables and recalculate it, so it's merchandise payables as a percent of inventories. That, too, came down 2 percentage points from 89% a year ago to 87%, so still a vast majority of our inventory is being trade balance funded.

簡要概述其他常見主題。資產負債表包含在今天下午發布的公告中。我總是會快速瀏覽幾個項目，其中沒有提到的是折舊，本季攤還總額為 3.2 億美元，年初至今為 9.29 億美元。我們經常關注的指標之一是應付帳款佔庫存的百分比。根據資產負債表，收益率為 97%。一年前第三季度，這一比例為 99%。然後我們剔除所有非商品應付帳款，重新計算，得出商品應付帳款佔庫存的百分比。這一比例也從一年前的 89% 下降了 2 個百分點至 87%，因此我們絕大部分的庫存仍然是透過貿易平衡融資的。

Average inventory per warehouse was up $693,000, coming in at $13.4 million compared to $12.7 million a year ago. About -- almost -- not quite 40% of it was majors, electronics. We're seeing a big shift -- finally, a big increase in -- particularly in TVs, kind of the next generation of bigger, more K and you name it and as well as some other electronics areas. Small increases in various other departments. As well, some buildup in inventories related specifically to our e-commerce as, just in the last year, we've gone from 7 to 19 e-commerce fulfillment centers in the U.S. year-over-year. Now many of those -- most of those are connected to our depot operations. We're not out there building a lot of new warehouses just for that.

每個倉庫的平均庫存增加了 69.3 萬美元，達到 1340 萬美元，而一年前為 1270 萬美元。其中約有 40% 是電子學專業。我們看到了一種巨大的轉變——終於，一種巨大的成長——尤其是在電視領域，下一代更大、更多K解析度等等，以及其他一些電子產品領域。其他各部門略有成長。此外，與我們的電子商務相關的庫存也出現了一些積壓，因為僅在過去一年，我們在美國的電子商務履行中心就從 7 個增加到 19 個。現在其中很多——大部分都與我們的倉庫運作有關。我們不會僅僅為了這個目的就建造那麼多新倉庫。

In terms of CapEx, in Q1, we spent $670 million; in Q2, $515 million; and in Q3, $538 million. So year-to-date, we're at $1.723 billion. And overall, for the year, we'd probably in the $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion range. Probably, it's maybe $100 million less than we had estimated a quarter or so ago. Just a couple -- as you saw in the number of expecting [26] for the year, just a few delays. Nothing terribly different.

就資本支出而言，第一季我們花費了 6.7 億美元；第二季花費了 5.15 億美元；第三季花費了 5.38 億美元。今年迄今為止，我們已經達到了 17.23 億美元。總的來說，全年收入可能在 25 億美元到 27 億美元之間。可能比我們大約三個月前估計的少了1億美元。正如你從今年預計出生人數 [26] 中看到的那樣，只有少數幾個延遲。沒什麼太大變化。

In terms of e-commerce, where we continue in the locations where we were 12 weeks ago, U.S., Canada, U.K., Mexico, Korea and Taiwan, and we expect to do additional countries over the next 1.5 or so years.

在電子商務方面，我們將繼續在 12 週前開展業務的地區開展業務，包括美國、加拿大、英國、墨西哥、韓國和台灣，我們預計在未來 1.5 年左右的時間裡拓展到其他國家。

For Q3, sales and profits were up. Online sales were up 11% in the quarter as well as comps. It's the same locations. Within the 12 weeks -- we look at 4-week periods ourselves -- that came in at 11% represented in a 13%, a 14% and a 7%. The 7% was weak in part due to the shift in both Easter and Mother's Day, but overall, the number for the quarter was 11%.

第三季銷售額和利潤均有所成長。本季線上銷售額和同店銷售額均成長了 11%。地點都一樣。在 12 週內——我們自己以 4 週為週期進行觀察——結果為 11%，分別佔 13%、14% 和 7%。7% 的成長率疲軟，部分原因是復活節和母親節的日期有所變動，但總體而言，該季度的成長率為 11%。

We continue to improve our offerings and enhance our member experience. We continue to add new areas of merchandise, improved in-stocks as -- on high-velocity items as evidenced by the additional inventories in those areas and more locations of it. In April, we launched something new, GE Appliances, along with our self-services delivery schedule. It's starting off well, but again, it just started off. And we'll continue to add additional names.

我們將持續改進產品和服務，提升會員體驗。我們不斷增加新的商品種類，提高高週轉商品的庫存水平，這可以從這些領域的額外庫存和更多銷售地點得到證明。4月份，我們推出了新的業務——GE Appliances，以及我們的自助送貨服務計劃。開局不錯，但話說回來，這只是個開始。我們還會繼續添加更多名字。

In terms of online Kirkland Signature items, we recently launched Kirkland Signature maternity apparel and have also expanded some of our KS groceries and consumable items on dot-com. And if you're in the mood for A4 Wagyu center-cut New York strip steaks, we apparently have a great deal on 4, 12-ounce steaks for $499.99.

就 Kirkland Signature 線上商品而言，我們最近推出了 Kirkland Signature 孕婦裝，並且還在 dot-com 上擴大了一些 KS 食品雜貨和消費品的銷售範圍。如果您想品嚐 A4 級和牛紐約客牛排，我們這裡有 4 塊 12 盎司的牛排，售價 499.99 美元，非常划算。

In terms of improving the experience and functionality, we've improved search, streamlined the check-out process, both mobile and desktop, improved the member's ability to track orders and have automated much of the merchandise returns process. Now many people have that. We're newer to it, but we've done a good job, I think, in the last 6 to 9 months of getting that member experience and functionality a lot better on the site. Overall, good things are happening online in -- both in terms of member experience and expanded products and services and certainly, the great values to our members. We still want you to come into the warehouse of course.

在提升使用者體驗和功能方面，我們改進了搜尋功能，簡化了行動端和桌面端的結帳流程，提高了會員追蹤訂單的能力，並實現了大部分商品退貨流程的自動化。現在很多人都有這種情況。我們在這方面起步較晚，但我認為在過去的 6 到 9 個月裡，我們做得很好，大大改善了網站的會員體驗和功能。總的來說，在線上正在發生一些好事——無論是在會員體驗、產品和服務擴展方面，還是在為會員帶來的巨大價值方面。我們當然還是希望您能來倉庫看看。

Next discussion, expansion. As I mentioned, for the third quarter, we opened 3 locations, including 1 relo, so a net of 2. Quite a lot of openings in Q4, 12 total, including Iceland just a couple of days ago. In fiscal '16, we -- if you recall, we opened 29 units, so about 4.5% square footage growth. This year with the 26, a few of them being delayed into this fall. 26 for the year, that would be about 4% square footage growth. Of the 26, half, 13 are in the U.S., 1/4, 6 are in Canada and then 1 each in those countries that I mentioned earlier. And again, of course, those included our first location opened in France, which is scheduled for, I believe, June 23 -- June 22. And again, Iceland just opened. Total square footage some of you asked about, at Q3 end, it stood at 105.4 million square feet.

接下來討論的是擴張問題。正如我之前提到的，第三季我們新開了 3 家分店，其中 1 家是搬遷過來的，所以淨增 2 家。新店第四季開業數量相當多，總共 12 家，包括幾天前在 Iceland 開業的那家。在 2016 財年，我們——如果你還記得的話——開設了 29 個單元，所以建築面積增加了約 4.5%。今年共有 26 場比賽，其中一些將推遲到今年秋季舉行。如果全年成長26平方英尺，那將相當於成長約4%。在這 26 個國家中，有一半（13 個）在美國，四分之一（6 個）在加拿大，其餘 1 個分別在我前面提到的國家。當然，這其中也包括我們在法國開設的第一家分店，我記得開幕時間是 6 月 23 日——或 6 月 22 日。冰島也剛開幕。你們有些人問到的總建築面積，截至第三季末，總建築面積為 1.054 億平方英尺。

In terms of buybacks, in Q1, we bought back $122 million worth; Q2, $66 million; Q3, $45 million, so a total of $233 million of stock or 1.486 million shares at an average price of about $156.50. Regarding dividends, we -- in addition to doing the special dividend, we increased our quarterly dividend, and that was announced also on April 25. The new amount is $0.50 per share per quarter, so $2 a year. That's up 11% from the prior $0.45 a share. And again, that'll be -- also be paid tomorrow, May 26, the current -- the $0.50 quarterly amount. The $2 a share annualized dividend represents a total annual cost to the company of about just under $900 million. And as I mentioned earlier, the $7 a share dividend, that will be paid out to shareholders tomorrow as well.

就股票回購而言，第一季我們回購了價值 1.22 億美元的股票；第二季回購了價值 6,600 萬美元的股票；第三季回購了價值 4,500 萬美元的股票，總計回購了價值 2.33 億美元的股票，即 148.6 萬股，平均價格約為每股 156.500 美元。關於股息，除了派發特別股息外，我們還提高了季度股息，這一消息也於 4 月 25 日宣布。新金額為每股每季 0.50 美元，即每年 2 美元。這比之前的每股 0.45 美元上漲了 11%。再次提醒，這筆款項將於明天，即 5 月 26 日支付，即目前的季度金額 0.50 美元。每股 2 美元的年度股息意味著該公司每年的總成本略低於 9 億美元。正如我之前提到的，每股 7 美元的股息也將於明天支付給股東。

Lastly, our fiscal '17 fourth quarter scheduled earnings release date and this is for the 17 week -- this is an extra week in the year, for the 17-week fourth quarter that ends on September 3. We'll do the earnings release after the market closes on Thursday, October 5 with the earnings call that afternoon again at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

最後，我們2017財年第四季的預定收益發布日期是10月5日星期四股市收盤後，收益報告將於當天下午2點發布，屆時將再次舉行收益電話會議。太平洋時間。

With that, happy to open it up for questions and answers, and I'll turn it back over to Samantha.

接下來，我很樂意接受提問和回答，然後把話題交還給薩曼莎。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of John Heinbockel.

（操作說明）你的第一個問題來自約翰·海因博克爾的生產線。

So Richard, for topic, expansion and business centers. So you've added some more. There's a couple coming here in the next month or so. How do you think about business centers versus regular clubs, number one? And when you think about -- is there a big potential business center expansion here? And then lastly, on expansion, when you think about -- is it too early to think about 2018? And do we sort of get back to 30 openings worldwide next year?

所以理查德，關於主題、擴張和商業中心。所以你又加了一些。接下來一個月左右會有一對夫婦來這裡。首先，您如何看待商務中心和普通俱樂部？想想看—這裡是否有巨大的商業中心擴張潛力？最後，關於擴張，當你思考的時候——現在考慮 2018 年是否為時過早？明年我們能否恢復全球30家新店開幕的目標？

Well, first of all, with regard to the business centers, I think we started the year with 14 and (inaudible) up in 4 this year, so 18. I could be off by 1. And our first in Canada. Recall that we've had business centers for -- I think we've gone from 4 or 5 to 7 or 8 over about 10-plus years, and so we continue to tweak it. Needless to say, we've found something that seems to work now and then there's a little method to that madness. And -- but it's corollary to what our primary business is, is opening full Costco membership warehouses. We would continue to open more, but I think, again, this is a guess at this point. But on -- assuming the base at the end of the year is 18, I could be off 1. Using that 2 to 7 or 2 to 6 or 3 to 5, I mean, it'll be in that range for the next couple of years. We're not looking to go from 14 to 18 to 28 in a year, and -- but it's so far so good. I think a couple years ago, we said to ourselves, one day could this be -- could there be 30 or 40 of these. Who knows? I remember we said years ago, one day, could we have 100 Costcos in the U.S and we're approaching 500. So it's by no means the same as regular warehouse clubs in terms of capacity, a lot lower than that, but I'd just look at what we've done in the last couple of years and extrapolate that for the time being.

首先，關於商務中心，我想我們年初的時候有 14 個，今年（聽不清楚）增加了 4 個，所以是 18 個。我可能差1。這是我們在加拿大的第一筆交易。回想一下，我們已經擁有商務中心——我想在過去的十多年裡，我們已經從 4 或 5 個增加到 7 或 8 個，所以我們一直在不斷調整。毋庸置疑，我們已經找到了一些似乎有效的方法，而這種看似瘋狂的做法背後也蘊含著一些道理。而且——但這與我們的主要業務——開設完整的 Costco 會員制倉庫——密切相關。我們會繼續開放更多門市，但我覺得，目前這只是我的猜測。但是－假設年底的基數是 18，我可能會有 1 的誤差。用 2 到 7 或 2 到 6 或 3 到 5 來計算，我的意思是，未來幾年它都會在這個範圍內。我們並不指望一年內從 14 人成長到 18 人再到 28 人，而且——但目前為止一切順利。我想幾年前，我們曾對自己說，有一天這會不會——會不會有 30 或 40 個這樣的項目。誰知道呢？我記得幾年前我們說過，有一天我們能不能在美國擁有 100 家 Costco，而現在我們已經接近 500 家了。所以，就容量而言，它與普通的倉儲式超市完全不同，要低得多，但我建議看看我們過去幾年所做的事情，並暫時以此為依據進行推斷。

Okay. And is it too early for next year when you think about (inaudible) ...

好的。現在考慮明年是不是太早了（聽不清楚）…

It's probably too early. I mean, it is. I mean, our goal's going to be to get towards that, but that's always -- it seems to be a challenge each year and -- but we keep working towards that end.

現在可能還太早了。我的意思是，確實如此。我的意思是，我們的目標就是朝著這個方向努力，但這似乎每年都是一個挑戰，但我們會繼續朝著這個目標努力。

All right. And then lastly, on gross margins. So if I look at ancillary, ex gas, ancillary was up maybe 6 or 7 basis points. So was that -- any one department drive that? And sort of how is pharmacy doing within that? And then the major categories within their own sales, so that was improved about 5 basis points versus last quarter. Is there anything to that or that was fairly broad based?

好的。最後，我們來談談毛利率。所以，如果我看一下輔助成本（不包括天然氣），輔助成本可能會上漲了 6 到 7 個基點。所以，這是哪個部門主導的？那麼，藥學在其中又扮演著怎樣的角色呢？然後，他們自身銷售的主要類別也比上一季提高了約 5 個基點。這其中有什麼依據嗎？或者說，這種說法相當普遍？

I think it's more broad based than anything. I mean, pharmacy was fine notwithstanding all the challenges that, that industry has. So we've continued to, knock on wood, do pretty well there. No, I don't think there's anything specific. I think it gets more back to the call a quarter ago when we said things are okay. And it's not like we -- it changed a lot, but these numbers are going to fluctuate some basis points up and down periodically.

我認為它的影響範圍更廣。我的意思是，儘管製藥業面臨許多挑戰，但製藥業整體發展狀況良好。所以，我們那邊一直都做得不錯，但願如此。不，我覺得沒有什麼特別的。我認為這更多是追溯到三個月前的電話會議，當時我們說情況還不錯。而且情況並沒有像我們想像的那樣——雖然變化很大，但這些數字會週期性地上下波動幾個基點。

Your next question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman.

你的下一個問題出自西蒙·古特曼的著作。

My serious question is, first, the gasoline gross profit dynamics for Q4. Can you just give us a sense relative compare? And then I have one follow-up.

首先，我的嚴肅問題是，第四季汽油毛利潤的動態變化。能給我們簡單介紹一下相對比較嗎？然後我還有一個後續問題。

Well, as everyone knows, when gas -- when oil prices go up, we make a little less -- or margins come down and we make a little less and when they go down, we make a little more. Year-over-year Q3, that 12-week period, gas prices generally were going down, and that was good. In fact, I think the direction, when asked on the second quarter call which Q2 hadn't been a great comparison, it was the other way, we didn't think it was going to be this good, but we also didn't know that gas prices were going to continue down. They've gone up lately, so we'll see. We had very good profits last year in Q4. Some of that has to do as it trends down towards the end of the summer prices in general ex what's going on in the market. But it's -- that's why we share it with you every quarter and because there are going to be fluctuations that are dictated by the -- by what oil prices are doing.

眾所周知，當汽油——當石油價格上漲時，我們的收入就會減少一些——或者利潤率下降時，我們的收入就會減少一些；而當汽油——石油——價格下降時，我們的收入就會增加一些。與去年同期相比，第三季（即那 12 週）汽油價格整體呈下降趨勢，這是件好事。事實上，我認為方向是，當被問及第二季度哪個季度不太適合作為比較對象時，在第二季度的電話會議上，情況恰恰相反，我們沒想到會這麼好，但我們也不知道汽油價格會繼續下降。最近價格上漲了，我們拭目以待。我們去年第四季獲利狀況非常好。部分原因在於，隨著夏季臨近尾聲，價格整體呈下降趨勢，這與市場狀況有關。但正因如此，我們每季都會與您分享這些訊息，因為價格會隨著油價的波動而波動。

Got it. Okay. And then my follow-up is on the credit card. Can you share with us -- we're about, I guess, almost a year away from cycling the initial -- I guess, the initial changeover. Can you share with us -- I know there was a few buckets of margin that were helping. Some of it's new sign-ups. Some of it's the spend outside of Costco. Can you give us a sense, as we lap the initial benefit from last year, what accretes, what's additive in year-over-year versus what goes away? I'm guessing the bounties on the new sign-ups will probably fade. But can you just share with us how we should think about it?

知道了。好的。接下來，我要跟進信用卡事宜。能和我們分享一下嗎？ ——我猜，距離最初的——我猜，最初的轉變週期，還有將近一年的時間。可以和我們分享一下嗎？我知道有一些利潤空間在發揮作用。其中一些是新註冊用戶。一部分支出發生在 Costco 以外的地方。能否讓我們了解一下，隨著去年初期收益的減少，哪些方面會持續成長，哪些方面會逐年減少，哪些方面會減少？我估計新用戶註冊的賞金可能會取消。您能否和我們分享我們應該如何看待這個問題？

Well, I mean, generically, the biggest bang for your buck is in the first year. Is there a little extra -- on the one hand, there's a little extra because things -- maybe there are some transition challenges right around there for a few weeks. So okay, that's good news going forward for a little bit longer. But there is also more incentive and a bigger bang for your buck the first time you offer it. You get more sign-ups in the first week than the second week than the third week, no more sign-ups mean more bounty. So generally speaking, we still think it'll be a net accretive, if you will, or additive to the company in the second year, but the big bang is in the first year. And if you look at Q4, Q4, there's 5 or 6 weeks of the big bang, if you will, before June 20 and 10 or 11 weeks afterwards. So there's a little bit of both, but 2/3 of it's after that anniversary.

嗯，我的意思是，一般來說，第一年性價比最高。一方面，可能會有一些額外的事情——因為事情可能會有一些過渡期的挑戰，持續幾週。好吧，至少在接下來的這段時間裡，這算是個好消息。但是，第一次提供這項服務會更有動力，也能獲得更大的回報。第一周的註冊人數比第二週多，第二週比第三週多，註冊人數不再增加意味著獎勵更多。所以總的來說，我們仍然認為它在第二年會對公司產生淨收益，或者說是增加收益，但真正的爆發點在第一年。如果你看一下第四季度，你會發現，在 6 月 20 日之前有 5 到 6 週的「大爆炸」時期，之後有 10 到 11 週的「大爆炸」時期。所以兩者兼有，但其中三分之二是在那週年紀念日之後發生的。

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser.

你的下一個問題出自麥可·拉塞爾的詩句。

My first question's on e-commerce growth, which was in the low double digits in the quarter. Richard, are you mindful of maintaining your relevance online, especially at a time when other traditional retailers are aggressively growing their e-com presence? You had one of your big-box competitors talk about 69% e-com growth in the most recent quarter, and I believe your 11% came on an easier comparison, and it sounds like it flowed throughout the period. So are you mindful of that at all?

我的第一個問題是關於電子商務成長的，本季電子商務成長幅度為兩位數偏低。理查德，你是否注意到保持你在網路上的相關性，尤其是在其他傳統零售商都在積極拓展電子商務業務的當下？你們的一家大型競爭對手最近一個季度實現了 69% 的電子商務成長，我認為你們的 11% 的成長是在相對較低的基數上取得的，而且聽起來你們的成長是在整個季度內持續的。所以你對此有絲毫顧慮嗎？

I guess, to use my phrase that I used several times on the last call, not to be arrogant or cavalier about it, but we feel good about what we're doing. We've got great brick-and-mortar comps. We are doing things offensively, in our view, not defensively online. We've got a lot of things going on the online side, but we're not really worried about what others are doing. And there's a lot of good things about online, and there's challenges. And we're trying to do more of the good things. And -- but again, we'll continue to do the way we do it. Don't expect us to increase by 69% partly through acquisition. And we're going to keep doing it organically. We think we've got -- we've made a lot of changes in the last year probably more than we had in the last several years online that will show some good results.

我想，用我上次通話中多次說過的那句話來說，我並不是要顯得傲慢或輕率，但我們對我們正在做的事情感到滿意。我們有很棒的實體店對比案例。我們認為，我們在網路上採取的是進攻性策略，而不是防禦性策略。我們在線上有很多事情要做，但我們並不太擔心其他人在做什麼。網路有很多好處，但也存在挑戰。我們正在努力多做一些好事。但是──我們還是會繼續用自己的方式去做。不要指望我們透過收購等方式實現 69% 的成長。我們將繼續以自然而然的方式進行下去。我們認為我們已經取得了一些好成果——過去一年我們做出了許多改變，可能比過去幾年在網路上做出的改變還要多。

My follow-up question is on the core gross margin being up 20 basis points. That's on the heels of you making some investments in everyday low price in the prior quarter. So did you get the intended effect of those price investments? And is there now an opportunity to do more, especially as your gross margin continues to float up?

我的後續問題是關於核心毛利率上升 20 個基點的情況。此前，您在上個季度對天天低價商品進行了一些投資。那麼，這些價格投資是否達到了預期效果？現在是否有機會做得更多，尤其是在毛利率持續上升的情況下？

Well, I think the 20 is 12 on the core. If I -- I don't have -- I've already turned that sheet to the side. But look, we're going to always do more investing in price. Just when you think it's safe to go outside, you guys, we're going to drive sales, the top line. And certainly, the fact that our margins are strong, that we've got an upcoming fee increase that's just starting, that we've got additional monies from the credit card, all of those things allow us to do things in an offensive way and drive our business. And so we kind of think we can do both, have decent margins and drive our business and lower prices.

嗯，我認為核心上的 20 是 12。如果我──我沒有──我已經把那張紙放到一邊了。但是，我們始終會在價格方面加大投入。就在你們覺得可以安全出門的時候，各位，我們將推動銷售額成長，提升營收。當然，我們利潤率強勁，即將開始的費用上漲，以及信用卡帶來的額外收入，所有這些因素都使我們能夠採取積極主動的方式，推動業務發展。因此，我們認為我們可以兩者兼顧，既能獲得可觀的利潤，又能推動業務成長，同時也能降低價格。

And I'm just going to follow up on that because you mentioned the upcoming fee increase in your response to answering about price investment. Should we expect that a good portion, more than half would be -- of the benefit you'll get from the fee increase is going to go back into price?

我之所以要追問這一點，是因為您在回答有關價格投資的問題時提到了即將到來的費用上漲。我們是否可以預期，從費用上漲中獲得的收益中很大一部分（超過一半）會重新反映在價格上？

Well, I can't really tell you that, but we're known for being -- for giving lots of things back to the consumer, to our member. And it's not completely formulaic, but we're going to constantly try to excite our members and drive our competitors crazy.

嗯，我不能確切地告訴你，但我們以向消費者和會員回饋很多東西而聞名。雖然這並非完全是按部就班，但我們會不斷努力激發會員的熱情，讓競爭對手抓狂。

Your next question comes from the line of Charles Grom.

你的下一個問題出自查爾斯‧格羅姆的詩句。

A couple of questions here. First, curious the penetration on the new Visa card as a use of tender here in the third quarter and relative to the first half of the year and also curious to where it was relative to when you had the agreement with Amex.

這裡有幾個問題。首先，我很好奇第三季新Visa卡作為一種支付方式的滲透率，以及與上半年相比的滲透率，也很好奇它與你們和美國運通達成協議時相比的滲透率。

Well, I think we're now in -- this is -- we're talking U.S. dollars because it's a U.S. program. I believe we're in the [46] range currently, and that's trended up since its inception a year ago. I think we were -- the highest we were on Amex -- and that was both Amex co-branded because, by the way, that number I'm giving you is all Visa, not just Citi Visa because we accept all Visas, and we accepted all Amex cards, not just the Costco co-brand one. I believe we got up to the [43], [44] range. And so we've exceeded that, but we would have expected to, given the improved value proposition to the member and the fact that there's just more market share out there and more places for our rewards card to be used and again, more incentive for that card to be used everywhere, which helps us as well.

嗯，我想我們現在是在——這是——我們談論的是美元，因為這是一個美國項目。我認為我們目前處於 [46] 範圍內，而且自一年前推出以來，該數值呈上升趨勢。我認為我們當時——我們在美國運通卡上的消費額最高——而且這包括美國運通聯名卡，因為順便說一下，我告訴你的這個數字全部是 Visa 卡，不僅僅是 Citi Visa 卡，因為我們接受所有 Visa 卡，我們也接受所有美國運通卡，不僅僅是 Costco 聯名卡。我相信我們達到了 [43]、[44] 的範圍。因此，我們已經超過了預期，但考慮到我們為會員提供的更高價值主張，以及市場份額的擴大和獎勵卡使用場所的增多，這也在我們的預料之中。此外，鼓勵會員在各處使用卡片的動機也更大，這對我們也有幫助。

And has the basket changed at all?

籃子裡的東西有變化嗎？

I don't know. I know there were some anecdotal items at the very beginning at the transition on big-ticket items like hearing aids or big-screen TVs or furniture. But I think the answer is, yes, it has a -- probably has a plus sign in front of it instead of a minus but not huge. And again, more anecdotal stories I've heard. I haven't heard anything big. The biggest thing in terms of the whole card is the fact -- the inside and outside spend. We were very successful under our old program over 14 or 16 years getting the outside spend on that card up to, I forget, $2.50 plus for every $1 spent inside. And that's where these issuers -- all of the issuers on the -- whatever the co-brand card is, they want more spend on that card because that creates APR and it creates carry balances and late fees and everything else. And it's just a bigger portfolio. And as one would expect, given the greater market share presence that a Visa has in the market, there's going to be more uses -- if we can get that member to have that as a top of wallet, there's going to be more usage on it, and that's exactly what's happened. If anything we've got -- the expectations have been a little better than planned on that.

我不知道。我知道在過渡初期，關於助聽器、大螢幕電視或家具等高價商品，有一些零星的傳聞。但我認為答案是肯定的，它有一個——前面可能是加號而不是減號，但並不大。還有，我又聽到了一些軼事。我沒聽到什麼大事。就整張卡片而言，最重要的一點是－內卡消費和外卡消費。在之前的 14 或 16 年裡，我們的計劃非常成功，使該卡的外部消費額達到了，我忘了，是每在店內消費 1 美元，外部消費額就增加 2.50 美元以上。這就是為什麼這些發卡機構——所有聯名卡的發卡機構——都希望用戶在該卡上消費更多，因為這會產生年利率、結餘餘額、滯納金以及其他各種費用。而且它的投資組合規模更大。正如人們所預料的那樣，鑑於 Visa 在市場上擁有更大的市場份額，它的用途將會更多——如果我們能讓會員將 Visa 作為錢包裡的首選卡，那麼它的使用率就會更高，而這正是已經發生的事情。如果有什麼變化的話——那就是實際效果比預期好一些。

Okay. And just switch gears a little bit to Michael's question on e-commerce. I think you said 11% growth. Can you just remind us where the penetration is today and also the number of SKUs that you guys are offering online? I fully realize you don't want to have the 350 million that Amazon has. But how big do you think you can grow that? And then also on the margin profile of your e-commerce business, I do believe it's better than your brick-and-mortar margins. Just wondered if you could clarify that directionally?

好的。讓我們稍微轉換一下主題，來回答麥可關於電子商務的問題。我想你說的是11%的成長。能否告知我們目前產品的市場滲透率是多少，以及你們在線上提供的 SKU 數量？我完全明白你不想擁有亞馬遜那樣的3.5億美元。但你認為你能把它發展到多大規模？而且就電子商務業務的利潤率而言，我認為它也比實體店的利潤率更好。請問您能否就方向問題解釋一下？

Well, the sales are about a little under 3.5% of sales. Again, this is a year that we're going to end up doing -- just extrapolating the first 3 quarters something in the [mid-120s]. We have an extra week in there, too, this year. And so again, it's over -- well over $4 billion now. And that's -- we don't -- that's pure e-commerce online. We do have delivery online. I don't -- we don't include that. We have travel online. We don't include that. It's just the normal online that we started with. And I'm sorry, in terms of profitability, nothing has really changed there. Generally speaking, the gross margin of dot-com compared to the gross margin in the warehouse, ex gas, the four walls of the warehouse, the warehouse is a little higher. The SG&A on dot-com is a lot lower, so the pretax earnings of dot-com is higher. And that's -- nothing has really changed there.

嗯，銷售額大約佔總銷售額的3.5%以下。再說一遍，今年我們最終會做到——根據前三個季度的數據推斷，大概在[120多]左右。今年我們還多了一週的時間。所以，又一次結束了——現在已經超過 40 億美元了。而那——我們不——那隻是純粹的線上電子商務。我們提供線上訂購服務。我不——我們不把那部分包括在內。我們有線上旅行服務。我們不把那部分包括在內。這就是我們最初使用的普通網路平台。很遺憾，就獲利能力而言，情況並沒有真正改變。一般來說，與倉庫（不含氣體、倉庫的四面牆）的毛利率相比，網路的毛利率要高一些。網路公司的銷售、一般及行政費用低得多，因此網路公司的稅前利潤更高。而這一點——實際上什麼都沒改變。

Okay. And just the number of SKUs and, if you have it, the percentage overlap of those SKUs relative to what's in store?

好的。還有，SKU 的數量，以及（如果有的話）這些 SKU 與店內現有 SKU 的重疊百分比？

I obviously don't have that off top of my head. I think the SKU count ex office supplies, because that's done through to a third party and there's 8,000 or 10,000 office supplies I believe. I think we've got about 8,000 or 10,000 items, and that's exclusive of like -- about 2,000 of the roughly 4,000 in the warehouse are online, and, needless to say, fresh food's not online other than through third parties like Instacart and the like, not Google.

我顯然一時想不起來。我認為 SKU 數量不包括辦公用品，因為辦公用品是透過第三方進行的，而且我相信辦公用品有 8,000 到 10,000 種。我認為我們有大約 8000 到 10000 件商品，這還不包括倉庫里大約 4000 件商品中的 2000 件左右在網上銷售，而且，不用說，生鮮食品除了通過 Instacart 等第三方平台（而不是 Google）之外，不會在網上銷售。

Your next question comes from the line of Karen Short.

你的下一個問題出自凱倫·肖特的詩句。

I'm just actually trying to get a sense on the gross margin in terms of the MVM. How much of the change in the MVM from 2Q to 3Q -- or how much of the year-over-year change in the merchandise margin in 2Q versus 3Q would have been a function of the MVM changes? And then just wondering what the number of days on the MVM we can expect in 4Q '17 versus 4Q '16. And then I just had another follow-up.

我其實只是想了解MVM的毛利率。MVM 從第二季到第三季的變化中，有多少是由於 MVM 的變化造成的？或者說，第二季與第三季商品毛利率同比變化中，有多少是由於 MVM 的變化造成的？然後，我想知道 2017 年第四季 MVM 的天數與 2016 年第四季相比會有多少。然後我又進行了一次後續跟進。

Okay. Well, first of all, in terms of number of days, I think it's like 4 less this coming year versus a year ago. 3 or 4? It's a few days, so not terribly meaningful. I mean, the big meaningful was in Q2 when it was 17 less on 84 days. And I'm sorry, the other question, Karen, the first one you had asked?

好的。首先，就天數而言，我認為明年比去年少了約 4 天。3還是4？只是幾天時間，所以意義不大。我的意思是，真正有意義的變化發生在第二季度，當時減少了 17 天，花了 84 天。還有，對不起，凱倫，你之前問的第一個問題？

Well, when we just look at how the merchandise margin in 2Q versus the merchandise margin change in 3Q. I guess, how much of the difference and the improvement sequentially was due to the MVM changes, like the pressure that you had in 2Q versus what we're looking at in 3Q?

我們只要看看第二季商品毛利率與第三季商品毛利率的變動。我想問的是，這種差異和連續改進有多少是由於 MVM 的變化造成的，例如你們在第二季度面臨的壓力與我們在第三季度看到的情況相比如何？

I think the biggest change from Q2 year-over-year and Q3 year-over-year was the number of MVM days. We're still being pretty aggressive on the MVM being fewer items with better savings, and it costs a little more, if you will, to have a seat at the table there from a merchandising -- from a vendor merchandising standpoint. But we're also cognizant of the fact that we need to -- we're not here just to drive margins down. We've got a lot of buckets and stuff. And when you have increasing penetration in some higher-margin areas like fresh foods or some of the higher-margin areas like pharmacy, those things help as well. But there's so many little pieces and -- that can affect it. Overall, we felt pretty good about the Q3 comparison versus the Q2. But the answer, there's no material change. There's no material change.

我認為第二季同比和第三季同比最大的變化是 MVM 天數。我們仍然非常積極地推行 MVM，即減少商品種類，提供更優惠的價格。從商品銷售的角度來看，想要參與其中，成本會稍微高一些──也就是從供應商商品銷售的角度來看。但我們也意​​識到，我們需要這樣做——我們來到這裡不僅僅是為了降低利潤率。我們有很多桶之類的東西。當你在一些利潤較高的領域（例如生鮮食品或藥品）的滲透率不斷提高時，這些因素也會有所幫助。但其中包含太多細小的因素，而這些因素都會對結果產生影響。整體而言，我們對第三季與第二季的對比結果感到相當滿意。但答案是，沒有實質的變化。沒有任何實質變化。

Okay. And then, I guess, just as obviously we're kind of getting out of a deflationary period and into flat or maybe slightly inflationary, there's just been a lot of questioning as to how deflation impacted your P&L versus how inflation will impact your P&L. And I guess, I just want to talk through that a little because it would seem to me that deflation, because you have so much tonnage, it actually is a double hit because you have so much more labor involved in meeting the demand. So I don't know if there's any way you could try to talk through a little bit of how much more easing, I guess, you'd have on the P&L as we're no longer in a deflationary period (inaudible).

好的。然後，我想，很明顯，我們正在走出通縮時期，進入經濟平穩或略有通膨的時期，因此有很多問題需要探討通縮如何影響你的損益表，以及通膨將如何影響你的損益表。我想稍微談談這個問題，因為在我看來，通貨緊縮，由於噸位如此之大，實際上會造成雙重打擊，因為滿足需求需要投入更多的勞動力。所以我不知道您是否可以嘗試稍微解釋一下，既然我們不再處於通貨緊縮時期，那麼在損益表上還能有多少寬鬆政策（聽不清楚）。

Well, I think for low-margin retailers and certainly, we're at the low end -- in the lowest end of margins. But for supermarkets as well on the food side, a little inflation is good. A little deflation hurts you a little bit. And so yes, we've been up -- and the fact that deflation has modified a little bit, it still has the de in front of it not the in. And so it's still impacting us some. It hurts you most in items like -- I think the example I gave last quarter was fresh meats, where, year-over-year, it was either second quarter or first quarter end, year-over-year, per pound, beef was down like 10%, and we were selling 10 -- more than 10% more tonnage and certainly having lower gross margin dollars because of it. And so as that changes, that'll help us a little bit.

嗯，我認為對於低利潤零售商來說，我們當然處於低利潤率的行列——利潤率是最低的。但對於超市等食品業者來說，輕微的通膨是件好事。輕微的通貨緊縮會讓你有點不舒服。所以，是的，我們已經上漲了——而且通貨緊縮的術語也略有變化，它前面仍然是 de 而不是 in。所以它仍然對我們產生一定影響。這種情況對某些商品的影響最大——我想我上個季度舉的例子是鮮肉，與去年同期相比，無論是第二季度末還是第一季末，牛肉每磅價格同比下降了約 10%，而我們的銷量卻增加了 10% 以上，因此毛利肯定也下降了。所以，隨著情況的變化，這對我們有幫助。

Well -- and I guess, presumably higher gross SG&A dollars, too, because of the labor content. That's kind of what I'm getting at. It seems like it could be going up a lot more (inaudible).

嗯——而且我猜，由於人工成本較高，銷售、管理及行政費用總額也可能更高。我大概就是這個意思。似乎還有很大的上漲空間（聽不清楚）。

Absolutely. On the fresh foods, you have higher -- yes, you have higher labor. Inflation will help all those things.

絕對地。新鮮食品的勞動成本更高——是的，勞動成本更高。通貨膨脹對所有這些都有幫助。

Your next question comes from the line of Zach Fadem.

你的下一個問題來自 Zach Fadem 的詩句。

So Kirkland Signature continues to perform pretty well. Just to what extent is this growth coming at the expense of branded items, if any? And when you think about positioning the brand going forward, are there any areas where you think Kirkland is underpenetrated and worth pursuing expansion?

所以Kirkland Signature的業績依然相當不錯。這種成長在多大程度上是以犧牲品牌商品為代價的？在考慮未來品牌定位時，您認為 Kirkland 在哪些領域滲透率不足，值得拓展？

Well, I'm sure some of it comes at the expense of branded. Some of that, though, in some cases, it's the branded manufacturers that's supplying us, not always, by no means not all the time. And -- but it's another competitor, and again, we're pretty transparent about it. We want brands and private label, and so we'll continue to see both of those. It -- but it really is an item business. And some of the success on the -- all the big items, I mean, paper towels, water, giant items that are hundreds of millions of dollar -- we have several items that are $1 billion a year in sales, several KS items. In some cases, we have $1 billion plus on the branded side on the same item, whether it's Charmin or Bounty and Kirkland Signature on those 2 items, whether it's various regional brand names of water versus Kirkland Signature water. And it works for us, and we'll continue to do that. The -- on new categories, well, I think in the last year or 2, I think the thing that has done very well for us is wine and spirits, and that continues to have some legs, we -- substantial legs. And the good news, like other KS items, when the brands lose some market share, they get sharper on their own prices, which -- with us, not with everybody, hopefully, which makes us seem more competitive on the brands. So all that stuff works -- in our view, works to our benefit, and having the brand loyalty certainly helps with membership and wanting them to come back to Costco. Other areas, I've always -- apparels still has legs, if you will, and arms I guess. You've got cosmetics, organic items, and there's been several organic items. Probably every month at the budget meeting, we see new organic items, whether it's chicken broth or beef broth or some candy, caramel, chocolate things or nuts, clusters. And these are $10 million to $25 million full margin items for us without a competitor in terms of it's not replacing a branded item necessarily. We've done very well in some of the other snack items and energy bar items. We have items where the -- if a bar -- I won't name names here -- but if a retail bar retails for $2, meaning we would sell it for $1.49, we're out there sub $1 on a great item and a full margin for us and driving some real volume. And so I think apparel, cosmetics, health and beauty aids, organic food items, not fresh but packaged food items, all those are areas where we continue to, I think, have some room to grow.

嗯，我確信其中一些是以犧牲品牌利益為代價的。不過，在某些情況下，確實是品牌製造商向我們供貨，但並非總是如此，也絕非總是如此。但它是另一個競爭對手，而且，我們對此也相當坦誠。我們需要品牌和自有品牌，所以我們會繼續看到這兩種產品。它——但它實際上是一家商品公司。而一些成功的案例——所有的大件商品，我的意思是，紙巾、水，那些價值數億美元的巨型商品——我們有好幾款商品的年銷售額達到 10 億美元，還有幾款 KS 商品。在某些情況下，同一商品的品牌銷售額可能超過 10 億美元，例如 Charmin 或 Bounty 以及 Kirkland Signature 這兩個品牌，或各種地區品牌的瓶裝水與 Kirkland Signature 瓶裝水之間的銷售額差異。這對我們來說行之有效，我們會繼續這樣做。至於新類別，我認為在過去一兩年裡，葡萄酒和烈酒對我們來說表現得非常出色，而且這種趨勢還會持續下去，而且這種趨勢還會持續下去。好消息是，與其他 KS 產品一樣，當品牌失去一些市場份額時，它們會更積極地降低自己的價格，而這——希望對我們而言是這樣，而不是對所有人而言——使我們在品牌方面顯得更有競爭力。所以所有這些措施都奏效了——在我們看來，對我們有利，擁有品牌忠誠度當然有助於會員發展，並希望他們再次光顧 Costco。在其他領域，我一直——服裝仍然有發展空間，如果你願意這麼說的話，還有發展空間。這裡有化妝品、有機產品，而且有機產品種類還挺多的。在可能每個月的預算會議上，我們都會看到新的有機食品，無論是雞湯還是牛肉湯，或是一些糖果、焦糖、巧克力製品或堅果、什錦乾果。對我們來說，這些產品是利潤率在 1000 萬美元到 2500 萬美元之間的全利潤產品，而且沒有競爭對手，因為它們不一定取代品牌產品。我們在其他一些零食和能量棒產品方面也做得非常好。我們有些商品——比如一塊巧克力棒——我就不點名了——但如果一塊巧克力棒的零售價是 2 美元，也就是說我們賣 1.49 美元，那麼我們就能以低於 1 美元的價格出售這款優質商品，並獲得全額利潤，銷量也相當可觀。所以我認為服裝、化妝品、保健美容用品、有機食品（非新鮮但包裝好的食品）等領域，我們仍然有一些成長空間。

So Richard, could you -- I know -- I mean, not to beat on e-commerce again. But could you provide some early color on the Instacart and Shyp partnerships? And is there anything notable you'd call out regarding customer response or basket sizes versus an in-store shop? And then just going forward, how should we think about potential expansion of these partnerships?

所以理查德，你能——我知道——我的意思是，不要再抨擊電子商務了嗎？能否提前透露 Instacart 和 Shyp 合作的詳情？與實體店相比，您在顧客回饋或購物籃大小方面有什麼值得注意的地方嗎？那麼展望未來，我們該如何考慮這些合作關係的潛在擴展呢？

Well, it's still a very small piece of our business, but it seems to be working in the sense that it's growing for them. We have Google Express, which is -- operates out of 5 cities but several markets, but they're in the process [of this] out there of offering several items at a 1- to 3-day delivery. And we're participating in that with them, so that should be a positive for the program. Instacart has continued to grow dramatically. They currently operate in 40 of our cities, up from 26 a year ago, utilizing 240 of our warehouses, up from 132 a year ago. So that's grown. And then there's a few others I mentioned, Shyp, Dolly was one and somebody else. Boxed, I don't know if we're doing it, that's back East. Yes. Look, the 2 big ones are Google and Instacart, and there's not a whole lot of other color, they're working. We want to sell merchandise and they help us do that. But again, don't expect us to be doing anything giant with big in one fell swoop.

雖然這在我們業務中佔比仍然很小，但從某種意義上說，它確實在為他們帶來成長。我們有 Google Express，它在 5 個城市運營，涵蓋多個市場，但他們正在努力提供 1 到 3 天送達的多種商品。我們正在與他們一起參與其中，這對該項目來說應該是一件好事。Instacart 持續高速成長。他們目前在我們 40 個城市開展業務，比一年前的 26 個城市有所增加；他們使用了我們 240 個倉庫，比一年前的 132 個倉庫增加。所以它增長了。還有我提到的其他幾個人，Shyp，Dolly是其中之一，還有其他人。裝箱，我不知道我們是否要做，那是在東部。是的。你看，兩大巨頭是谷歌和Instacart，其他公司不多，它們都發展得很好。我們想銷售商品，而他們幫助我們實現了這個目標。但再次強調，不要期待我們能一蹴可幾地做出任何驚天動地的大事。

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Fassler.

你的下一個問題來自馬特法斯勒的演講。

First question is a follow-up on inflation. We are seeing, overall, CPI start to recover, but we've seen the producer price index, food PPI, come back a little bit faster. Are you concerned at all about any kind of gross margin squeeze? Are you -- or is what you're seeing on the cost front resembling what some of those macro indicators indicate? Or should we just think about the fact that pricing is moving higher in general as being in that positive (inaudible)?

第一個問題是關於通貨膨脹的後續問題。整體而言，我們看到消費者物價指數（CPI）開始復甦，但生產者物價指數（食品PPI）的復甦速度更快一些。您是否擔心毛利率會受到擠壓？你看到的──或者說，你看到的成本方面的情況，是否與某些宏觀指標所顯示的情況相似？或者我們應該把價格普遍上漲這一事實看作是正面的（聽不清楚）？

Pricing move in general is a net positive. If anything, though, I think that we create some of our own deflationary pressures because we're good at -- you look at the MVM example. Greater values to the member means greater -- lower prices, which means us and our vendor lowering the prices some. And most of that is driving prices down from our suppliers with the anticipation of significantly more unit volume. And the good news is, most of the time, that happens. And so -- and that's what we do. But that does drive -- those things don't always work in concert with the immediate bottom line improvement.

整體而言，價格變動是利好消息。不過，我認為我們反而製造了一些通縮壓力，因為我們很擅長——看看 MVM 的例子就知道了。對會員而言，更高的價值意味著更低的價格，這意味著我們和我們的供應商會降低一些價格。其中大部分原因是由於預期銷售量將大幅成長，導致供應商的價格下降。好消息是，大多數時候，這種情況都會發生。所以——這就是我們所做的。但這確實會起到推動作用——這些因素並不總是能立即帶來利潤的改善。

Understood. And then a second question just relates to competition. As Amazon takes tens of billions of dollars of retail share annually and clearly, the biggest share gainer by far and the biggest one we've seen in a while, are you seeing any -- obviously, your comps overall are increasing at a faster rate than most of the space. Is there anything you all are seeing in the mix that we might not catch through some of the commentary that would suggest a changing complexion of how the consumer is really using your stores? Is it more consumables focused than it had been? Or is it kind of business as usual with no sign of the change in the backdrop?

明白了。第二個問題與競爭有關。亞馬遜每年佔據數百億美元的零售份額，顯然是迄今為止最大的份額成長者，也是我們一段時間以來看到的最大份額成長者。那麼，您是否看到——顯然，您的同店銷售額整體成長速度比該領域的大多數公司都要快？你們是否從一些評論中沒有註意到某些變化，而這些變化可能表明消費者使用你們商店的方式正在改變？它是否比以前更注重消耗品？或者一切照舊，沒有絲毫改變的跡象？

Well, so far -- and there's no guarantee in the future, but so far, it's been business as usual. Well, there's a number I read a few months ago about how Amazon, if the entire U.S. sale -- increase in sales or whatever was $50 billion, they were half of it. Well, they were. They were $25 billion, but they were -- 25 divided by 50 is half. But we were also up. The fact is there's others in the industry that were down $50 billion, and so they were 1/4 of 100, minus 50 to plus 50. That $25 billion is still incredible and formidable, but our view is we are fortunate that a lot of the impact if it's impacting some food items or even packaged food items, it's traditional food retail that is getting hit more than us. We have to keep driving our member into our warehouse, and we do that with great -- of course, great prices and great items, certainly fresh foods, certainly gas station traffic which brings them into the parking lot if you will, and certainly the Executive -- the loyalty program, which they have one, too. All those things help us. And then the treasure hunt, we love it when we hear from someone that they heard that we had something. They went the next day and it wasn't there. Well, we're still pretty good at all that stuff, and I think, again, the Kirkland Signature has helped that as well. Now so far so good. When we look at the specifics even in markets where, whether it's Amazon or somebody else is taking share, a lot of what they're taking on fresh or something, fresh is hard and even they would acknowledge and others. There will be more competition in the future, but who's going to get -- we're asked a lot about Lidl coming into the East Coast. They're going to take share, but they're going to take share from everybody else a lot more than they take share from us. So we haven't really seen a big change like people are buying less something at Costco because of other formats out there.

嗯，到目前為止——雖然未來無法保證——但到目前為止，一切照常進行。嗯，幾個月前我讀到一個數據，說如果整個美國市場的銷售額（銷售額成長或其他什麼）是 500 億美元，那麼亞馬遜就佔了其中的一半。沒錯，他們確實是。它們價值 250 億美元，但是——25 除以 50 等於一半。但我們當時也醒著。事實上，業內還有其他公司虧損了 500 億美元，所以它們是 100 的 1/4，也就是減去 50 到加 50。250 億美元仍然是一個令人難以置信且巨大的數字，但我們認為我們很幸運，即使它對某些食品或包裝食品產生了影響，受到衝擊最大的也是傳統食品零售業，而不是我們。我們必須不斷吸引會員到我們的倉庫購物，而我們做到這一點的方法當然是：優惠的價格和優質的商品，當然還有新鮮的食品，當然還有加油站的客流量（這會把他們引到停車場），當然還有會員忠誠計劃（他們也有）。這些都對我們有幫助。然後就是尋寶遊戲，我們最喜歡聽到別人說他們聽說我們找到了什麼。他們第二天又去了，結果發現那東西已經不見了。嗯，我們在這方面仍然做得相當不錯，而且我認為，Kirkland Signature 也對此有所幫助。目前為止一切順利。當我們仔細觀察具體情況時，即使在亞馬遜或其他公司正在搶佔市場份額的市場中，他們搶佔的許多份額都來自生鮮產品或其他產品，而生鮮產品很難搶佔市場份額，即使是他們自己也會承認這一點。未來競爭將會更加激烈，但誰會勝出呢？ ——我們常被問到 Lidl 是否會進軍東岸。他們會搶佔市場份額，但他們從其他所有人那裡搶佔的份額會比從我們這裡搶佔的份額多得多。所以，我們並沒有看到像人們因為其他購物方式而減少在 Costco 購買某種商品這樣的重大變化。

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Trussell.

你的下一個問題是出自保羅‧特魯塞爾的著作。

Richard, on SG&A, we've recently cycled some labor investments made a year ago. Could you just outline for us some other puts and takes we should keep in mind that's going to impact the P&L in 4Q and beyond?

Richard，關於銷售、一般及行政費用，我們最近調整了一年前的一些勞動力投資。您能否為我們概述一下，還有哪些其他買賣點值得我們關注，它們將對第四季及以後的損益產生影響？

I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

不好意思，你能再說一次嗎？

On SG&A, on the expense front, really just want to -- you to help us think about some puts and takes on the expense side of things in 4Q and beyond, especially since we just cycled some of the labor investments you made a year ago.

關於銷售、一般及行政費用，在支出方面，我們真的只是想請您幫助我們思考一下第四季度及以後支出方面的一些利弊，特別是考慮到我們剛剛對一年前您所做的一些勞動力投資進行了調整。

Right. Well, look, the biggest put and take is sales. If we're going to get another percentage point or 2 in sales, that's always good. That solves a lot of things. When you look at some of the line items, payroll is the next biggest one. Yes, we've just anniversaried some of that at the end of March. That helps a little bit. Health care is still a challenge in the U.S. Increasing penetration outside of the U.S. helps that number just by a higher penetration within the total cost of the company and a lot less everywhere else. But again, that's going to happen slowly over time in a positive way. In some quarters, the inflation in the U.S. is -- does more than any small offset to that. IT expenditures, somebody internally said we'll probably get the question asked about it. Is 0 year-over-year basis point an inflection point? Probably not. We got lucky. Sales were a little higher. We had a lot of expenses last year leading up to the end of the fiscal year, day 1 of the new fiscal year when we installed the new main accounting platform on which other things will be built. And so we had a lot of third-party contractors, a lot of training, which you write off, you don't capitalize. And so that -- we had a little help there. But in fact, it'll come down over time, but it's not going to be 0. I think we're still doing -- e-commerce helps you a little bit to the extent even at 11% last quarter or 13% or 14% in the first 2/3 of the quarter before Mother's Day and what have you, that's a higher growth rate than the rest of the company. So that's a much lower SG&A. So that helps you a little bit. But I think we do pretty well at trying to drive the things in the right direction but not touching certain things. We're not going to tweak wages a little bit less or -- and have an increase that's a little bit less. We don't do big things like some of those incremental things that anniversaried in March like bottom of the scale. We general -- we ended that I think in 6 years, but every 3 years, we look at everything in a formal way, and so we're still a couple of years away from looking again in terms of a big way. I still vote for a sales increase. If you get some extra sales, everything else will fall in place.

正確的。你看，最大的買賣雙方關係就是銷售。如果銷售額能再提高一、兩個百分點，當然是好事。這樣可以解決很多問題。若仔細查看各項支出明細，薪資支出是僅次於薪資支出的第二大項。是的，我們剛剛在三月底慶祝了其中一些週年紀念日。那有點幫助。醫療保健在美國仍然是一個挑戰。提高美國以外地區的醫療保健滲透率有助於改善這種狀況，因為在美國以外地區，醫療保健在公司總成本中的佔比更高，而在其他地方則不然。但同樣，這種情況會隨著時間的推移慢慢地朝著正面的方向發展。在某些方面，美國的通貨膨脹——其影響遠遠超過了任何微小的抵消作用。IT支出方面，內部有人說我們可能會被問到這個問題。同比變化0個基點是否為拐點？可能不會。我們運氣真好。銷售額略有上升。去年，我們在財政年度結束前有很多支出。新財政年度的第一天，我們安裝了新的主會計平台，其他功能都將基於該平台建構。因此，我們有許多第三方承包商，很多培訓費用，這些費用都要註銷，不能獲得資本利得。所以，我們在那方面得到了一些幫助。但事實上，隨著時間的推移，這個數字會下降，但不會降到 0。我認為我們仍然在做一些事情——電子商務在某種程度上對我們有所幫助，即使上個季度達到了 11%，或者在母親節前的上個季度前三分之二達到了 13% 或 14%，這仍然比公司其他部門的增長率要高。所以銷售、管理及行政費用低很多。這對你多少有點幫助。但我認為我們做得相當不錯，我們努力引導事情朝著正確的方向發展，同時又避免觸及某些方面。我們不會對薪資進行小幅調整，也不會讓薪資漲幅稍微減少。我們不會像那些在三月迎來週年紀念日的漸進式事件那樣，去做一些大事，例如在規模上的最低點。總的來說——我認為我們在 6 年內結束了這項工作，但每 3 年，我們都會正式地審視所有事情，因此，距離我們再次進行大規模審視還有幾年時間。我仍然贊成提高銷售額。如果能增加一些銷售額，其他一切都會迎刃而解。

And then just could you speak to Gold Star and overall household membership growth? The growth has slowed a little bit. Just how are you thinking about membership count in the U.S. and also what you're seeing on the international front?

那麼，您能否談談 Gold Star 以及整體家庭會員成長？成長速度略有放緩。您如何看待美國會員人數以及國際市場的會員人數？

Part of it has to do where we're expanding. Several of our units in the past couple of years in the U.S, for example, have been at newer small markets where you don't get the biggest bang. I think we had one big bang. I gave the example of Tulsa, a new market, but that's not as small as some of the markets we've gone into. When we opened in -- another Seattle unit, which we have 2 in the last couple of -- 2.5 years or in the Greater L.A. market, it's a great success net of cannibalization but you only get a few thousand extra members because everybody's already a member. They're just going to come more frequently because we're 20 minutes from -- drive from their home, not 40. We also -- part of the growth depends on how many units we're opening overseas. When we opened a new unit in Asia, as of opening day, sign-ups -- paid sign-ups over the 8 or 10 or 12 weeks prior and through opening day, you could have 25,000 to 40,000 new members. Iceland, although there's only 1 location in Iceland, as of opening day, we had, I think, over 35,000 members. Is that right? Yes, over 35,000. And it's national news. And so I don't really look into the numbers as just -- as much based on where we've opened. It's not like a like opening compared to 2 years ago is getting fewer sign-ups.

部分原因在於我們的擴張區域。例如，過去幾年，我們在美國的一些工廠都位於一些新興的小市場，在這些市場裡，你無法獲得最大的收益。我認為我們經歷了一次大爆炸。我舉了塔爾薩的例子，這是一個新市場，但它並不像我們進入的一些市場那麼小。當我們在西雅圖開設另一家分店（過去兩年半我們開了兩家）或在大洛杉磯市場開設分店時，雖然存在蠶食效應，但取得了巨大的成功，只是增加了幾千名會員，因為每個人都已經是會員了。他們以後會更頻繁地來，因為我們離家只有 20 分鐘車程，而不是 40 分鐘車程。我們的成長也部分取決於我們在海外開設多少家分店。當我們在亞洲開設新分店時，從開業當天開始，在開業前 8 週、10 週或 12 週內以及開業當天，註冊會員（付費註冊會員）數量可達 25,000 至 40,000 人。雖然冰島只有一家分店，但從開業那天起，我們擁有超過 35,000 名會員。是這樣嗎？是的，超過 35,000。這是全國性新聞。因此，我並不太關注這些數字，因為它們更取決於我們在哪裡開業。這並不意味著與兩年前相比，現在的新店開幕人數減少了。

And your next question comes from Scott Mushkin.

下一個問題來自斯科特·穆甚金。

I actually wanted to follow up on the last one because it just made a question jump into my head. Are comp memberships actually rising in the U.S.?

我其實想就最後一個問題做個後續討論，因為它讓我腦海中突然冒出一個疑問。美國的免費會員數量真的在增加嗎？

Comp memberships? What? In comp buildings?

免費會員資格？什麼？在綜合大樓裡？

Yes, are the membership going up...

是的，會員人數確實在增加…

I would have to look. I think, they are but very -- it's probably a very small number, I mean, closer to 0 than the number above it. And part of that is when you're opening in a -- let's say, we opened in Redmond, where Microsoft is headquartered. That cannibalized knowingly 3 locations, 2 of them doing in the low to mid-300s a year and 1 doing in the mid-200s -- or low 200s a year. We signed up several thousand new members but not 20,000 new members. If we average roughly 62,000 -- if you're just adding Star membership, number of households divided by number of locations it's about 61,000 or 62,000. In that next year of that opening, on -- the comp of those 3 locations is down because some of those numbers now are allocated to the new warehouse.

我得查一下。我認為，它們確實很小——可能是一個非常小的數字，我的意思是，比上面的數字更接近 0。其中一部分原因在於，當你在某個地方開業時——比如說，我們在雷德蒙開業，那裡是微軟的總部所在地。這實際上是在故意蠶食 3 個地點的生意，其中 2 個地點的年營業額在 300 到 500 美元之間，1 個地點的年營業額在 200 到 500 美元之間。我們新增了幾千名會員，但沒達到兩萬名。如果我們平均計算大約 62,000——如果只是加上 Star 會員，家庭數量除以地點數量，大約是 61,000 或 62,000。在開業後的第二年，這 3 個地點的銷售額下降了，因為其中一些銷售額現在分配給了新倉庫。

So that's not even what I wanted to ask about, it just popped into my head. But -- so how do you think about that as your business matures in the U.S.? I mean, does that make you want to slow down your center growth? I mean, how should we frame that? Maybe the number eventually goes negative.

所以，這甚至不是我想問的問題，只是突然冒出來而已。但是——隨著你的業務在美國日趨成熟，你會如何看待這個問題？我的意思是，這是否會讓你想要放慢中心成長的速度？我的意思是，我們該如何表達這個問題？或許這個數字最終會變成負數。

Maybe it does. I don't think we're there yet. We -- for 25 years, people have asked, well, what's your next whatever? What's your next fresh foods? What's your next gas station? What's your next pharmacy? What's your next geographic market? Five years ago, I don't think any of us thought about a lot of serious going into New Orleans and Baton Rouge and Mobile, and Rochester and Toledo and Tulsa and the like. And we know, by the way, on average, they're going to be a little slower. It takes a few extra years, but they still have good metrics to them. We have slowed, I think, using the 2 examples in the greater Puget Sound, Seattle area, in the last 2.5, 3 years, we've opened Lynnwood and Redmond. We waited on Redmond for 10 years to do knowing that we -- we actually owned the land in Redmond 15, 20 years ago. But as we opened Issaquah, Kirkland being the first one on the east side of the city, and then several years later opened Woodinville, which is north of that, north of Redmond. We kept -- we actually sold the land and -- years ago. And finally, so we are -- we try to be pragmatic about what we do, and -- but over time, you're right. We haven't found the bottom. That's the good news in terms of -- again, anecdotally, I remember years ago when we concluded we needed a minimum of 0.5 million population to serve a warehouse. And then it was 450,000, and then it was 400,000. And we have some very successful warehouses that you divide the number of households in the population, it's in the very low 200s and a few of the high 100s. So hopefully, we'll keep making that go in that direction. That'll give us a little more life. Hopefully, the business centers create some life, and hopefully, dot-com continues to improve. And hopefully, we find a couple of more countries. So we think we've got plenty to go, and until that changes, we'll let you know.

或許真是如此。我認為我們還沒達到目標。25年來，人們一直問我們，你們的下一個目標是什麼？接下來會吃什麼新鮮食材？你的下一個加油站是哪裡？你下一家藥局是哪家？你的下一個目標市場是哪裡？五年前，我想我們當中沒有人認真考慮過進軍紐奧良、巴吞魯日、莫比爾、羅徹斯特、托萊多、塔爾薩等城市。順便說一句，我們知道，平均而言，他們的速度會慢一些。雖然需要多花幾年時間，但它們的各項指標仍然很好。我認為，在過去的2.5到3年裡，我們在大普吉特海灣地區（西雅圖地區）的兩個例子中，我們的發展速度有所放緩，我們開設了林伍德和雷德蒙德兩家分店。我們等了雷德蒙 10 年才做成這件事，因為我們知道——實際上我們在 15、20 年前就擁有了雷德蒙的土地。但是，當我們開設伊薩誇分店時，柯克蘭分店是該市東部的第一家分店，幾年後，我們又開設了伍丁維爾分店，該分店位於伊薩誇以北，雷德蒙德以北。我們保留了——實際上，我們幾年前就把地賣掉了。最後，我們也是——我們努力以務實的態度對待我們所做的事情，而且——但隨著時間的推移，你是對的。我們還沒找到底部。這是個好消息——再次聲明，我記得幾年前我們得出結論，我們需要至少 50 萬人口才能服務一個倉庫。然後是 45 萬，然後是 40 萬。我們有一些非常成功的倉庫，如果你把這些倉庫的數量除以人口中的家庭數量，你會發現只有 200 多戶，少數倉庫甚至達到了 100 多戶。所以，希望我們能繼續朝著這個方向努力。那會讓我們多活一段時間。希望商業中心能帶來一些活力，也希望網路能繼續發展壯大。希望我們還能找到另外幾個國家。所以我們認為還有很多工作要做，在情況改變之前，我們會隨時通知您。

All right. So then my follow-up question and my real question was I noticed BJ's, competitor of yours, is offering some pretty significant discounts on their memberships. I think you get the first 3 months free, if I'm remembering the commercial correctly, which means it's $40 for the first year. How do you -- does that matter to you guys? I mean, you're putting a fee increase through, but a competitor in the northeast and Mid-Atlantic, southeast is offering significant discounts. I just wanted to get your comments on that, and then I'll yield.

好的。所以我的後續問題，也是我真正的問題是，我注意到你們的競爭對手 BJ's 正在對其會員資格提供相當可觀的折扣。如果我沒記錯的話，廣告裡說前三個月免費，也就是說第一年只要 40 美元。你們覺得──這對你們來說重要嗎？我的意思是，你們提高了收費，但是東北部、中大西洋地區和東南部的競爭對手卻提供了大幅折扣。我只是想聽聽你們的意見，然後我就同意。

Sure. Well, I think, first, if they advertise it, good. We don't advertise. We don't spend money on that. We'd love seeing TV and print ads still from both other competitors. We're not concerned about it. We think that the value at Costco is still, at a significantly higher price or without a free 3 months, is a much better value, and we think that's evidenced by our success of what we've done over time and the fact that even what we've done in the past, renewal rates have not really been impacted by it.

當然。嗯，我覺得，首先，如果他們做廣告，那就很好。我們不做廣告。我們不在這方面花錢。我們很想看到其他兩家競爭對手繼續投放電視和平面廣告。我們並不擔心。我們認為，即使價格高得多或沒有 3 個月的免費試用期，Costco 的價值仍然更高，我們認為這一點可以從我們長期以來所取得的成功以及我們過去所做的一切並沒有真正影響續訂率的事實中得到證明。

And your next question is from Brian Nagel.

下一個問題來自布萊恩·納格爾。

So I apologize. I jumped on a little late, so if you've addressed this already. But on the gross margin, Richard, from -- it was definitely a better performance here than the prior quarter. Going back to the discussion we had on the comps goal last quarter, how much of the better performance reflected a, I guess, more stable gas price environment? Was that a significant contributing factor to the gross margin this quarter?

所以我道歉。我來晚了，所以如果您已經討論過這個問題了。但就毛利率而言，理查德，這絕對比上一季表現要好。回到我們上季對同店銷售目標的討論，更好的業績在多大程度上反映了（我猜想）更穩定的天然氣價格環境？這是否是本季毛利率上升的重要因素？

Well, gas helped the margins as did ancillary -- other ancillary business as well. But again, quickly, to cut to the chase, the roughly 80% of our sales, which is foods, sundries, fresh -- food, sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh foods, year-over-year on their own sales, they were up 12 basis points. So it was a lot of different things. Okay?

天然氣業務和其他輔助業務都提高了利潤率。但再說一遍，為了直奔主題，我們銷售額中約 80% 是食品、雜貨、新鮮食品——食品、雜貨、硬線、軟線和新鮮食品，與去年同期相比，它們的銷售額增長了 12 個基點。所以它包含了很多不同的因素。好的？

And your next question comes from Scot Ciccarelli.

下一個問題來自斯科特·西卡雷利。

Scot Ciccarelli. Two questions. Number one, in terms of the e-commerce business, as you guys reach a certain scale, do you need to change your processes? Or do you continue to go with kind of a drop ship philosophy?

斯科特·西卡雷利。兩個問題。首先，就電子商務業務而言，當你們達到一定規模時，是否需要改變你們的流程？還是你會繼續採用代發貨模式？

I'm sorry, on what? Related to what? I didn't hear the first part.

抱歉，關於什麼？與什麼有關？前半部我沒聽到。

Your e-commerce.

您的電子商務。

Well, as I mentioned, earlier, part of the inventory increase in the company, because we just take inventory and divided it by the number of warehouses to give you a number, and we'll maybe change that over time. But we had an increase in inventory for e-commerce related stuff, not at the warehouses, but we went from 7 to 19 distribution points in the last year. So we're getting closer to the customer. We're also working with third parties. I mentioned on the call the GE scheduling system. There's other scheduling things like that, that we're doing. And I mentioned the thing we're testing right now in our Bedford, Illinois business center, I mentioned last quarter, where, in addition to this 50- or 70-mile radius where we deliver with a Costco truck through third party, there's 1- to 3-day delivery to 17 states all the way to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And so if anything, I think we're getting -- it's getting quicker and cheaper to do these things for us. Maybe we started off high to begin with how we -- based on how we did it, but we're improving it.

正如我之前提到的，公司庫存增加的部分原因是，我們只是將庫存除以倉庫數量來得出一個數字，隨著時間的推移，我們可能會改變這一點。但是，我們電子商務相關商品的庫存增加了，不是在倉庫裡，而是去年我們的配送點從 7 個增加到了 19 個。這樣我們就更貼近客戶了。我們也與第三方合作。我在電話中提到了GE調度系統。還有其他類似的日程安排工作，我們也在做。我之前提到過，我們目前正在伊利諾伊州貝德福德的商業中心測試一項服務，我在上個季度也提到過。除了我們透過第三方使用 Costco 卡車在 50 或 70 英里半徑範圍內送貨外，我們還提供 1 到 3 天送達 17 個州的服務，一直到賓夕法尼亞州和新澤西州。所以，我認為現在做這些事的速度更快、成本更低了。或許我們一開始做得就很好——就我們當時的做法而言——但我們正在改進。

Okay, understood. And then second question is -- hopefully, this is an easy calculation here. When you look at the debt redemptions, the debt issuance, looks like you guys would be incurring about $25 million more a year in interest cost, call it, $6 million a quarter. Should that just be a pretty straight calculation? Or is there something else we should keep in mind as we kind of work on our models?

好的，明白了。第二個問題是──希望這是一個容易計算的問題。從債務償還和債務發行情況來看，你們每年似乎要多承擔約 2,500 萬美元的利息成本，也就是每季 600 萬美元。這應該只是一個簡單的計算吧？或者，我們在建造模型時，還有其他需要注意的地方嗎？

I did a back of the envelope this morning, and I came in with a number that's a few million higher than that but still has a 2 in front of it. Now it's pretty straightforward. I mean, you've got $3.8 billion times somewhere between 2.6% and 2.7%, call it, 2.65%. It's a rounded number. You got the paydown of the March debt that we did, which was a $60 million a year savings. You've got the recent -- the call, which we'll do shortly, of the $1.1 billion 1 1/8%. And that's on the interest expense line. A little bit of an offset will be the cash. As you know, we borrowed $3.8 billion. Well, roughly $3.1 billion is the dividend. The other $700 million is cash earning less than that interest rate and even less than the 1 1/8% that's coming up. But it all melds out to something like you said if you go back to the March -- when we had in place the March 2017 5.5%.

我今天早上粗略估算了一下，得出的數字比這個數字高出幾百萬，但前面仍然有個 2。現在就很簡單了。我的意思是，你有 38 億美元，收益率在 2.6% 到 2.7% 之間，就叫它 2.65% 吧。這是一個整數。你們已經償還了三月的債務，每年節省了 6,000 萬美元。您已經了解了最近的情況—我們稍後會談到11億美元的1又1/8%。這是利息支出項下的內容。現金可以稍微抵消一部分支出。如你所知，我們借了38億美元。嗯，股息大約是31億美元。其餘 7 億美元是現金，其收益率低於該利率，甚至低於即將到來的 1.25% 的利率。但正如你所說，如果你回顧三月的情況——當時我們實施了 2017 年 3 月 5.5% 的政策——那麼這一切最終都會融合在一起。

And your next question is from Oliver Chen.

下一個問題來自 Oliver Chen。

Our question is on the multi-vendor mailer. How are you feeling about what you've been doing in terms of testing and learning and the MVM products versus the products that you're offering at everyday value? And it's been -- I know you're thinking about how to optimize that appropriately, so I'm just curious about the status of that. And the second question was about the mobile app, just the mobile app. And Amazon has a really good mobile app. So what features do you want to have on your mobile app over time that you don't have now?

我們的問題是關於多供應商郵件發送器的。您對您在測試和學習方面所做的工作以及MVM產品與您以日常價格提供的產品有何感受？我知道你們正在考慮如何適當地優化它，所以我只是好奇這方面的進展。第二個問題是關於手機應用程式的，只是手機應用程式。而且亞馬遜的行動應用也非常好用。那麼，隨著時間的推移，您希望您的行動應用程式擁有哪些目前還沒有的功能呢？

Okay, I'm the going to get back to you on the latter question just because I don't have somebody here that could help me on that one. On the first one, I forgot now, what was it? It's late in the day here.

好的，關於後一個問題，我稍後會回覆你，因為這裡沒有人能幫我解答這個問題。第一個，我現在忘了，是什麼來著？現在天色已晚。

The multi-vendor mailer, the multi MVM and how you're...

多供應商郵件發送器、多 MVM 以及您如何…

Yes. Well, no, look, I think we feel good about it. I think I said on the last call, some things we enhanced the value and kept in the multi-vendor mailer an item, some of the things we took out and did everyday low pricing on. Sometimes it's still better values based on us and the vendor working towards that end and to have it more prominent. So there's lots of different things. It was 12 weeks ago that I said to many and to you on the phone, things are fine. There's a few things that impacted us a little more or something that didn't work. I think we've improved on all those things, but we'll continue to do that. There's -- by no means we haven't solved -- found the answer to everything, but we feel good about what's happened in the last 12 weeks as it relates to that question.

是的。嗯，不，你看，我覺得我們對此感覺不錯。我想我在上次電話會議上說過，有些商品我們提高了價值，並保留在多供應商郵件中，而有些商品我們則移除，並實行日常低價定價。有時，基於我們和供應商共同努力，朝著這個目標前進，並使其更加突出，仍然可以獲得更好的價值。所以有很多不同的東西。12 週前，我曾對很多人，也曾透過電話對你說過，一切都很好。有些事情對我們影響比較大，或是有些事情沒有奏效。我認為我們在所有這些方面都取得了進步，但我們會繼續努力。雖然我們還沒有找到所有問題的答案，但就這個問題而言，我們對過去 12 週發生的事情感到滿意。

Okay. And Richard, lastly, on traffic. And store traffic, you've been able to do a great job on a multi-year basis with physical store traffic. What are some of the opportunities ahead? Or what are some of the plans you have for this aim to sustain that in a sustainable, healthily growing manner? Or -- and how do we -- or should we be more cautious because it's been so good on a multi-year basis? Just it's something we monitor, and it's been impressive for you to achieve such good store traffic in a tough environment.

好的。最後，理查德將談談交通問題。至於實體店客流量，你們多年來在實體店客流量方面做得非常出色。未來有哪些機會？或者，為了實現這一目標，你們有哪些計劃以可持續、健康的方式維持下去？或者——我們該如何——或者我們應該更加謹慎，因為它多年來一直表現良好？這只是我們關注的重點，在如此艱難的環境下，你們能取得如此好的客流量，確實令人印象深刻。

Well -- and this is where we go aw shucks. And I think we're going to keep focusing on driving value of items and identify the items that make sense. And I mean it. As many of you who've known us for years, as we've said many times, it's -- the good news, it's a lot of little things. Even gasoline is a lot of little things today because it had a big help for several years in the U.S. Now we did it in Canada for a few years. We now have, what, a dozen-plus unit -- gas stations in countries like Japan and Australia and soon, a couple of other countries and not everywhere, but it's now a lot of -- it's a little extra thing in some of those countries. I think the wine and spirits thing has caught us off guard in a positive way that what started as a few wine items a numbers of years ago, we're actually receiving rewards on price points that are -- nobody can match and the trust in the Kirkland Signature brand. On the spirits side, we never thought we'd be successful. And it's a double positive because it's not only selling us a full margin private label item but the competitors, the brands don't like losing market share to us, and they want to get -- look better on pricing at Costco. So all those things have helped us. I think the apparel area, as I mentioned, has been something that is (inaudible). We didn't -- we hadn't thought about it, but over the last 2 or 3 years, it's a $5-plus billion business that's been growing at 9-plus percent compounded for 3.5 years. And that has more legs even though apparel is -- retail apparel is weak. And so we'll keep coming up with stuff. I think the first time that our traffic went from a boring 4.2 compounded for 7 calendar years, '09 through '15, and then it hit 3.8, 3.5, 3.3, 2.8, and everybody's saying -- and Bob and I and others were the first to say this could very well be the new normal. Not to just punt on it but 4.2 is pretty hard to do. That being said, we still feel really comfortable we've got some things for traffic drivers. And fresh fruit still has legs. KS still has legs. Gasoline still has legs, Executive Membership, so -- the credit card and the extra value. So we feel pretty good about -- that's, in a way, a nonquantitative answer but all things that I think are relevant to the story.

好吧——這時我們會覺得「哎呀，真可惜」。我認為我們將繼續專注於提升產品價值，並找出真正有意義的產品。我說的都是認真的。正如許多認識我們多年的朋友所說，正如我們多次強調的，好消息是，這其中有很多小事。就連汽油如今也經歷了許多細微的變化，因為它在美國得到了多年的大力扶持。現在，我們在加拿大也這樣做了幾年。我們現在在日本、澳洲等國家擁有十幾個加油站，很快還會擴展到其他幾個國家，雖然不是每個地方都有，但在某些國家已經相當普及了，這算是一種額外的服務。我認為葡萄酒和烈酒的出現讓我們措手不及，但卻帶來了正面的影響。幾年前，我們開始銷售一些葡萄酒產品，現在我們在價格方面獲得了無人能及的回報，並贏得了人們對 Kirkland Signature 品牌的信任。在烈酒方面，我們從未想過會成功。這真是一舉兩得，因為它不僅讓我們獲得了全額利潤的自有品牌商品，而且競爭對手、品牌商也不喜歡失去市場份額，他們希望在 Costco 的價格上看起來更有優勢。所以，所有這些都對我們有幫助。我認為服裝領域，正如我之前提到的，一直是（聽不清楚）。我們之前沒有考慮過這個問題，但在過去的2到3年裡，這是一個價值超過50億美元的行業，並且在過去3.5年中以超過9%的複合年增長率持續增長。即使服裝零售業疲軟，這種趨勢也更有發展潛力。所以我們會繼續想出辦法。我認為，我們的流量第一次從無聊的 4.2（連續 7 年，即 2009 年至 2015 年）下降到 3.8、3.5、3.3、2.8，每個人都說——鮑勃和我以及其他人是第一批說這很可能成為新常態的人。並非要輕描淡寫，但 4.2 確實很難做到。即便如此，我們仍然很有信心，我們已經為交通駕駛員準備了一些措施。新鮮水果仍然很受歡迎。KS 仍然很有活力。汽油仍然有市場，行政會員資格也是如此——信用卡和額外價值。所以我們感覺相當不錯——從某種意義上說，這是一個非量化的答案，但我認為所有這些都與故事有關。

I mean, Richard, you have very talented merchants. Does Amazon try to hire them? Is that something that comes up in terms of that capability being such a competitive advantage?

我的意思是，理查德，你們的商家非常有才華。亞馬遜會嘗試聘用他們嗎？這項能力是否構成了一項重要的競爭優勢？

I would hope not. We haven't -- to my knowledge, we haven't -- we've lost 1 or 2 merchants but not in the last few years. We lose a few IT engineers, several of whom, 18 months and a day, call us back after they hit their cliff vesting. But that's everywhere. I mean, look, Amazon is in our town, and they hire a lot of people from every company in town and out of town. We've been fortunate. People have chosen to stick around and -- but that's -- we -- and the answer is no, we haven't. But we cross our fingers that'll continue in the future.

我希望不會。據我所知，我們沒有——我們沒有——我們失去過一兩家商戶，但不是最近幾年。我們流失了幾位 IT 工程師，其中幾位在 18 個月零一天後，也就是他們的股權到期後，又打了通電話給我們。但這種情況到處都是。我的意思是，你看，亞馬遜在我們鎮上，他們從鎮上和鎮外的每家公司都僱用了很多人。我們很幸運。人們選擇留下來，但是──但是──我們──答案是否定的，我們沒有。但我們希望這種情況未來能夠持續下去。

The next question is from Kelly Bania.

下一個問題來自凱莉·巴尼亞。

Just another one on -- with e-commerce. I think you mentioned that you have expanded some KS items online. I just wondered if you could elaborate what categories those are. And really, just what is the pricing strategy with online versus in-store for those items that -- I think you said 2,000 items that cross over? I mean, should we expect prices are the same? Or is there a difference in pricing strategy online versus in the club?

又一個關於電子商務的例子。我想你之前提到過，你已經把一些 KS 專案拓展到了線上。我只是想問一下，您能否詳細說明一下這些類別都是什麼？那麼，對於那些——我想你提到過有 2000 種商品線上線下都有銷售的——線上和線下銷售的定價策略究竟是什麼？我的意思是，我們應該預期價格會保持不​​變嗎？或者說，線上線下門市的定價策略是否有差異？

Sometimes online, they're a little higher for delivery. Sometimes, as we tried some, what I'll call the velocity apparel items, socks, shirts and things, we eat into some of that ourselves in terms of shipping because we want to get people comfortable ordering velocity items, whether it's apparel or health and beauty aids or sundries like J cups. And unfortunately, I don't have that list in front of me of some of the new items. There have been several KS items but other brands as well. If you -- again, give me a call after the holiday on Monday. I just don't have that information with me.

有時在網路上購買的話，運費會稍微高一些。有時，當我們嘗試一些我稱之為「速度型服裝」的商品，例如襪子、襯衫之類的東西時，我們會自己承擔一部分運費，因為我們希望人們能夠放心地訂購速度型商品，無論是服裝、保健美容用品還是像 J 杯這樣的雜物。很遺憾，我手邊沒有那部分新品的清單。KS品牌的產品很多，其他品牌的也有。如果你——再說一遍，請在假期後的星期一打電話給我。我手邊沒有那份資料。

Perfect. And then can I just ask one more, just a clarification on gross margin? I think when you talked about the core gross margin, the up 7, up 20 with and without gas, that includes the 16 basis points from the Citi Visa but the up 12, the 80 basis -- or the 80% of the core business up 12, that excludes the Citi Visa. Is that correct?

完美的。最後，我可以再問一個問題嗎？我想請教一下關於毛利率的問題。我認為，當你談到核心毛利率時，上漲 7%，上漲 20%（無論是否包含汽油），這其中包含了花旗 Visa 卡帶來的 16 個基點，但上漲 12%，上漲 80%（或核心業務的 80%），則不包括花旗 Visa 卡。是這樣嗎？

That's correct, yes.

沒錯，是的。

And your next question is from Peter Benedict.

下一個問題來自彼得·本尼迪克特。

Richard, just a couple of quick ones. MFI trends, some underlying slowing there. I mean, is that just the friction from the new card changeovers? Or are you seeing anything in terms of sign-ups that's concerning you?

理查德，就問幾個簡單的問題。小額信貸市場趨勢，部分潛在成長放緩。我的意思是，這僅僅是新卡更換帶來的摩擦嗎？或者，您在註冊方面是否發現任何令您擔憂的情況？

The biggest issue is 3 openings in the quarter -- actually, 2 net openings. One was a relo. So no, nothing that's terribly disconcerting. Nothing that's disconcerting.

最大的問題是本季有 3 個空缺職位——實際上是 2 個淨空缺職位。其中一人是搬家。所以，沒什麼特別令人不安的。沒什麼令人不安的。

And then -- sorry, go ahead.

然後——抱歉，請繼續。

Nothing that is disconcerting. I shouldn't have used the word terribly.

沒什麼令人不安的。我不應該用「糟糕」這個詞。

Second question, the lift in comp that you've seen over the last several months, kind of recovering the comp trends. Has there been anything in terms of Business Members versus Gold Star, anything like that, that has kind of disproportionately driven that?

第二個問題，您在過去幾個月看到的薪酬成長，某種程度上是對薪酬趨勢的恢復。是否存在商業會員與金星會員之間的某種差異，或類似的原因，導致了這種不成比例的現象？

No, no, not really.

不，不，其實不是。

Okay. And then my last question is just around the e-commerce fulfillment centers. You said you've got 19 of those. Where do you see that number going in the next few years? And then could the clubs actually be used for the -- well, I think you said 2,000 items that are in the clubs that are also offered online. Can the clubs be used to facilitate delivery of those?

好的。最後一個問題是關於電子商務物流中心的。你說你有19個。你認為未來幾年這個數字會如何改變？那麼，這些俱樂部是否真的可以用來購買——嗯，我想你說過俱樂部裡有 2000 件商品，這些商品也在網路上出售。俱樂部能否用於促進這些活動的開展？

First of all, going from 7 to 19 is a lot. And again, we're more than saving on that because we're getting the stuff to you quicker. We're spending less on freight. We did it somewhat inefficiently to start with. There'll be more. I don't -- that's -- I don't know off the top my head. I just know those 2 data points, 7 and 19. The other question was would we ever use the warehouses as fulfillment centers, sure. And I'd say that not suggesting it's going to happen tomorrow. And one of the things we're doing with the Bedford, Illinois business center, in a way, is e-commerce related. You order online. It'll be delivered in 1 to 3 days via a third-party carrier, certain items. I mean, I think the items have certain weight and size limitations. We're not going to be delivering sofas to New Jersey from there, but probably, we'll be delivering that -- but using the business center is like using a warehouse. Different set of items but it was easy to do because it was set up in some ways to accommodate them fast. And yes, we'll see. But it's logical to think that -- would you have some locations around the country that could do some things at night when they're closed or a low-volume unit that could help out? But we haven't -- don't expect anything on that front for at least the next year. And I'm only suggesting the next year because we haven't really talked about it a lot other than could we.

首先，從7歲到19歲，這可是很大的進步。而且，我們不僅節省了成本，因為我們能更快地把東西送到您手中。我們在貨運方面的支出減少了。一開始我們的做法效率不高。還會有更多。我——我——我一時想不起來。我只知道這兩個數據點，7 和 19。另一個問題是，我們是否會將倉庫用作配送中心？答案是肯定的。我這麼說並不是暗示這件事明天就會發生。而我們與伊利諾州貝德福德商業中心合作的計畫之一，在某種程度上與電子商務有關。您在線訂購。某些商品將透過第三方物流公司在 1 至 3 天內送達。我的意思是，我認為這些物品有一定的重量和尺寸限制。我們不會從那裡向新澤西州運送沙發，但或許我們會運送——但使用商務中心就像使用倉庫一樣。雖然物品種類不同，但操作起來很容易，因為它在某些方面已經做好了快速容納它們的準備。是的，我們拭目以待。但這麼想很合乎邏輯——你們在全國各地有沒有一些地點可以在夜間關門時做一些事情，或者有沒有一些業務量較小的單位可以提供幫助？但我們還沒有——至少在未來一年內，不要指望這方面會有任何進展。我之所以建議明年進行，是因為除了「我們能不能」之外，我們還沒有真正討論過這件事。

And your next question is from Greg Melich.

下一個問題來自格雷格·梅利奇。

I had 2 questions. One, Richard, could you fill us in on what gas was as a percentage of sales? And I think you said that gallons comped positive, and if you have the number, that would be great. And then I had a follow-up.

我有兩個問題。理查德，你能告訴我們汽油銷售額佔總銷售額的百分比是多少嗎？我想你說過加侖數是免費的，如果你有具體數字，那就太好了。然後我還有後續跟進。

Bear with me. Do you know what it was? Okay, we're almost there.

請稍等。你知道那是什麼嗎？好了，我們快到了。

Should I go with the next question?

我應該繼續回答下一個問題嗎？

Yes.

是的。

Okay. So the other question, I just want to make sure I get the timing of Visa Citi and how that came in last year. So it's 36 bps of help to the EBIT margin if I got this right, and in the fourth quarter, we should probably get another 4 or 5 weeks of that benefit. Am I thinking about that right? Or is there some other thing at work? If I remember correctly, as you were running out the Amex program, you were sort of not signing up people and not getting the payments for signing up people for the card. Or is it just a straightforward think about that, get a few more weeks of it but then it cycles?

好的。所以，我的另一個問題是，我想確認一下 Visa Citi 的推出時間以及它去年是如何推出的。如果我理解正確的話，這將對息稅前利潤率帶來 36 個基點的幫助，而且在第四季度，我們應該還能再享受 4 到 5 週的這種好處。我這樣想對嗎？或者還有其他因素在起作用？如果我沒記錯的話，在你結束 Amex 專案的時候，你既沒有招攬新用戶，也沒有收到招攬用戶辦卡的佣金。或者，這只是一個簡單的想法，再持續幾週，然後就會循環往復？

I think it's like 6 weeks, not just 3 or 4 and -- but then you get...

我覺得大概是六週，不是三四周，而且──但之後你就會…

(inaudible) but we had some disruption (inaudible) .

（聽不清楚）但我們遇到了一些幹擾（聽不清楚）。

Yes, yes. There was June 20th that we had some disruption around it.

是的，是的。6月20日那天，我們遇到了一些幹擾。

And we also (inaudible)

我們還有（聽不清楚）

Bob is feeding me the information here. We're also conservative on some of the assumptions. I mean, look, it's not going to be nearly as big as it was in the last 3 -- each of the last 3 quarters, but it's not going to be 1/4 as big -- only 1/4 as big. In terms of the gallon comps, it's a very strong number. The guys are laughing here. It has 2 digits but not -- it's very low 2 digits, so I can't tell you anything.

鮑伯正在提供我資訊。我們在某些​​假設上也持保守態度。我的意思是，你看，它肯定不會像過去三個季度那樣大——過去三個季度的每個季度都不會那麼大，但它也不會只有四分之一大——只有四分之一大。就加侖數而言，這是一個非常強勁的數字。他們都在笑。它有兩位數，但不是——是非常小的兩位數，所以我什麼也說不出來。

Low 2 digits. Okay. And gas as a percentage of the total company sales?

低兩位數。好的。天然氣銷售額占公司總銷售額的百分比是多少？

Yes, hold on a second. Do you have the line item report?

好的，稍等一下。你有明細報告嗎？

And maybe while you're digging that out, since I’ve got you, membership fee growth in local currencies, if -- how much the FX hit that line?

既然我已經幫你查過了，也許你還可以順便查一下以當地貨幣計算的會員費增長情況，以及外匯匯率達到該水平的幅度？

Yes. That's an easy one [like] that. First of all, gas is a little under 10%, and the other one was membership fees. That was...

是的。那很簡單，就像那樣。首先，汽油費略低於 10%，另一項是會員費。那真是…

4% in dollars.

以美元計，成長4%。

Oh, I got it right here. Membership fees reported was up 4% in dollars or $26 million and up 5% without FX. FX was a $3.6 million hit to the number. So if FX had been flat, it would be $3.6 million -- the number would have been $3.6 million higher. Then the 4% would have been up 5%, yes.

哦，我找到了。據報道，會員費以美元計上漲了 4%，即 2,600 萬美元；不計匯率因素，上漲了 5%。外匯交易導致該數字減少了360萬美元。因此，如果匯率保持不變，金額將為 360 萬美元——該數字將高出 360 萬美元。那麼，4% 就會變成 5%，沒錯。

And your next question is from Edward Kelly.

下一個問題來自愛德華·凱利。

Richard, just a couple of quick ones for you towards the tail end here. On the gross margin in Q4, is there any extra leverage from the extra week in Q4 that we should expect that's meaningful at all?

理查德，最後再給你簡單提幾個問題。在第四季毛利率方面，第四季多出的一周是否會帶來任何有意義的額外槓桿效應？

Nothing on the margin, very little, very little on the expense side, almost nothing.

利潤方面幾乎沒有，支出方面幾乎沒有，幾乎沒有。

And then just to follow up on fresh food. Can you provide maybe more color on what's teed up here in terms of the things you've been talking about particularly in organics? And was this any kind of step-change or just continuation of what you've been doing?

然後就是補充新鮮食材。您能否更詳細地介紹一下您一直在談論的，特別是關於有機食品方面的計劃？這算是一種變革性的轉變，還是只是你一直在做的事情的延續？

Continuation. Global store (inaudible) being the largest purveyor of USDA prime beef in the universe, we're now -- in the U.S., we're something like 1/3 of all U.S. prime beef sales. Before '08, the vast majority of all prime beef sales went to restaurants and hotels.

續。全球商店（聽不清楚）是全球最大的 USDA 特級牛肉供應商，我們現在——在美國，我們佔據了美國特級牛肉總銷量的大約三分之一。2008 年之前，絕大多數優質牛肉的銷售都流向了餐廳和旅館。

And how are you doing on capacity in some items in produce from an organic standpoint that maybe you've struggled with in the past?

從有機農產品的角度來看，你們的產能狀況如何？這些產品可能是你們過去一直面臨的難題。

Well, I think, overall, and not just us, but everybody's benefited from the fact there is more supply out there. I think we feel, competitively, from the standpoint that we're well positioned because I think we've used the number on produce. We source produce from 44 countries. Nobody does that, and that gives us some additional advantage in that area. But it's gotten less hard, but it's still -- organic is -- there's more demand than there is supply. But if I look at the price points of organic versus conventional on most items, the premium is still a premium but not as big a premium as it was 2 years ago because of the fact that there's less of a supply/demand imbalance.

我認為，總的來說，不僅僅是我們，而是所有人都受益於市場上供應量的增加。我認為，從競爭的角度來看，我們感覺自己處於有利地位，因為我認為我們已經充分利用了農產品市場。我們從44個國家採購農產品。沒有人這樣做，這使我們在這一領域獲得了一些額外的優勢。雖然難度有所減輕，但有機食品仍面臨供不應求的局面。但如果我看一下大多數商品的有機產品與傳統產品的價格，雖然溢價仍然存在，但溢價幅度不如兩年前那麼大，因為供需失衡的情況有所減少。

And there are no further questions.

沒有其他問題了。

Well, thank you, everyone. Have a good afternoon -- good evening and holiday.

謝謝大家。祝您下午愉快，晚上愉快，假期愉快。

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線了。