好市多 (COST) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. My name is Christy, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q4 earnings call and September sales. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I will now turn the call over to CFO Richard Galanti. You may begin, sir.

午安.我叫克里斯蒂，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。此時此刻，我謹代表大家歡迎參加第四季財報電話會議和九月銷售狀況報告會。（操作說明）謝謝。現在我將把電話轉交給財務長理查德·加蘭蒂。先生，您可以開始了。

Thank you, Christy, 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 the company does not undertake to update these statements except as required by law.

謝謝你，克里斯蒂，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向美國證券交易委員會提交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，本公司不承擔更新這些聲明的義務。

In today's press release, we reported our fourth quarter and fiscal year-end 2017 operating results for the 17-week and 53-week periods ended September 3 and our September sales results for the 5-week retail month ended this past Sunday, October 1. For the 17-week fiscal fourth quarter, reported earnings came in at $2.08 a share, up $0.31 over last year's fourth quarter earnings per share of $1.77.

在今天的新聞稿中，我們公佈了截至 9 月 3 日的 17 週和 53 週期間的 2017 年第四季和全年營運業績，以及截至上週日（10 月 1 日）的 5 週零售月的 9 月份銷售業績。在 17 週的第四財季中，報告的每股收益為 2.08 美元，比去年同期的每股收益 1.77 美元增長了 0.31 美元。

In comparing our year-over-year fourth quarter operating results, several items to note: First, of course, this year's fiscal fourth quarter was comprised of 17 weeks of operations. Last year's fourth quarter results covered 16 weeks. We just finished a year which had the extra week in it.

在比較我們與去年同期第四季的經營業績時，有幾點需要注意：首先，當然，今年的第四財季包含了 17 週的營運。去年第四季的業績涵蓋了16週。我們剛結束了一個多一週的學年。

Second, the improved results related to cobrand credit card. As we reported in each of our first 3 quarters of fiscal '17, the Citi Visa cobranded credit card program again positively impacted our year-over-year gross margins by 14 basis points and SG&A expenses by 8 basis points and our overall bottom line in Q4 benefiting earnings year-over-year by an aggregate of 22 basis points or $0.13 a share over the 17-week fourth quarter. More detail to follow later in the call on this.

其次，與聯名信用卡相關的業績有所改善。正如我們在 2017 財年的前三個季度中所報告的那樣，花旗 Visa 聯名信用卡計劃再次對我們的毛利率產生了積極影響，同比增長 14 個基點，銷售、一般及行政費用同比增長 8 個基點，並在第四季度使我們的整體淨利潤同比增長 22 個基點，即每股收益 0.13 美元。稍後將在電話會議中提供更多細節。

Gas profitability, the third item. Our profits from gas during the quarter as compared to last year's fourth quarter were higher by about $40 million pretax or $0.05 a share.

第三點是天然氣獲利能力。本季我們的天然氣利潤比去年第四季增加了約 4,000 萬美元稅前利潤，即每股 0.05 美元。

Number four, gross margin. This year's fourth quarter margin -- gross margin included $20 million of pretax benefits from nonrecurring legal items, which were partially offset by about a $10 million reserve charge for inventory losses attributable to Hurricane Harvey. Together, this net $10 million pretax benefit represented a benefit of 2 basis point improvement to gross margin or about $0.015 share -- a benefit to earnings per share.

第四，毛利率。今年第四季毛利率包括來自非經常性法律項目的 2000 萬美元稅前收益，但部分被因颶風哈維造成的庫存損失的約 1000 萬美元準備金抵消。總計這 1000 萬美元的稅前淨收益使毛利率提高了 2 個基點，即每股收益提高了約 0.015 美元——這對每股收益有利。

Fifth item of note, SG&A. This year's fourth quarter SG&A expenses included an $11 million or about $0.015 negative hit related to Hurricane Harvey. This represented about a 3 basis point detriment to our reported SG&A percentage in the quarter. Number six, modernization-related IT. As a percent of sales, only slightly higher by 1 basis point year-over-year.

第五項值得注意的是，銷售、一般及行政費用。今年第四季的銷售、一般及行政費用中包含了與哈維颶風相關的 1,100 萬美元或約 0.015 美元的負面影響。這導致我們本季報告的銷售、一般及行政費用百分比下降了約 3 個基點。第六，與現代化相關的IT。佔銷售額的百分比，僅比去年同期略高 1 個基點。

Next, FX. There's 2 FX items to point out on an operating basis compared to a year ago. Foreign currencies had a very slight negative impact to earnings, less than $1 million pretax, also in our interest income and other line, the year-over-year swing in gains and losses related to accounting for our FX exposures in the other countries where we operate. In Q4, the year-over-year swing was about a minus $12 million pretax or $0.02 a share hit impact to EPS year-over-year. Last year, in Q4, we had a gain of $11 million in terms of these items. This year, we had a loss of about $1 million recorded in this year in the fourth quarter.

接下來是FX。與去年同期相比，營運方面有兩項外匯相關項目需要指出。外匯波動對收益產生了非常輕微的負面影響，稅前不到 100 萬美元，此外，我們的利息收入和其他收入也出現了同比波動，這與我們在其他經營所在國的外匯風險敞口會計處理有關。第四季度，年波動約為稅前虧損 1,200 萬美元，或每股盈餘較去年同期下降 0.02 美元。去年第四季度，我們在這些項目上獲得了 1,100 萬美元的收益。今年第四季度，我們錄得約100萬美元的虧損。

Number eight, income taxes. We had favorable discrete tax items in both fourth quarters both this year and last. In last year's fourth quarter, discrete tax items benefited last year's fourth quarter earnings by $0.05 a share. This year's fourth quarter discrete positive tax items benefited earnings per share by $0.03, so $0.02 less of benefit this year over last year.

第八，所得稅。今年和去年的第四季度，我們都獲得了有利的個別稅務項目。去年第四季度，個別稅收項目使去年第四季的每股收益增加了 0.05 美元。今年第四季的離散正稅收項目使每股收益增加了 0.03 美元，比去年同期減少了 0.02 美元。

And lastly, LIFO. There was no LIFO charge or credit in this year's fourth quarter results, whereas last year's fourth quarter results had a LIFO credit of $31 million, reflecting deflation in our LIFO indices a year ago or a $0.04 per share benefit last year versus 0 this year.

最後，是後進先出法（LIFO）。今年第四季業績中沒有 LIFO 費用或收益，而去年第四季業績中有 3,100 萬美元的 LIFO 收益，反映了我們一年前的 LIFO 指數通縮，或者說去年每股收益為 0.04 美元，而今年為 0 美元。

Turning to fourth quarter sales. Reported sales were up 16% in the quarter, including the benefit from the extra week. And reported comparable sales figure, which compares a like-for-like number of weeks year-over-year, was up 6.1%. For the quarter, the plus 6.1% comp sales figure was helped by gasoline price inflation to the tune of about 0.5 percentage point and hurt slightly by a slight detriment from the FX impact.

接下來看看第四季的銷售情況。據報道，該季度銷售額增長了 16%，其中包括額外一周帶來的收益。報告顯示，與去年同期相比，可比銷售額（週數相同）成長了 6.1%。本季度，同店銷售額成長 6.1%，這得益於汽油價格上漲約 0.5 個百分點，但也受到匯率波動帶來的輕微不利影響。

In terms of new openings, in Q4, we opened 12 new locations, 6 in the U.S., 2 in Canada and 1 each in Australia, Japan, Iceland and France, the last 2 countries being new countries for us as well. As our fiscal -- as of our fiscal year-end, we operated 741 locations worldwide, including 26 new buildings during the year. We opened 28, but 2 of them are relos.

就新店開幕而言，第四季我們開設了 12 家新店，其中 6 家在美國，2 家在加拿大，澳洲、日本、冰島和法國各 1 家，後兩個國家也是我們首次進入的市場。截至本財政年度末，我們在全球經營 741 個地點，其中包括本年度新建的 26 棟建築。我們開了 28 家店，但其中 2 家是轉售的。

This afternoon, I'll also review with you membership trends and renewal rates, an update on our cobrand Citi Visa card. I'll discuss a little bit further about margins and expenses. I'll discuss e-commerce results and some recent initiatives, a couple of other new initiatives as well. And lastly, I'll give you a recap of our September sales results for the 5-week period ended this past Sunday.

今天下午，我也會和大家一起回顧會員趨勢和續約費率，以及我們聯名花旗Visa卡的最新情況。我稍後會再詳細討論一下利潤率和費用。我將討論電子商務成果和一些近期舉措，以及其他一些新舉措。最後，我將為大家總結我們截至上週日的前五週（即九月）的銷售表現。

So on to the results. Sales for this year's fourth quarter, the 17 weeks ended September 3, were $41.36 billion, up 16% over last year's $35.73 billion. On a reported comp basis, Q4 comp sales were up 6.1%; for the quarter on a reported basis, up 5.7% after accounting for fluctuations in gas prices and FX. For the quarter, our reported 6.1% comp sales results were a combination of an average transaction increase of 2.1% for the quarter, and average shopping frequency increased for the company worldwide, 3.9% up. And within that 3.9%, it's up 4.4% for the U.S.

接下來公佈結果。今年第四季（截至 9 月 3 日的 17 週）的銷售額為 413.6 億美元，比去年同期的 357.3 億美元成長了 16%。以報告的同店銷售額計算，第四季度同店銷售額增長了 6.1%；按報告的季度銷售額計算，在考慮了汽油價格和匯率波動後，增長了 5.7%。本季度，我們報告的同店銷售額增長了 6.1%，這得益於本季度平均交易量增長了 2.1%，以及公司在全球範圍內平均購物頻率增長了 3.9%。在這 3.9% 的成長中，美國成長了 4.4%。

In terms of sales comparisons by geography. For the fourth quarter within the U.S., the Midwest, Southeast and Texas regions were the strongest with other U.S. regions not far behind. Internationally, in local currencies, better-performing countries were Japan, Mexico and the U.K.

按地域劃分的銷售額比較。在美國第四季度，中西部、東南部和德克薩斯州地區表現最為強勁，其他地區緊隨其後。從國際來看，以當地貨幣計算，表現較好的國家是日本、墨西哥和英國。

In terms of merchandise categories for the quarter, within that 6% reported comp, food and sundries up about 4%. Strong categories include spirits, deli and frozen; hardlines up in the mid-single digits. Overall, strongest department results were lawn and garden, tires, toys. And consumer electronics itself were up in the high singles.

就本季商品類別而言，在報告同店銷售額成長的 6% 中，食品和雜貨成長了約 4%。表現強勁的品類包括烈酒、熟食和冷凍食品；硬商品銷售量成長了個位數中段。整體而言，業績最好的部門是草坪和花園用品、輪胎和玩具。消費性電子產品本身也大幅上漲。

Softlines were up in the high singles overall with housewares, jewelry and home furnishings showing the best results. And in fresh foods, comp sales were in the mid-single digits, relatively consistent across various departments of meat, bakery, deli and produce. Within ancillary, gasoline had strong comps in the quarter, aided by higher average sale price this year versus last as well as very strong gallon growth. In addition, hearing aids were up in the mid-teens followed by optical and food court.

整體而言，軟線商品在高個子商品中有所上漲，其中家居用品、珠寶和家居裝飾表現最佳。在生鮮食品方面，同店銷售額增幅在個位數中段，肉類、烘焙食品、熟食及農產品等各部門的增幅相對穩定。在輔助業務方面，汽油在本季實現了強勁的同店銷售成長，這得益於今年平均售價高於去年以及銷量的強勁成長。此外，助聽器銷量成長了十幾倍，眼鏡和美食廣場的銷量也緊隨其後。

Moving to the line items of the income statement. I'll start with membership fees. Membership fees were up 13.4% or $111 million year-over-year. As a percent of sales, they were down 5 basis points, as we expected in part due simply to strong sales results. Of the $111 million increase in fees year-over-year, about $15 million related to the membership fee increases we took, a little over half of that $15 million from the fee increases taken in our international operations last September 2016, and the balance from the June 1 increases taken in the U.S. and Canada recently.

接下來來看損益表的明細項目。我先來說說會費。會員費年增 13.4%，即 1.11 億美元。佔銷售額的百分比下降了 5 個基點，正如我們預期的那樣，部分原因是強勁的銷售業績。在年比增加的 1.11 億美元費用中，約有 1500 萬美元與我們收取的會員費增加有關，其中略多於一半的 1500 萬美元來自我們在 2016 年 9 月在國際業務中收取的費用增加，其餘部分來自最近在美國和加拿大從 6 月 1 日起收取的費用增加。

In terms of membership, renewal rates are fine. There's still some slight negative renewal rate impact from the U.S. credit card conversion last year, and we expect that to continue for at least a quarter or 2, and we continue to see increased penetration of our Executive Membership.

就會員資格而言，續費價格仍可接受。去年美國信用卡轉換對續費率仍造成了一些輕微的負面影響，我們預計這種情況至少會持續一到兩個季度，同時我們也看到高級會員的滲透率持續上升。

In terms of number of members at Q4 end. At year-end -- Q3 end, we started with Gold Star of 37.8 million. And at the end of the quarter or at the end of the year, we had 38.6 million. Business, Primary was 7.4 million at each period; Business add-on, 3.4 million; total member households, 48.6 million at third quarter end; and 17 weeks later at fiscal year-end, 49.4 million.

以第四季末的成員數量來看。截至年末（第三季末），我們的金星銷售額為 3,780 萬。到季度末或年末，我們的數字為 3860 萬。商業主要用戶在每個期間為 740 萬；商業附加用戶為 340 萬；第三季末會員家庭總數為 4,860 萬；17 週後，財政年度末，會員家庭總數為 4,940 萬。

All told, cardholders were 88.9 million a quarter ago, and fourth quarter at year-end was 90.3 million. At year-end, paid Executive Memberships totaled 18.5 million, an increase of 274,000 since third quarter end, which is about 16,000 per week increase in the quarter. Executive Members are about 38% of our member base and about 2/3 of our sales.

總計，上個季度持卡人數量為 8,890 萬，而截至年底的第四季為 9,030 萬。截至年底，付費高級會員總數達到 1,850 萬，比第三季末增加了 27.4 萬，相當於該季度每週增加約 1.6 萬。高級會員約占我們會員總數的 38%，約占我們銷售額的 2/3。

In terms of renewal rates, at year-end, Business Members renewed at 94%; Gold Star members at 89.3%. These numbers are for the U.S. and Canada combined, which is over 80% of our company; and total, U.S. and Canada, 90.0%; worldwide, 87.2%, a slight tick down of 0.1% or 0.2% from the last quarter. A lot of that, as I mentioned earlier, we believe, relates to, in the U.S., the conversion last June to the new credit card program and -- with auto rebill. And we -- again, we expect that to continue to downtrend a little bit the next quarter or 2.

就續約率而言，截至年底，企業會員續約率為 94%；金星會員續約率為 89.3%。這些數字是美國和加拿大合計，占我們公司總業務量的 80% 以上；美國和加拿大總計佔 90.0%；全球佔 87.2%，比上一季略微下降了 0.1% 或 0.2%。正如我之前提到的，我們認為其中許多都與美國去年六月過渡到新的信用卡計劃以及自動續費有關。我們預計，未來一兩個季度這種情況還將繼續略有下降。

While I'm on the subject of membership, I'd like to spend a couple of minutes to respond to the many questions we get literally every day relating to concerns -- the following concerns: one, that new member sign-ups might be slowing; two, that the average number of member households per location seems to be coming down a little; and three, that with the increasing overlap of people having both a Costco membership and an Amazon Prime account and the fact that more and more people are having groceries delivered by everyone, is this the beginning of something that will impact Costco?

既然談到了會員問題，我想花幾分鐘時間回答一下我們每天都會收到的許多與會員相關的擔憂——以下是一些擔憂：第一，新會員註冊速度可能正在放緩；第二，每個地點的平均會員家庭數量似乎略有下降；第三，隨著越來越多的人同時擁有 Costco 會員資格和亞馬遜 Prime 賬戶，以及越來越多的人選擇上門送貨服務，這會影響到某些事情？

As to new memberships sign-ups slowing, we believe it's -- virtually are related to timing, the timing of openings and the timing of 2 online new membership initiatives we undertook, 1 each in the past 2 fiscal years. For example, in the first 3 fiscal quarters of 2017 -- fiscal 2017, in these 36 weeks, we opened 16 new warehouses, including 2 openings with outsized sign-ups both in Asia, a new unit in each of Korea and Taiwan. Those were done last January.

至於新會員註冊人數放緩的問題，我們認為這幾乎與時間有關，包括開放時間以及我們在過去兩個財政年度分別開展的兩項在線新會員計劃的時間。例如，在 2017 年的前三個財政季度（即 2017 財年的前 36 週），我們開設了 16 個新倉庫，其中包括在亞洲開設的 2 個新倉庫，分別位於韓國和台灣。那些事情是去年一月完成的。

Each of these locations added almost 60,000 new members to our base. In Q4, we opened -- in these 17 weeks, we opened 12 new locations, 3 with large sign-ups in Japan, Iceland and France. Again, these 3 locations each opened for only 5 to 15 weeks in the fourth quarter, added a total of 180,000 members to our base, again an average of about 60,000 new members per building. So timing of those certainly impact the numbers in terms of averages.

每個新地點都為我們的用戶群增加了近 6 萬名新成員。第四季度，我們在短短 17 週內開設了 12 家新店，其中 3 家分別位於日本、冰島和法國，註冊量很大。同樣，這 3 個地點在第四季度每個地點只營業了 5 到 15 週，總共為我們增加了 180,000 名會員，平均每棟建築新增約 60,000 名會員。因此，這些事件發生的時間肯定會對平均值產生影響。

Conversely, when we looked at openings that cannibalized existing nearby locations, you'll add maybe a few thousand, at the most, new members at that new location. The result will drive an expected $80 million to $100 million of new annual sales in that market but lower the average number of members for each building in that market by 10,000 or more.

相反，當我們檢視那些蠶食附近現有場所的新店時，可能只會為新店增加數千名新會員。這一結果預計將為該市場帶來 8,000 萬至 1 億美元的年度新銷售額，但將使該市場中每棟建築的平均會員人數減少 1 萬或更多。

The other timing issue. In the last 2 years -- fiscal years, we've done 2 online new membership drives, each with an added -- each which added an average of around 200,000 members, 1 a little less and 1 a little more. The fiscal 2016 event occurred in February of '16 near the end of our second quarter. The fiscal '17 event occurred in August in the fourth quarter this year. So again, timing played an issue with that.

另一個時間安排問題。在過去的 2 個財政年度裡，我們進行了 2 次線上新會員招募活動，每次都增加了約 20 萬名會員，一次略少一些，一次略多一些。2016 財年事件發生在 2016 年 2 月，接近我們第二季末。2017 財年事件發生於今年第四季的 8 月。所以，時機又成為了一個問題。

One last data point. If I take all of the U.S. and Canada locations and I exclude all the new openings in all locations that were being cannibalized in many cases by these new openings, the average number of members at these remaining locations grew by -- grew year-over-year from the end of fiscal '16 to the end of fiscal '17 by approximately 4% year-over-year. So our view is that we're fine, and hopefully, that answers some of the many questions we've got on these questions.

最後一個數據點。如果我把美國和加拿大的所有地點都算進去，並且排除所有地點新開設的門市（因為在很多情況下，這些新門市會蠶食原有門市的市場份額），那麼剩餘門市的平均會員人數從 2016 財年末到 2017 財年末同比增長了約 4%。所以我們認為一切都很好，希望這能解答我們對此提出的許多疑問。

As to the other questions as it relates to increased delivery options by everyone. Is it impacting us? And is it impacting our brick-and-mortar? A few comments: One, of course, our sales and our comps are strong and have even trended up. Two, our shopping frequency is strong and has also trended up. Three, our value proposition, we believe, it's stronger than ever. Four, we're just getting started on some of the new delivery options of our own, and I'll talk about that in a minute. And five, we're using online and the Internet to drive businesses both to e-commerce as well as in-store. So stay tuned, and we'll continue to discuss that in each quarter.

至於其他與增加所有人的配送選擇相關的問題。這對我們有什麼影響嗎？這是否對我們的實體店面造成了影響？幾點說明：首先，當然，我們的銷售額和同店銷售額都很強勁，甚至呈現上升趨勢。第二，我們的購物頻率很高，而且呈現上升趨勢。第三，我們相信，我們的價值主張比以往任何時候都更強大。第四，我們剛開始推出一些新的配送方式，我稍後會詳細介紹。第五，我們正在利用網路和互聯網推動企業發展電子商務和實體店業務。請關注，我們每季都會繼續討論這個問題。

Before continuing down the income statement line items, a couple of updated stats on the Citi Visa card offering. Again, this began in Q4 of last year, in June, about June 20, I believe. With the conversion to Citi Visa card in June of '16, there were 11.4 million cobranded cards or about 7.4 million accounts being transferred over to Citi. At Q4 end -- as of Q4 end, just over a year since the conversion, we now have 1.8 million new approved member accounts or about 2.4 million new cards, including about 270,000 new accounts during the past 17 weeks.

在繼續分析損益表項目之前，先提供一些關於花旗Visa信用卡產品的最新統計資料。這件事始於去年第四季度，也就是六月，大概是六月二十號左右。隨著 2016 年 6 月過渡到花旗 Visa 卡，有 1,140 萬張聯名卡或約 740 萬個帳戶轉移到了花旗銀行。截至第四季末—自轉換以來一年多一點的時間裡，我們現在有 180 萬個新的已批准會員帳戶或約 240 萬張新卡，其中包括過去 17 週內新增的約 27 萬個帳戶。

Overall, we're seeing the Citi Visa cobranded portfolio total spend higher year-over-year, both organically and from these new accounts. Despite the fact that we had a partial comparison to the conversion last year since it was midway through Q4, it was still positive year-over-year to gross margin, SG&A and EPS, and I mentioned that earlier. I should note though that we'd anticipate the year-over-year comparisons to moderate -- of course, as it did actually in Q4 as well, to moderate starting with the first quarter. Lastly, we continue to enhance the value proposition not only of being a Costco member but then being a Costco Executive Member and then, even better, a Costco Executive Member using the Citi Visa Anywhere card. I'll share a couple of new examples of that during the remainder of this call. Overall, in terms of conversion, usage and sign-ups for the card, all good at this point.

總體而言，我們看到花旗 Visa 聯名卡組合的總支出同比增長，無論是自然增長還是來自這些新帳戶的增長。儘管由於當時已是第四季度中期，我們只能與去年同期的轉換率進行部分比較，但毛利率、銷售、管理及行政費用和每股收益仍然實現了同比增長，這一點我之前已經提到過。不過我應該指出，我們預期年比數據會趨於緩和——當然，就像第四季實際出現的情況一樣，從第一季開始就會逐漸緩和。最後，我們不斷提升 Costco 會員的價值主張，不僅包括 Costco 會員，還包括 Costco 高級會員，以及更好的 Costco 高級會員使用 Citi Visa Anywhere 卡。在接下來的通話中，我將分享幾個新的例子。總體而言，就該卡的轉換率、使用率和註冊量而言，目前一切都很好。

Going down to the gross margin line. Our reported gross margin in the fourth quarter was lower year-over-year by 15 basis points. As I do always, I'll ask you to jot down a few numbers. We'll do 4 columns. The first 2 columns are year-over-year basis point changes for the third quarter. First column would be as reported, and the second column would be without gas inflation, and then Q4 reported and Q4 without gas inflation. So those will be the 4 columns.

一直到毛利率線。我們在第四季公佈的毛利率年減了 15 個基點。像往常一樣，我會請你記下幾個數字。我們將製作4列。前兩列是第三季年比基點變動。第一列為已報告數據，第二列為未計入天然氣通膨的數據，然後是第四季度已報告數據和第四季未計入天然氣通膨的數據。所以這就是全部4列。

First line item would be core merchandising. In Q3, we reported improvement year-over-year of plus 7 basis points; without gas inflation, plus 20; this year, in Q4, minus 8 and minus 3. Ancillary in Q3 was plus 15 reported and plus 19 ex inflation in gas; in Q4, minus 1 and plus 1. 2% Reward from Executive Membership, minus 2 and minus 4; in the third and fourth columns, plus 1 and 0. LIFO, minus 5 and minus 5 in Q3; and minus 9 and minus 9 in Q4.

第一項是核心商品。第三季度，我們報告稱年比改善7個基點；剔除天然氣通膨因素後，改善20個基點；今年第四季度，年比分別下降8個基點和下降3個基點。第三季輔助收入報告為15個基點，剔除天然氣通膨因素後為19個基點；第四季分別為下降1個基點和上升1個基點。 2%的執行會員獎勵分別為下降2個基點和下降4個基點；第三列和第四列分別為上升1個基點和下降0個基點。後進先出法（LIFO）在第三季分別為下降5個基點和下降5個基點；在第四季分別為下降9個基點和下降9個基點。

Other, minus 7 and minus 7 in Q3; and the 2 columns for Q4, plus 2 and plus 2. So all told, on a reported basis in Q3 '17 year-over-year, we were up 8 basis points; without gas inflation, up 23; and in Q4, on a reported basis, down 15, and without gas inflation, minus 9. Now mind you in these numbers, the Citi Visa impact, as I mentioned earlier, in Q4 was plus 14 as -- on a reported basis and on a -- without gas inflation. So if you look at it that way, the plus -- the minus 15 would be minus 29 ex that, and the minus 9 would be minus 23 ex that.

其他因素在第三季均為-7；第四季的兩列分別為+2和+2。因此，總的來說，以報告數據計算，2017年第三季度同比上升8個基點；剔除汽油通膨因素後，上升23個基點；第四季度，按報告數據計算下降15個基點，剔除汽油通膨因素後下降9個基點。請注意，正如我之前提到的，花旗Visa卡在第四季度的影響為+14——無論按報告數據計算還是剔除汽油通膨因素後。所以如果你這樣看，加號－減 15 就是減 29，減 9 就是減 23。

Now overall, as I mentioned, reported margins were 15 basis points down year-over-year; and 9 ex gas; and as I just mentioned, taking out the Citi Visa benefit, minus 29 and minus 23.

總的來說，正如我之前提到的，報告的利潤率同比下降了 15 個基點；剔除汽油業務後下降了 9 個基點；正如我剛才提到的，剔除花旗 Visa 卡的優惠後，利潤率分別下降了 29 個基點和 23 個基點。

Now within that, the core merchandise component of gross margin was lower by 8 reported; but 3 excluding gas. As I've shared before, the subcategories within our gross -- our core gross margin, which is almost 80% of our sales than anywhere else, food and sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh foods. As a percent of their own sales, they were essentially flat year-over-year notwithstanding the investing in price that we have done during the course of this; with food and sundries and softlines being up a little bit year-over-year and hardlines and fresh being down a little bit, again investing in price.

其中，毛利率的核心商品部分下降了 8%；但如果不包括汽油，則下降了 3%。正如我之前分享過的，我們的毛利細分為以下幾個子類別——我們的核心毛利（占我們銷售額的近 80%，比其他任何地方都高）、食品和雜貨、硬線、軟線和新鮮食品。儘管我們在此期間進行了價格投資，但就其自身銷售額的百分比而言，它們與去年同期基本持平；食品、雜貨和軟性商品同比略有增長，而硬性商品和生鮮商品則略有下降，這同樣是由於價格投資所致。

Ancillary and other business gross margin was down 1 basis point; up 1 basis point ex gas inflation. In the quarter, higher year-over-year margin contribution in gasoline, hearing aids, business centers and travel was offset by lower year-over-year margin contribution in e-commerce, again investing in price as well as pharmacy lower margins year-over-year.

輔助業務及其他業務毛利率下降 1 個基點；剔除天然氣通膨因素後上升 1 個基點。本季度，汽油、助聽器、商務中心和旅遊業務的利潤率同比上升，但電子商務業務的利潤率同比下降，這抵消了去年同期利潤率下降的影響。此外，由於投資於價格以及藥局業務的利潤率年減，公司利潤率也隨之下降。

LIFO. I already shared with you the fact that we had a LIFO credit last year to the tune of $31 million versus 0 this year. So year-over-year, that was the 9 basis point delta. And Hurricane Harvey -- well, that was the net of 2 items. So I won't go through that one. But overall, margins were down relative to last year, and we feel it's a function of our own initiative to drive sales and enhance member loyalty and satisfaction.

後進先出。我已經和你們分享過，去年我們有 3100 萬美元的後進先出 (LIFO) 收益，而今年是 0 美元。所以與去年同期相比，變動幅度為 9 個基點。至於颶風哈維——嗯，那其實是兩項災害的總和。所以我就不贅述了。但總體而言，利潤率較去年有所下降，我們認為這是我們自身積極推動銷售、提高會員忠誠度和滿意度的結果。

Moving to reported SG&A. Our reported SG&A year-over-year in Q4 was better or lower by 37 basis points and 31 without gas inflation, coming in at 9.97% for the year compared to 10.34% last year. Excluding the Citi Visa benefit -- and again, the Citi Visa benefit was 8 basis points benefit to SG&A year-over-year lower. Again, I'll ask you to jot down those 4 columns, Q3 reported and Q3 without gas and then Q4 reported and Q4 without gas.

轉為已報告的銷售、一般及行政費用。據報道，第四季銷售、一般及行政費用年減了 37 個基點，若不計入天然氣通膨，則下降了 31 個基點，全年為 9.97%，而去年為 10.34%。不包括花旗 Visa 卡優惠——而且，花旗 Visa 卡優惠使銷售、一般及行政費用年減了 8 個基點。我再次請你記下這 4 列數據：第三季報告數據、第三季未報告數據、第四季報告數據和第四季未報告數據。

In terms of core operations. In Q3, plus 21 basis points -- and plus means good or lower; and plus 9 without gas; in Q4, plus 32 and plus 27. Central, minus 1 and minus 3; and in Q4, reported and adjusted for gas, plus 8 and plus 7. Stock compensation, minus 1 and minus 1; and then in Q4, 0 and 0. Other, minus 5 and minus 5; and then in Q4, minus 3 and minus 3.

就核心營運而言。第三季加 21 個基點－加表示良好或更低；不含天然氣加 9 個基點；第四季加 32 個基點，加 27 個基點。中央部門，-1 和 -3；第四季度，經報告和調整天然氣後，加 8 和加 7。股票補償，-1 和 -1；第四季度，0 和 0。其他，-5 和 -5；第四季度，-3 和 -3。

So reported Q3, lower or plus 14 basis points reported; and flat without gas inflation. And reported, plus 37 or lower by 37 basis points year-over-year; and plus 31 or lower by 31 basis points ex gas. And again, each of those numbers, those -- that 37 and 31, you could adjust -- you could look at it from the standpoint that 8 basis points came from the improvement year-over-year related to the Citi Visa card. And while that's been a great improvement each of the last 4 quarters as it was to margin, we'll start to see that benefit -- we'll still expect to see some benefit, but it will be greatly reduced after the first full year.

據報告，第三季通膨率下降或上升 14 個基點；若不計入天然氣通膨，通膨率持平。據報道，年漲 37 或下跌 37 個基點；剔除天然氣後，較去年同期上漲 31 或下跌 31 個基點。再說一遍，這些數字，那些——37 和 31，你可以調整——你可以從這個角度來看，8 個基點來自花旗 Visa 卡同比的改進。雖然過去四個季度利潤率都有了很大的提高，但我們將開始看到這種好處——我們仍然希望看到一些好處，但在第一個完整年度之後，這種好處將大大減少。

In terms of our SG&A performance in Q4, the operations component again was quite good. Strong top line sales frankly led to year-over-year improvement in payroll benefits and other items, particularly bank fees. Central expense was lower year-over-year by 8 basis points and 7 without gas. Again, we saw nice improvement in payroll and benefits expense percentages, again offset very slightly by 1 basis point from IT modernization. And lastly, other was worse by 3 basis points that impacted negatively and that was the $11 million I mentioned earlier related to Hurricane Harvey.

就我們第四季的銷售、一般及行政費用表現而言，營運部分再次表現相當不錯。強勁的營收成長直接帶動了薪資福利和其他項目（尤其是銀行手續費）的年比改善。中央支出較去年同期下降 8 個基點，若不計天然氣則下降 7 個基點。薪資和福利支出百分比再次出現明顯改善，但 IT 現代化帶來的 1 個基點的影響再次略微抵消了這種改善。最後，其他方面的情況更糟，下降了 3 個基點，產生了負面影響，那就是我之前提到的與颶風哈維有關的 1,100 萬美元。

Next on the income statement is preopening expense. Last year in Q4, we had $24 million. This year was $6 million higher at $30 million. Last year, we opened 11 new units -- 11 units, 10 that are relos. 2 of those 11 were international. This year, while we opened up only 1 more, 12 total, 6 were international, and international tend to have higher preopening. Overall, higher year over preopening cost is -- again, it's a higher -- really a reflection of higher penetration from international. All told, operating income in Q4 came in at $1,450,000,000, up $259 million or 22% higher year-over-year than last year's results.

損益表上的下一個項目是開業前費用。去年第四季度，我們有 2400 萬美元。今年比去年同期高出600萬美元，達到3,000萬美元。去年，我們開設了 11 個新單元——11 個單元，其中 10 個是搬遷單元。這11人中有2人是國際球員。今年，雖然我們只新增了 1 家門市（總共 12 家），但其中 6 家是國際門市，而國際門市往往開業前的準備工作比較多。總體而言，開業前成本高於往年同期水準——再次強調，確實更高——這實際上反映了國際市場滲透率的提高。第四季總營業收入為 14.5 億美元，比去年同期成長 2.59 億美元，增幅達 22%。

Below the operating income line, reported net interest expense came in at $53 million as compared to $39 million last year, primarily a result of the incremental new debt offering we did this past May in conjunction with the special dividend, which was discussed in last quarter's earnings call, plus there's 1 extra week in Q4 this year than last year.

在營業收入之外，報告的淨利息支出為 5300 萬美元，而去年同期為 3900 萬美元，這主要是由於我們在今年 5 月與特別股息一起發行了新增債務，這在上個季度的收益電話會議上已經討論過，此外，今年的第四季度比去年多了一周。

Interest income and other was lower year-over-year by $7 million, coming in at $22 million this year compared to $29 million last year. Within that number, actual interest income for the quarter was better year-over-year by $5 million. However, it was more than offset by that minus $12 million of FX-related items I discussed at the beginning of the call. Overall, pretax income was higher by 20% or $238 million higher in Q4, coming in at $1,419,000,000 this year.

利息收入和其他收入年減了 700 萬美元，今年為 2,200 萬美元，而去年為 2,900 萬美元。其中，本季實際利息收入比去年同期增加了 500 萬美元。然而，這與我在電話會議開始時提到的 1200 萬美元外匯相關項目相比，損失完全被抵消了。總體而言，第四季稅前收入成長了 20%，即增加了 2.38 億美元，達到 14.19 億美元。

In terms of income taxes, our tax rate in Q4 '17 came in at 34.3% for the quarter compared to 33.6% last year. Again, as I mentioned earlier in the call, we benefited from the 2 positive discrete items -- tax items in both fourth quarters but are -- but more last year than this year. Our effective rate for the entire fiscal year that we just ended came in at 35.36%. With that, reported net income was higher by 18% or coming in at $919 million this year compared to $779 million in net income reported last year in Q4.

就所得稅而言，我們 2017 年第四季的稅率為 34.3%，而去年同期為 33.6%。正如我之前在電話會議中提到的，我們受益於兩個積極的離散項目——第四季度的稅收項目，但去年比今年更多。我們剛結束的整個財政年度的實際利率為 35.36%。因此，今年報告的淨收入比去年第四季報告的淨收入 7.79 億美元成長了 18%，達到 9.19 億美元。

For now for a quick rundown of other topics. The balance sheet is included in today's press release; a couple of balance sheet info items. Depreciation and amortization in Q4 totaled $441 million, so for the entire year, depreciation of $1,370,000,000.

現在我們快速回顧一下其他主題。今天的新聞稿中包含了資產負債表；以下是一些資產負債表資訊。第四季折舊和攤提總額為 4.41 億美元，因此全年折舊總額為 13.7 億美元。

Our accounts payable ratio, if you recall last year, we were converting in IT our accounting system. So we paid an extra week of invoices early to make sure we weren't going to run into any snafus with that conversion on day 1 of the fiscal year that just ended. But adjusting for that, our -- last year, our accounts payable as a percent of inventories was 104%. Reported was 85% but 104% taking that adjustment out, down at -- it came down to 98% at the end of this fiscal year.

如果您還記得的話，去年我們正在對IT部門的會計系統進行轉換，這是我們應付帳款比率的調整。因此，我們提前支付了一周的帳款，以確保在剛結束的財政年度的第一天，轉換過程中不會出現任何問題。但考慮到這一點，去年我們的應付帳款佔庫存的百分比為 104%。報告顯示為 85%，但扣除該調整後為 104%，下降到——在本財政年度結束時下降到 98%。

If you take construction payables out there and other types of payables that are not merchandise, last year's normalized number at year-end was 91%, a little down at 89%, roughly 90% in both year-ends of last year on a merchandise-only basis and normalized for that -- paying the bills out early.

如果將建築應付款項和其他非商品應付款項排除在外，去年年底的正常化數字為 91%，略微下降至 89%，去年兩個年末僅按商品為基礎並進行正常化處理後約為 90%——提前支付帳單。

In terms of average inventory per warehouse, this year at fourth quarter-end, it was about $12.28 million per location; last year, $11.85 million, so up about $430,000 per location. There is -- that's at the warehouse level. We've broken out this time the increase in inventories elsewhere because we have quite a bit of expanded inventory with our expansion of e-commerce fulfillment locations and activities as well as some of the vertical integration things we're doing in those businesses.

就每個倉庫的平均庫存而言，今年第四季末，每個倉庫約為 1,228 萬美元；去年為 1,185 萬美元，因此每個倉庫增加了約 43 萬美元。有的——那是在倉庫層面。這次我們單獨列出了其他地區的庫存增加情況，因為隨著我們擴大電子商務履行地點和活動，以及我們在這些業務中開展的一些垂直整合工作，我們的庫存也大幅增加。

In terms of CapEx. In Q4, we spent -- we expended $779 million, which, for all of 2017, would put us right at $2.5 billion, which is about the same as fiscal '16. We'd anticipate spending to be a little higher in fiscal '18 not only as it relates to the net increase -- relates to the sum of everything we do, not only openings but also some manufacturing businesses that we're expanding as well as e-commerce and some other things.

就資本支出而言。第四季度，我們支出了 7.79 億美元，2017 年全年支出將達到 25 億美元，與 2016 財年大致相同。我們預計 2018 財年的支出會略高一些，這不僅與淨成長有關——與我們所做的一切的總和有關，不僅包括新開的門市，還包括我們正在擴張的一些製造業業務、電子商務以及其他一些方面。

Next, in terms of e-commerce, we're, of course, in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Mexico, Korea and Taiwan. You should expect additional countries to be open over the next year, 1.5 years. Total e-commerce sales in fiscal 2017 came in at $4.6 billion, up 15% from -- right at $4 billion at the end of -- for fiscal '16. For Q4, sales were -- profits were, of course, up. Total e-commerce sales were up 27% in the quarter. Of course, that includes an extra week, 17 versus 16 weeks, and up 21% on a comp sales basis with a trending positive during the roughly 4 months of the quarter.

其次，就電子商務而言，我們當然在美國、加拿大、英國、墨西哥、韓國和台灣開展業務。預計未來一年到一年半內，會有更多國家開放。2017 財年電子商務總銷售額為 46 億美元，比 2016 財年末的 40 億美元成長了 15%。第四季銷售額——當然，利潤有所增長。本季電子商務總銷售額成長了27%。當然，這包括多出一周時間，從 16 週延長到 17 週，同店銷售額增長了 21%，並且在本季度大約 4 個月的時間裡，銷售額呈上升趨勢。

As discussed over the past few quarters, much of our efforts over the past year focused on improving the functionality of our site. We improved search, streamlined the checkout process, improved our members' ability to track their orders, and automated much of the returns process. And we also improved our online merchandising efforts by adding high-end and well-known brand names, a few examples of late, Marmot, Spyder, ExOfficio, GE Appliances and Jiffy Lube services. We've expanded our KS offerings.

正如過去幾季所討論的那樣，過去一年我們的大部分精力都集中在改進我們網站的功能上。我們改進了搜尋功能，簡化了結帳流程，提高了會員追蹤訂單的能力，並實現了大部分退貨流程的自動化。此外，我們還透過增加高端和知名品牌名稱來改善我們的線上商品銷售工作，例如最近的 Marmot、Spyder、ExOfficio、GE Appliances 和 Jiffy Lube 服務。我們擴大了KS產品範圍。

We're providing new hot buys, limited-time offers with extra discounts. We're also -- we've started doing what we call Buyer's Picks and unique offerings through our partnership -- Buyer's Picks; and lastly, some unique offerings through partnerships with Citi Visa, where we're offering in the cases of -- we've done it with Samsung Electronics. We've done it with tires and a few other things where you buy it at Costco and you use your Citi Visa card. On top of all the other great savings, there's anywhere from a 10% to 15% cash offer.

我們提供最新熱銷商品、限時特惠以及額外折扣。我們也——我們已經開始透過我們的合作關係推出我們稱之為「買家精選」和獨特產品——「買家精選」；最後，透過與花旗Visa的合作推出了一些獨特產品，例如——我們已經與三星電子合作推出了一些產品。我們已經用這種方法在 Costco 購買輪胎和其他一些商品，並使用您的 Citi Visa 卡進行付款。除了其他許多優惠之外，還有 10% 到 15% 的現金回饋優惠。

And leveraging. As well, we're leveraging our global brick-and-mortar buying power to expand and improve our online value proposition by lowering prices even further. Lastly, we continue to build awareness of our site with Costco members through warehouse signage, special offers and targeted e-mails. I expect us to discuss some of those activities more in 2018.

以及槓桿作用。此外，我們正在利用我們在全球實體店的採購優勢，透過進一步降低價格來擴大和改善我們的線上價值主張。最後，我們繼續透過倉庫標誌、特價優惠和定向電子郵件來提高 Costco 會員對我們網站的認知度。我希望我們在 2018 年能更多地討論其中的一些活動。

We feel that all these efforts, which are ongoing, result in increased traffic in sales, both online and in-store during the past couple of quarters in particular. Looking forward, we'll continue to expand these types of activities to drive our businesses. You'll hear more from us in the coming quarters about driving online sales with ongoing site improvements, improved online marketing activities and, of course, along with great products and services at fantastic prices. That's what we do.

我們認為，所有這些持續進行的努力，尤其是在過去幾個季度，都帶來了線上和線下銷售流量的成長。展望未來，我們將繼續擴大此類活動，以推動業務發展。在接下來的幾個季度裡，我們將更多地向您介紹如何透過持續的網站改進、改進的線上行銷活動以及當然還有物美價廉的產品和服務來推動線上銷售。這就是我們所做的。

In terms of what's new. 3 days ago, we rolled out 2 new online delivery-related offerings: the first, CostcoGrocery, which is -- which consists of nonperishable food and sundries items. This offers 2-day delivery on dry grocery; and a second, an expanded white-label, same-day grocery delivery offering through our partnership with Instacart that includes both dry and fresh grocery. You can find both sites by going to costco.com and then clicking on the grocery tab. You'll then be taken to a page offering and explaining both of these new online delivery options.

就新增內容而言。3 天前，我們推出了 2 項新的線上配送相關服務：第一項是 CostcoGrocery，它包含不易腐爛的食品和雜貨。這項服務提供乾貨雜貨 2 天送達；其次，我們透過與 Instacart 的合作，提供擴展的白標當日雜貨配送服務，包括乾貨和新鮮雜貨。您可以透過造訪 costco.com 並點擊食品雜貨標籤找到這兩個網站。然後您將被帶到一個頁面，該頁面提供並解釋這兩個新的線上配送選項。

A few details about each option. As it relates to CostcoGrocery, just under 500 dry grocery SKUs; again, no fresh; free delivery with orders over $75; 2-day or less delivery throughout the Continental United States. The boxes are up to 40-pound shipment through UPS. Orders are fulfilled at several of our business delivery centers. These offer very competitive pricing and value proposition, in fact, significantly better pricing than even we had at costco.com on many of these items. We'd expect to expand these offerings over time.

關於每種方案的一些細節。CostcoGrocery 提供近 500 種乾貨 SKU；同樣，沒有新鮮食品；訂單滿 75 美元即可享受免費送貨；美國大陸地區 2 天或更短時間內送達。這些箱子重量不超過 40 磅，可透過 UPS 寄送。訂單由我們多個業務配送中心負責處理。這些商品的價格和性價比都非常有競爭力，事實上，許多商品的價格甚至比我們在 costco.com 上看到的價格還要優惠得多。我們預計未來將逐步擴大這些產品和服務範圍。

The second option I mentioned, Instacart white label. This is currently offered at 376 of our U.S. locations -- are live with it. And we -- there'll be a number of additional U.S. locations planned added between now and the end of calendar '18 as our partnership expands. There are approximately 1,700 SKUs, both dry and fresh, that are offered and can be fulfilled through the Instacart white-label option. Again, I mentioned it's same-day delivery. It's same-day delivery. It's also a very competitive pricing value proposition, better than before. And again, Costco members will now have access to our promotional pricing like on MVMs as well. Costco Executive Members will also receive the 2% Reward, and members utilizing the cobranded Costco Visa card will now earn that 2% on these purchases, similar to in-store purchases; just starting this week and stay tuned.

我提到的第二個選擇是 Instacart 白標服務。目前，我們在美國 376 個地點提供這項服務——該服務已上線。而且，隨著我們合作關係的擴大，從現在到 2018 年底，我們還將計劃在美國增加一些新的地點。目前提供約 1700 種 SKU，包括乾貨和新鮮商品，可透過 Instacart 白標選項進行配送。我再次強調，是當日送達。當日送達。它的價格也很有競爭力，比以前更好。此外，Costco 會員現在也可以享受 MVM 等商品的促銷價格。Costco Executive 會員也將獲得 2% 的獎勵，使用 Costco 聯名 Visa 卡的會員現在也可以在這些購物中獲得 2% 的獎勵，與店內購物類似；這項優惠從本週開始，敬請期待。

Next on the discussion list here, warehouse expansion. For fiscal '17, we opened 26 net new units, about 3.5% square footage growth. For fiscal '18, we'd expect to open about 25 net new warehouses, a little under 2/3 of them in the U.S. and about 1/3 internationally. As well, we plan to relocate 6 warehouses to better located and larger facilities. That compares to 2 to 3 relos in each of the last several years. At -- as of Q4-end, total warehouse square footage stood at 107.3 million square feet.

接下來要討論的議題是倉庫擴建。2017 財年，我們淨新增 26 個單元，建築面積成長約 3.5%。2018 財年，我們預計將淨增加約 25 個倉庫，其中略低於 2/3 位於美國，約 1/3 位於國際市場。此外，我們計劃將 6 個倉庫搬遷到位置更好、規模更大的場所。相比之下，過去幾年每年只有 2 到 3 起搬遷。截至第四季末，倉庫總面積為 1.073 億平方英尺。

In terms of stock buybacks, in the first 3 fiscal quarters of 2017, over these 36 weeks, we expended $233 million to buy just under 1.5 million shares at an average price of $156.51. In Q4, these 17 weeks, we expended a little more than that $233 million. We expended $240 million for about 1.5 million shares at an average price of $159.21 a share; so for the year, $473 million on stock repurchases, 2.998 million shares repurchased at an average price of $157.87.

就股票回購而言，在 2017 年的前三個財季，也就是這 36 週內，我們花了 2.33 億美元，以平均每股 156.51 美元的價格回購了略低於 150 萬股的股票。第四季度，也就是這 17 周里，我們的支出略高於 2.33 億美元。我們花了 2.4 億美元，以每股 159.21 美元的平均價格回購了約 150 萬股；因此，本年度我們共花費 4.73 億美元用於股票回購，以每股 157.87 美元的平均價格回購了 299.8 萬股。

In terms of dividends, our current dividend stands at $0.50 per share per quarter. That's up 11% from the previous quarterly amount. This yearly $2 per share annualized dividend represents a total payout from the company of approximately $880 million.

就股息而言，我們目前的股息為每股每季 0.50 美元。這比上一季成長了11%。這項每年每股 2 美元的年度股息，代表公司總共約 8.8 億美元的股利。

Finally, before I turn it back for Q&A, I'll discuss September sales results. For September, which is the 5 weeks ended this past Sunday, sales for the 5-week month were $12.4 billion, up 12.1% from the comparable 5-week period last year of $11.06 billion. They were up -- sorry, yes, they were up 12.1%.

最後，在進入問答環節之前，我將討論一下九月的銷售表現。截至上週日結束的9月（共5週），銷售額為124億美元，比去年同期（110.6億美元）成長了12.1%。他們上漲了——抱歉，是的，他們上漲了 12.1%。

On a reported comp basis, September comp sales were up 8.9% and 6.2% after accounting for fluctuation in gas prices and FX. For September, our reported 8.9% comp was a combination of an average transaction increase of 4.1%. And again, that 4.1%, of course, includes the benefits from FX and gas; and an average shopping frequency of 4.7% worldwide, and within the 4.7%, a 5.4% in the U.S.

以報告的同店銷售額計算，9 月同店銷售額成長 8.9%，扣除汽油價格和匯率波動後成長 6.2%。9 月份，我們報告的 8.9% 的同店銷售額成長是平均交易金額成長 4.1% 的結果。當然，這 4.1% 也包括外匯和汽油的好處；全球平均購物頻率為 4.7%，而美國在這 4.7% 中，購物頻率為 5.4%。

Gasoline price inflation and FX both contributed positively in the month. Gas added 160 basis points, while FX was favorable in the month by 110 basis points.

汽油價格上漲和匯率波動都對當月業績產生了正面影響。天然氣價格上漲 160 個基點，而外匯市場本月上漲 110 個基點。

Cannibalization impacted Canada in September by 325 basis points. As you know, we opened, I believe, 6 or 7 locations on a base of 90 -- in the low 90s this year, so a lot of cannibalization going out there, while the U.S. was negatively impacted by 60 basis points and Other International by 155; so total company 110 basis points of impact in cannibalization. And I -- as -- I'm not sure if I mentioned early, e-commerce, comp sales in the month were up 30%.

9月份，蠶食效應使加拿大經濟成長下降了325個基點。如您所知，我們今年在 90 個基數（90 個基數左右）的基礎上，新開了 6 或 7 個門店，因此出現了大量的內部競爭，而美國市場受到 60 個基點的負面影響，其他國際市場受到 155 個基點的負面影響；因此，公司整體受到 110 個基點的內部競爭影響。而且—我不確定我之前是否提到過，電子商務方面，當月同店銷售額成長了 30%。

In terms of sales by geographic region, Texas and Midwest, both low double digits, were strongest with California and the Southeast regions being in the 7% range. Internationally, in local currencies, better performing countries were Japan, Mexico and the U.K.

從地理區域的銷售額來看，德州和中西部地區的銷售額最高，均為兩位數低段；加州和東南部地區的銷售額在 7% 左右。從國際來看，以當地貨幣計算，表現較好的國家是日本、墨西哥和英國。

In terms of merchandise categories for September, within food and sundries, tobacco, candy and cooler were the leaders. Tobacco, of course, we've anniversaried back in June some of the big declines, and we're seeing strength since that point. For hardlines, which was up low double digits, strongest department results were lawn and garden, automotive, tires, consumer electronics and toys. Softlines, which were up in the mid-single digits, housewares, small appliance, domestics and apparel showed strong results -- strongest results. And in fresh foods, comp sales, which were in the mid-single digits, again consistent pretty much across most -- all 4 main categories.

就9月的商品類別而言，在食品和日用品中，菸草、糖果和冷藏箱銷售量領先。當然，菸草業的情況是，我們在六月經歷了大幅下跌，但從那以後，我們看到了強勁的勢頭。硬線商品銷售額實現了兩位數的小幅成長，其中草坪和花園用品、汽車用品、輪胎、消費性電子產品和玩具的業績最為強勁。軟線產品（增幅為個位數中段）、家居用品、小型家電、家用產品和服裝均表現強勁——表現最為出色。在生鮮食品方面，同店銷售額也保持在個位數中段水平，而且在所有 4 個主要類別中都基本保持一致。

Within ancillary, gasoline again had very strong comps in the month, driven by both high -- both price inflation and the cost of gallon of gas as well as strong comp gallon growth. In addition, hearing aids were up in the teens, and optical was not far behind.

在輔助品方面，汽油價格本月再次出現非常強勁的同店銷售成長，這主要得益於高企的價格通膨和每加侖汽油成本的上漲，以及強勁的同店銷售成長。此外，助聽器銷量成長了十幾個百分點，眼鏡銷量也緊跟其後。

Lastly, before I turn it back for Q&A, our fiscal '18 first quarter scheduled earnings release date for the 12 weeks, first quarter ending on November 26. These will be reported after market close on Thursday, December 14, with the earnings call that afternoon at 2:00 Pacific time.

最後，在回到問答環節之前，我們宣布 2018 財年第一季（截至 11 月 26 日的第一季）12 週的預定收益發布日期。這些消息將於12月14日星期四股市收盤後公佈，財報電話會議將於太平洋時間當天下午2點舉行。

With that, I'll be happy to answer questions, and I'll turn it over back to Christy.

那麼，我很樂意回答問題，現在我把話題交還給克里斯蒂。

(Operator Instructions) First question comes from the line of Simon Gutman from Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的西蒙古特曼。

It's Simeon. The first -- I wanted to ask one on membership and I want to ask another on gross margins. So first on membership, the renewal rates have been moderating a little bit, and there's been some explanation behind it. I think there was some credit card friction. And then regarding -- and I'm just curious if that's still the case. Or what's going on there? And then -- and as part of that, the membership growth, can you talk to the composition in the U.S. versus international?

是西蒙。第一個問題──我想問一個關於會員制的問題，另一個問題──我想問一個關於毛利率的問題。首先，關於會員資格，續費率已經有所緩和，這背後有一些解釋。我認為其中存在一些信用卡糾紛。關於這一點——我只是好奇現在情況是否仍然如此。或是那裡發生了什麼事？然後－作為會員成長的一部分，您能否談談美國會員組成與國際會員組成有何不同？

Yes. Again, in terms of renewal rate, we believe the biggest issue is the auto bill. When I -- when we look back at Canada, which occurred 1.5, 2 years prior, the conversion up there, from its peak renewal rate, I think, all the way back to early fiscal '15, if I looked out 6 quarters, it came down about a full percentage point. It's now actually 0.1% above where it was a year -- that year earlier at its peak. So -- and when I look at the -- we're now 4 to 5 -- 4.5 quarters into it, not 6, and it's down -- again, it was down a full percentage point in the U.S. And recognize it's a little bit different scenario with conversion, but it's down about 0.7%. So we believe that's what it is. We don't -- when we look at -- we talked to the membership marketing people, and we ask them about what are the reasons when somebody doesn't renew. We get consistent answers of what they've heard for the last several years. So our view at this point is that we're not seeing -- we're not concerned about it. We'll have to see what happens over the next couple quarters if after that it doesn't change, but we assume it will at this point. And I'm sorry, the second...

是的。再說一遍，就續保率而言，我們認為最大的問題是汽車帳單。當我們回顧加拿大的情況時，也就是 1.5 到 2 年前，那裡的轉換率從其最高續約率，我認為，一直追溯到 2015 財年初，如果我觀察 6 個季度，它下降了大約一個百分點。現在實際上比一年前（即前一年的峰值）高出 0.1%。所以——當我查看——現在已經過去了 4 到 5 個季度——4.5 個季度，而不是 6 個季度，而且下降了——再說一遍，在美國下降了一個百分點。我知道由於轉換率的原因，情況略有不同，但下降了約 0.7%。所以我們認為就是這樣。我們沒有——當我們查看時——我們與會員行銷人員交談過，我們詢問他們有人不續訂的原因是什麼。我們得到的答案始終如一，與他們過去幾年聽到的答案相同。所以目前我們的看法是，我們並不認為──我們並不擔心。接下來幾季的情況如何，我們還要觀察一下，看看之後情況是否會有所改變，但目前我們認為情況會有所改變。我很抱歉，第二個…

And then the membership. If you just look at the overall membership, trying to dissect what the U.S. run rate is or how are -- I guess, same unit membership trends, I guess if you can try to take out cannibalization, just the direction and what the trend line's been in the U.S.

然後是會員資格。如果你只看整體會員人數，試圖剖析美國的會員成長率或－我想，相同的單位會員趨勢，我想如果你能排除蠶食效應，只看方向和美國的趨勢線。

Well, in the U.S. and Canada, which again, is 80% of our company, 80-plus percent of our company, it was 4. We just did that because we're getting the question every day. We can look at it. I don't have enough -- we didn't do that. We -- actually, we're trying to respond to some of the many questions. I think internationally, particularly since you've got newer units internationally particularly in Asia and Australia, which is where you're impacted, less so in Mexico and U.K. where it's older, my sense is you'll see the same thing. It'll be positive but greatly affected by cannibalization. When you've got -- in a city in Taiwan where you've got 2 very high-volume units, which -- with well over 60,000 members per warehouse and you open up a new one, you're still going to get a lot of new openings -- not a lot of new members relative to what we see here, but my guess it's still -- that's going to cause it to come down. So again, it has more to do with timing than any -- cannibalization than anything. I just don't have beyond that. Canada is -- and the U.S. are pretty similar.

嗯，在美國和加拿大，也就是我們公司 80% 以上的地區，這個數字是 4。我們這樣做是因為我們每天都會被問到這個問題。我們可以看看。我沒有足夠的——我們沒有做到。實際上，我們正​​在努力回答一些問題。我認為在國際上，尤其是在亞洲和澳大利亞，由於國際上有很多較新的設備，而墨西哥和英國的設備比較老舊，受到的影響較小，我的感覺是，你會看到同樣的情況。這會是正面的，但會受到蠶食效應的極大影響。在台灣的一個城市，有兩個銷量非常高的倉庫，每個倉庫的會員人數都超過 6 萬，如果你再開設一個新倉庫，你仍然會迎來很多新店開張——雖然相對於我們這裡的情況，新會員的數量不會很多，但我猜這仍然會導致會員人數下降。所以，歸根究底，這更多的是時機問題，而不是其他任何因素——是蠶食效應。我僅此而已。加拿大和美國非常相似。

Okay. And then my follow-up was on gross margin. And I don't expect you to give a clear answer because I don't think you give a lot on the outlook. But trying to think of price investment in particular, right, there's been a pretty favorable trend up until this quarter. And I think you said down 3 ex fuel. So I guess, how do you think of the price investment? I know it's constant for the business, but you'll have some tough compares as you head into next year both on a gross margin and an overall EBIT growth perspective. So how do you think of that as the next several quarters play out?

好的。然後我的後續問題是關於毛利率的。我不指望你能給出明確的答案，因為我覺得你對前景的看法不多。但就價格投資而言，尤其如此，到目前為止，趨勢一直相當有利。我想你說過要減少 3 盎司燃料。所以我想問，您如何看待價格投資？我知道這對企業來說是常態，但從毛利率和整體息稅前利潤成長的角度來看，明年你們將面臨一些嚴峻的比較。那麼，您如何看待接下來幾季的發展呢？

Well, I mean, in a couple of words, we're fine. I think what we saw this fiscal quarter in terms of sales growth cures a lot of things and driving it with value. We've had a good fortune of having better-than-expected economics from our new credit card, and we certainly -- we just -- are just starting the benefit, if you will, to the membership fee line item, which will start -- continue over the next 20-ish quarters -- 20-ish months as the fee increase in the U.S. and Canada. That is -- again, that's a fee increase that's about $240 million peaking 12 months after we started. It takes 23 months because of deferred accounting get in there. So there's plenty to go around, and our view is that we can do both and we feel quite good. Oh, let me add one last comment on that, I forgot to mention. A big chunk of it also is penetration of gas. Gas -- while gas was great year-over-year, profitability was great, it's a much lower-margin business. It's 9% or -- 9% to 10% -- 9-plus percent of our total sales at 500 to 700 less margin -- basis points of margin. So when you've got huge, increasing sales price per gallon and 10-plus percent sales growth on 10% of your business, that ate into it as well. I'll take that lower-margin percentage every day for $40 extra million of profits in the quarter.

嗯，我的意思是，簡單來說，我們很好。我認為本財季的銷售成長解決了許多問題，而成長的驅動力是價值。我們很幸運，新信用卡帶來的經濟效益比預期要好，而且我們當然——我們才剛剛——開始享受會員費帶來的好處，而隨著美國和加拿大的會員費上漲，這種好處將在接下來的大約 20 個季度（20 個月）內持續下去。也就是說——再說一遍，這是一次費用上漲，在我們開始後的 12 個月內達到峰值，漲幅約為 2.4 億美元。由於遞延會計處理，需要 23 個月才能完成。所以資源很充足，我們的觀點是我們可以兩者兼顧，而且我們感覺很好。哦，我還有最後補充一點，我忘了提。其中很大一部分是氣體滲透。天然氣－雖然天然氣產業比去年同期表現良好，獲利能力也很強，但它的利潤率卻低得多。這相當於我們總銷售額的 9% 或 9% 到 10%——超過 9%，但利潤率減少了 500 到 700 個基點。所以，當每加侖汽油的價格大幅上漲，而你公司 10% 的業務卻實現了 10% 以上的銷售成長時，這也對利潤造成了侵蝕。為了本季多賺 4000 萬美元的利潤，我願意每天接受較低的利潤率。

The next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser from UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的麥可·拉塞爾。

Richard, on the metric you provided about 4% membership per club growth ex cannibalization in the U.S. and Canada. Is it just a coincidence that that's kind of in line with where your traffic has been trending over the last couple of quarters? Or should we think about it as your traffic growth is highly correlated to that membership growth ex cannibalization?

Richard，根據您提供的指標，美國和加拿大的俱樂部會員成長率約為 4%（不含內部蠶食）。這是否只是巧合，恰好與貴公司過去幾季的流量趨勢相符？或者我們應該這樣理解：流量成長與會員成長（扣除會員蠶食效應）高度相關？

I don't think -- I think they're separate. I mean, a lot of times -- I'll give you a simple example here in the Seattle region. We have 3 locations on the east side of the lake: Issaquah, which is across the street from where I am; Kirkland, which is where we used to be; and Woodinville. All 3 kind of align north to south on the east side of this Puget Sound. Last November, we opened Redmond, which is where, of course, Microsoft is headquartered. And basically, we -- I think we had, as of opening, less than 1,000 new sign-ups at the Redmond location because we have close to 80% market household penetration in the Puget Sound, which is extreme. This is where we're headquartered and we've been forever. We've taken the average number of members per location down from the mid-60s to the low 50s by just adding a new unit, but we'll add $80 million to $100 million in sales in the first year in this market. So you -- when you've got locations that are doing 250 to 300-plus per unit, you've got to cannibalize them. So I mean, that's an example of that. So I don't think the 2 are correlated.

我不認為——我認為它們是分開的。我的意思是，很多時候──我舉個西雅圖地區的例子給你聽。我們在湖的東岸有 3 個地點：伊薩誇（就在我所在位置的街對面）；柯克蘭（我們以前在那裡）；以及伍丁維爾。這三者大致呈南北走向，位於普吉特海灣東側。去年 11 月，我們在雷德蒙開設了分部，當然，微軟的總部就位於那裡。基本上，我認為，截至開業時，我們在雷德蒙德分店的新註冊用戶不到 1000 人，因為我們在普吉特海灣地區的市場家庭滲透率接近 80%，這非常驚人。這裡是我們的總部所在地，我們一直都在這裡。我們僅透過增加一個新門市，就將每個門市的平均會員人數從 60 多人減少到 50 多人，但我們在這個市場的第一年就能增加 8,000 萬至 1 億美元的銷售額。所以，當有些門市的單店銷售達到 250 到 300 以上時，你就必須蠶食它們的市佔率。所以，這就是一個例子。所以我認為這兩者之間沒有相關性。

Okay. Just thinking about the comp frequency or the frequency component of your comp, it would seem some of your most longstanding members are probably going to Costco about as much as they can. So is it that the newer members are building their frequency and that's where the bulk of the frequency across your population is growing? Or are you seeing growth in frequency across your entire population of members?

好的。僅僅從促銷頻率或促銷頻率的角度來看，似乎你們一些最資深的會員可能已經盡可能頻繁地去 Costco 了。所以，是不是新成員正在建立他們的頻率，而這正是你們人群中頻率成長的主要來源？或者，您是否觀察到所有會員的消費頻率都有增加？

I think it's over the entire population. First of all, new members -- every new member is going to presumably be more frequent every year for several years. I believe that some of the things we're doing -- I didn't give any example on the call here, but we've done several e-mail initiatives to members to drive them in store. We did it over the holidays with New York strip steaks at $6.99. We did it with Copper River salmon over just a very limited, I think, a 10-or-so day period. These are little things, little anecdotal things, but we think that we keep doing things that drive you in more frequently as well. So I would bet that most of it, the bulk of our sales come from the members that are more than 1 year, more than 2 years or more than 3 years. We're getting them in as well -- a little more frequent.

我認為它影響了全體人口。首先是新成員——未來幾年，每年新成員的數量可能會越來越多。我認為我們正在做的一些事情——雖然我在電話會議上沒有舉任何例子，但我們已經開展了幾項向會員發送電子郵件的活動，以促使他們到店消費。我們在假期期間以 6.99 美元的價格買了紐約西冷牛排。我們在銅河鮭魚身上做到了這一點，而且只花了非常有限的時間，我想大概只有 10 天左右。這些都是一些小事，一些無關緊要的小事，但我們認為，我們一直在做的事情也會讓您更頻繁地光顧。所以我敢肯定，我們的大部分銷售額都來自那些加入超過 1 年、2 年或 3 年的會員。我們也有貨，而且進貨頻率更高一些。

My follow-up question is on September's frequency growth of 5.4% that there's obviously a lot of moving pieces within the landscape in September between the hurricanes. You also had Amazon close on its acquisition of Whole Foods, and there was a lot of noise around that. If you look at this -- your clubs around Whole Foods, was there any impact? And what do you think drove such strong frequency growth in September?

我的後續問題是關於 9 月頻率成長 5.4%，顯然 9 月颶風之間有很多變數。亞馬遜也即將收購全食超市，在當時引起了很大的轟動。如果你看看這些——你位於 Whole Foods 週邊的俱樂部，它們受到了什麼影響？你認為是什麼因素推動了9月如此強勁的收視率成長？

Mel Brooks once said it's merchandising. It's value and merchandising and some of the other little things we're doing here. We -- as it relates to the tragic things of the hurricanes in Texas and Florida and Puerto Rico, frankly, you get a -- whenever there's a pending tragedy that's on the news everyday with this pending tragedy like a hurricane, you get a build-up in sales leading up to it. You're closed for a few days perhaps or more in a couple locations. But when we look at -- as I think I mentioned, the comp sales in Texas in September were one of the stronger regions. Now that's partly because the entire state wasn't impacted by it. So we don't think that was a big impact at all. As it relates to the publicity and the news and the noise around Amazon-Whole Foods, all we can do is perform. When we look at the value proposition, our view is our value propositions got better. You read about Whole Foods having a giant increase in member shops or customer shops that first week. I would hope they do and I would expect them to. There's a lot of news out there. There's a lot of things. When we've done our own -- we've read about the price changes, the lowering of prices, gives us more confidence that our value was even greater. So we'll have to wait and see. Nobody can predict everything. All we know is that our brick-and-mortar is strong -- as strong as it's ever been and trending in the right direction even a bit from there. And we know we've done a lot of -- there's 100 different things you do every day. I gave you a couple of the soundbites, the example. So again, at this point, we feel pretty good about what we're doing. We feel good that we've got a few delivery options for our members that frankly are better than the ones they were doing the day before with us or with Instacart or with anybody else. So we feel that to the extent somebody wants to choose to use that route, they'll be able to, and we'll be able to generate the sales from it.

梅爾布魯克斯曾說過，這是商品銷售。這關係到商品的價值、銷售以及我們在這裡所做的其他一些小事。坦白說，就德克薩斯州、佛羅裡達州和波多黎各的颶風悲劇而言，每當發生像颶風這樣每天都在新聞上報導的即將發生的悲劇時，銷量就會隨之增加。你們可能有幾家門市會關閉幾天甚至更長時間。但當我們觀察時——我想我已經提到過——德克薩斯州9月份的同店銷售額是表現最強勁的地區之一。部分原因是整個州並沒有受到影響。所以我們認為這根本沒有造成什麼重大影響。至於圍繞亞馬遜收購全食超市的宣傳、新聞和各種傳聞，我們能做的就是拿出實際行動。當我們檢視價值主張時，我們認為我們的價值主張變得更好了。你有讀過關於全食超市在第一週會員店或顧客店數量大幅增加的報導嗎？我希望他們會這樣做，我也期待他們會這麼做。新聞鋪天蓋地。有很多事情。當我們自己進行評估後——我們了解到價格變化和價格下降的情況，這讓我們更加確信我們的價值更高。所以，我們只能拭目以待了。沒有人能預測所有事情。我們只知道我們的實體店很穩固——和以往一樣穩固，而且還有成長的趨勢。我們知道我們做了很多事——你每天都要做100件不同的事。我給你舉了幾個例子，也就是一些音頻片段。所以，目前為止，我們對我們正在做的事情感覺相當不錯。我們很高興能為會員提供一些配送選擇，坦白說，這些選擇比他們前一天透過我們、Instacart 或其他任何平台獲得的配送服務都要好。因此，我們認為，只要有人願意選擇這條路線，他們就能做到，而我們也能從中獲得銷售。

The next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel with Guggenheim Securities.

下一個問題來自古根漢證券的約翰·海因博克爾。

So Richard, I just want to start on SG&A leverage, right. So both operations in Central, this was about as good a quarter as you've had in a long time. Extra week play any role in that? And maybe a little more detail on particularly operations because -- that you're down 27. You think about wages, benefits...?

理查德，我想先從銷售、一般及行政費用槓桿說起，對吧。所以，中部地區的兩項業務，這算是你們很長一段時間以來表現最好的一個季度了。多出來的一週時間對此有什麼影響嗎？或許還需要更詳細地介紹一下具體的操作，因為──你們落後了 27 分。你會考慮薪水、福利…嗎？

The only benefit is it's 1/16 more of earnings number. I mean, I guess, you could take the 208 and divide it by 17 weeks, but there's nothing -- there's not a week with no rent expense in it because we prorate that daily.

唯一的好處是收入增加了 1/16。我的意思是，你可以用 208 除以 17 週，但沒有結果——沒有一周是沒有房租支出的，因為我們是按日分攤房租的。

Yes. So if you -- I mean, if you think about it, you sort of -- you think about a sea change here, right, because you've typically been up in Central and now down. And again, you were down quite a bit more than the third quarter. What is different -- or what was different, the fourth quarter versus third? I'm just curious of what was different, how sustainable that is?

是的。所以如果你——我的意思是，如果你仔細想想，你會覺得這裡發生了翻天覆地的變化，對吧，因為你以前通常都在中部，現在卻到了南部。而且，你們的落後幅度比第三節大很多。第四季與第三季相比有何不同？我只是好奇有什麼不同，這種方式的可持續性如何？

Well, it's sales. I mean, we hope it's sustainable. We've got a lot of good things going on, but we're only a little bit better predictor than you guys are at that. We feel good about the initiatives we've got going on. We feel good about the monies we have to invest in price and to still drive the other line items of our income statement and...

嗯，就是銷售額。我的意思是，我們希望它是可持續的。我們有很多好事正在發生，但在這方面，我們的預測能力只比你們略勝一籌而已。我們對目前正在進行的各項措施感到滿意。我們對可用於價格投資的資金感到滿意，同時也能繼續推動損益表其他項目的改善…

Okay, all right. And then just on the openings, right. So it sounds like maybe 8 or 9, 7 or 8 outside the U.S. Is that sort of 2 Canada and maybe 6 or 7 Other International? And then where in Other International?

好的，沒問題。然後就在開場部分，對吧。聽起來好像是美國以外有 8 或 9 個國家，7 或 8 個國家。是加拿大有 2 個國家，其他國際地區有 6 或 7 個國家？那麼，在其他國際領域呢？

I'll tell you. (inaudible) yes, I mean, basically, a couple in Canada, 2 or 3, a couple, 4, 5 between the 3 countries in Asia, another 1 probably in Australia. That's generally where they are.

我告訴你。（聽不清楚）是的，我的意思是，基本上，加拿大有幾對，亞洲三個國家有兩三對，四五對，澳洲可能還有一對。他們通常都在那裡。

Okay. And then just -- and then one last thing. When you think about your delivery options here, what's your sense as to how customers will use those and alter their behavior, right. So you think about the nonperishable food and sundries on the 2-day, do people simply get -- do you think they'll get those delivered at home and then come in to buy fresh and nonfood, some of the treasure hunt items and not have their cards loaded with some of those sundries? How do you sort of -- you get comfort about the impact on traffic to what you're doing?

好的。然後——然後還有最後一件事。當你考慮這裡的配送方式時，你覺得顧客會如何使用這些方式並改變他們的行為，對吧？所以，想想看，在為期兩天的活動中，人們會不會直接購買不易腐爛的食品和日用品？你認為他們會不會把這些東西送到家裡，然後再來店裡購買新鮮食品和非食品類商品，以及一些尋寶遊戲的物品，而他們的會員卡里卻沒有充值這些日用品？你如何才能安心地看待你所做的事情對交通的影響？

Well, needless to say, we have to continue to watch that. We've had some limited experience with our relationship with Google starting a few years ago and with Instacart over the last couple years. What we found so far is it's more fill-in than replacement of a shop. And the key is, is you come down a couple or 3 shops a year, one way, you add several more shops as fill-in or alternatives occasionally. That's what we saw, but we have very little time and data to feel comfortable about where it'll go. We have to keep getting you -- we want to do both, of course, but we have to keep getting you in store because you're going to buy more and you're going to see more even if we have everything online, but we don't, of course. And one of the things I mentioned was how do we get you in store? We were just literally scratching the surface of any type of targeted internet, e-mail marketing initiatives. We have a very -- as you know, a very loyal -- hopefully, you're one of them, loyal member, and we're just scratching the surface with figuring out how to get you in stores well more often. And on the few examples -- on the several examples that we tried, it's great, and we'll have to see how that goes. I guess, the one question that none of us know is, is everybody going to sit home and order stuff, recognizing you've got to pay for it? And no matter who ultimately -- and there'll be several of the lowest-cost supplier/provider delivering to you at home, there are people that actually want to go out. There are people that actually want to go touch their fresh foods and decide, pick it themselves. And it's going to change over time. There's going to be an increasing percentage of online and online delivery. And the question is, is in brick-and-mortar, we've been asked for years, well, how can you drive sales if you're not offering as many alternatives and -- or whatever else? We've done it with value, and our case value, first and foremost, is quality and low price. Over time, the percentage of delivery of fresh will change. How much so? We'll have to wait and see.

毋庸置疑，我們必須繼續關注此事。我們幾年前開始與Google建立合作關係，累積了一些有限的經驗，而與 Instacart 的合作則是在過去幾年進行的。我們目前發現，這更像是對現有店舖的填補，而不是對現有店舖的徹底重建。關鍵在於，你每年減少兩三家店鋪，偶爾增加幾家店作為補充或替代選擇。我們確實看到了這種情況，但我們沒有足夠的時間和數據來確信它未來的方向。我們必須不斷吸引你——我們當然希望兩者都能做到，但我們必須不斷吸引你到店裡來，因為即使我們所有商品都在網上，你也會買更多、看到更多，但我們當然沒有。我提到的其中一件事就是，我們如何讓您進店？我們當時對任何類型的定向網路電子郵件行銷活動都只是略知皮毛。如您所知，我們擁有非常忠誠的會員——希望您也是其中之一——而我們目前只是在探索如何讓您更頻繁地光顧門店，這方面我們還只是略知皮毛。就我們嘗試的幾個例子來看，效果很好，我們得看看效果如何。我想，我們都不知道的一個問題是，大家是否會待在家裡訂購東西，並且意識到自己需要為此付費？不管最終是誰——會有好幾家價格最低的供應商/服務商送貨上門——總有人想出門購物。有些人確實想親自觸摸新鮮食物，並自己挑選。而且隨著時間的推移，情況還會改變。線上購物和線上配送的比例將會越來越高。問題是，在實體店裡，多年來我們一直被問到，如果你不提供那麼多選擇，或其他什麼，你如何促進銷售？我們以價值為先，而我們產品的價值，首先體現在品質和低價格上。隨著時間的推移，新鮮食材的配送比例會改變。到底有多少？我們拭目以待。

Next question comes from the line of Chris Horvers from JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的克里斯霍弗斯。

So first question, just on the SG&A front, can you talk about -- the IT headwind was small from a basis point perspective, but of course, the overall top line has accelerated. So as you think about the IT modernization, that debt central expense line, the underlying dollars, is that dollar growth year-over-year decelerating at this point? Or when do you think that dollar growth actually decelerates?

第一個問題，就銷售、一般及行政費用 (SG&A) 方面而言，您能否談談——從基點角度來看，IT 方面的不利因素很小，但當然，整體營收成長已經加速。因此，當您考慮 IT 現代化時，債務中心支出項目，即具體的美元金額，目前美元的年增長是否正在放緩？或者，您認為美元增速何時會真正放緩？

Basically, I think we're in the middle of that. I think it was a quarter or 2 ago where we -- actually, it was lower year-over-year by a basis point. And I said don't -- that's not an inflection point. Certainly, even this 1 or 0 basis point this quarter was helped greatly by sales growth. It' going to still increase. I think part of it is, is we're right at or about to enter our fifth year of, "modernization." So that line will start getting fuzzier and fuzzier. We certainly added things to what we're modernizing, taking major systems and doing that we had not contemplated at first. And so my guess is in the next year, assuming regular decent sales. As a percent of sales, a lot of these systems, you spend $60 million or $100 million on 1 system, it's kind of like building a building. It starts depreciating the day you open or the day you turn it on. And it was probably 3 to 4 years ago that we started turning a system on in that regard as we complete them. So it'll be another year before we've got, if you will, the plate full with these bigger expenses that then amortize over generally 5 to 7 years. But as sales rose, the denominator in this calculation grows, that'll be an offset to it. So I'm shooting from the hip here and it's a guess, but all things being equal, sometime in the next year, there's maybe an inflection point. But it's going to be in the 1 or 2 basis points either way, hopefully. And at some point here, we'll stop talking about it.

基本上，我認為我們正處於這個過程之中。我想大概是一兩個季度前，我們——實際上，同比下降了一個基點。我說不要——那不是轉捩點。當然，本季這1個或0個基點的成長也很大程度得益於銷售成長。它還會繼續增長。我認為部分原因是，我們正處於或即將進入「現代化」的第五年。因此，這條界線會變得越來越模糊。我們確實在現代化改造過程中添加了一些內容，對主要係統進行了我們最初沒有考慮過的操作。因此，我的猜測是，假設銷量保持正常且良好，明年就能實現。從銷售額的百分比來看，很多這類系統，你花在一個系統上就要花費 6,000 萬美元或 1 億美元，這就像建造一棟大樓一樣。它從你打開包裝或開啟電源的那天起就開始貶值。大概三、四年前，我們開始在這方面啟用一套系統，在我們完成這些專案後就啟用這套系統。所以，還需要一年時間，我們才能真正面臨這些較大的開支，而這些開支通常會在 5 到 7 年內攤銷完畢。但隨著銷售額的成長，該計算中的分母也會增大，這將抵消部分影響。所以，我這是憑感覺說的，只是猜測，但如果一切順利的話，明年某個時候可能會出現一個轉折點。但希望最終結果只會相差 1 到 2 個基點。總有一天，我們會停止討論這件事。

Okay. And then you said on the Visa benefits, the gross margin and SG&A, you said the word -- used the term moderate but not go away. So I think last quarter, you talked about that sort of we're going to start to lap that, guys, and that's going to go away. So is it just moderation? Or does it go away? And is that...?

好的。然後，當你談到簽證福利、毛利率和銷售、一般及行政費用時，你用了「適度」這個詞，但沒有說「消失」。所以我覺得上個季度，你談到我們會開始超越它，夥計們，這種情況將會消失。所以，關鍵就在於適度嗎？還是會消失？那是……？

Well, it's Moderation with a capital M. I think in the first 3 quarters this fiscal year, the sum of the benefit of improvement in SG&A and margin was 37 or 38 basis points. The aggregate in Q4 was 22. Now mind you, a year ago in Q4, you had a lot of things happening. You were getting off the old program, and there was some detriment to that in those last several weeks anyway, the first 5 weeks of Q4. Then you had it, but there was also some noise and friction around getting the conversion done for 2 or 3 weeks. So my guess is, is it'll be a much -- it should improve because we're seeing increased penetration of usage. We're seeing increased revenue share from people seeing the value of this card and not only at Costco but their top of wallet. I forget if I mentioned it on my part of this call, but using travel as an example. We just added Costco Travel to the Executive Member, first of all, effective September 1. So you get 2% on travel, which you hadn't gotten before. On top of that, if you use our Costco cobranded Visa Anywhere card -- Citi Visa card, you get another 3% by using that on travel. So there's a 5% off unbelievable prices.

嗯，這是適度，而且是大寫的“適度”。我認為在本財年的前三個季度，銷售、一般及行政費用和利潤率改善帶來的收益總和為 37 或 38 個基點。第四季總和為 22。請注意，一年前的第四季度，發生了很多事情。你當時正在擺脫舊的計劃，而且在最後幾週，也就是第四季度的前 5 週，這確實帶來了一些不利影響。然後就完成了，但轉換過程也出現了一些噪音和摩擦，持續了 2 到 3 週。所以我猜，情況會好很多——應該會有所改善，因為我們看到使用率正在提高。我們看到，人們逐漸意識到這張卡的價值，不僅在 Costco 購買，而且在他們的錢包裡也經常使用，因此收入份額有所增加。我忘了我是否在這通通話中提到過，但以旅行為例。首先，我們從9月1日起將Costco Travel加入高級會員計畫。因此，您在旅行方面可以享受2%的折扣，這是您之前沒有的。此外，如果您使用我們的 Costco 聯名 Visa Anywhere 卡——花旗 Visa 卡，在旅行中使用該卡，您還可以額外獲得 3% 的返利。所以現在有 5% 的折扣，價格簡直難以置信。

Understood. And then the last thing is you did do -- you talked about the timing in the Groupon, January or earlier and then in August. Can you talk about what the rationale was to do it in August? I think a lot of people look out there and say, hey, they see this growth in membership slowing, so sort of a desperation pass for the end zone to buffer the numbers into the print. So maybe just talk about what the genesis of that was. What -- does it make you -- is it an expression that you're concerned about Millennial retention or Millennial customer acquisition? Just talk broadly about that.

明白了。最後，你確實做了一件事——你在 Groupon 上談到了時間安排，一月份或更早，然後是八月。您能談談為什麼選擇在八月進行這項操作嗎？我認為很多人看到會員成長放緩，於是採取了一種孤注一擲的策略，試圖透過一些手段來挽救最終的數字。所以或許可以談談這件事的起源。這是否表示你擔心千禧世代的留存率或千禧世代的獲取率？就大致談談這個話題。

No, I mean, I think -- first of all, we did it because it works. We don't do it every month or every 6 months because we don't want to get people comfortable waiting for the next online offering with added value it would give back -- give to them. We want them to sign up as a member and pay for it. And so it works. The timing difference is simply we have a lot going on. I believe, if I recall -- if I look back, we did the fee increase effective June 1, and we didn't want to do it over that month or 2 period of time, so we pushed it out a little bit.

不，我的意思是，我認為——首先，我們這樣做是因為它有效。我們不會每個月或每 6 個月都這樣做，因為我們不想讓人們習慣於等待下一次線上活動，而下一次活動會為他們帶來額外的價值——給予他們。我們希望他們註冊成為會員並付費。所以它奏效了。時間上的差異只是因為我們有很多事情要處理。我記得——如果我回顧一下的話，我們是從 6 月 1 日開始提高收費的，我們不想在一兩個月內完成，所以我們把它推遲了一段時間。

And then just from what you've seen in terms of the millennial customer from a renewal rate perspective on these deals going back in time.

然後，從千禧世代客戶的續約率來看，回顧以往的交易記錄，你會發現一些變化。

Yes, yes. Going back to your question though, you were asking if we do it because we're concerned about Millennial. I don't think we're smart enough to understand that. The fact is we do it just to drive membership. We recognize that it has a good Millennial benefit. I don't have the one on the one that we just did, but the one we did 1.5 years ago and the one we did like 2.5, 3 years ago versus a walk-in, a higher percentage of people that sign up on these LivingSocial or Groupon offers are millennials, not as much as you'd expect. I think in walking in, if I recall correctly, is like mid- to...

是的，是的。回到你的問題，你是在問我們這樣做是否是因為我們關心千禧世代。我覺得我們還沒聰明到能理解這一點。事實上，我們這樣做只是為了增加會員人數。我們認為它對千禧世代很有吸引力。我沒有我們剛剛做的那次活動的具體數據，但是我們 1.5 年前做的那次，以及 2.5、3 年前做的那次，與直接上門相比，透過 LivingSocial 或 Groupon 等平台註冊的人中，千禧世代的比例更高，但並沒有你想像的那麼高。我記得沒錯的話，走進去的時候大概是中間到…

39%.

39%。

39% of those that walk in this last one were Millennials. I think I go back to the previous one, it was 36% of walk-ins were Millennials, whereas, Millennials under this program, it was like in the mid- to high 40s. So about 10 extra percentage points. So not a huge distortion or a difference between those 2. But it helps.

在最後這場活動中，39% 的參與者是千禧世代。我覺得回到先前的調查，當時直接上門的顧客中有 36% 是千禧世代，而在這個專案中，千禧世代的比例達到了 40% 到 50% 左右。所以大概能多出10個百分點。所以這兩者之間並沒有太大的偏差或差異，但還是有幫助的。

Next question comes from the line of Karen Short with Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Karen Short。

Actually, just since we're on the subject of Millennials, I'm wondering, can you maybe just give us an update a little bit on the average age of your membership? I know you kind of give that periodically. It seems to have been trending down. Any color you can give on that.

既然我們聊到了千禧世代，我想問一下，能否稍微更新一下您會員的平均年齡？我知道你偶爾會這麼做。似乎呈下降趨勢。你可以用任何顏色來形容它。

I don't have any [view] in front of me. I know that when we did it a couple -- not a couple years, about a year ago, it was looking at U.S. members. It was 52 years versus 54 years across the U.S., not -- the entire population of U.S. adults, which was about -- so we were 2 years older instead of a few years earlier than that, we were 4 years older. I have not seen anything since that. If I have it, you can ask me. I'll find out. But I don't recall.

我眼前什麼也看不見。我知道，幾年前（不是幾年前，而是大約一年前），我們做這件事的時候，關注的是美國成員。全美範圍內，平均年齡是 52 歲，而不是 54 歲——指的是美國成年人口總數，大約是——所以我們比他們大了 2 歲，而不是早幾年，我們比他們大了 4 歲。從那以後，我什麼也沒看到。如果我有的話，你可以問我。我會查清楚的。但我記不起來了。

Okay. And then one of the questions I think you were asked and I didn't catch the answer if you gave it, but do you have any color just specifically on the performance of your stores that are in close proximity to Whole Foods since the price reductions took place at Whole Foods? Any color you could give.

好的。然後，我想有人問了你一個問題，但我沒聽清楚你是否回答了，你能否具體談談自 Whole Foods 降價以來，你那些靠近 Whole Foods 的門市的業績情況？任何你能想到的顏色。

Yes. We essentially overlap everywhere. And I'm not trying to be cute, but other than reading about it on the news, in the paper, on Wall Street, we have not -- and we recognize -- I read yesterday that there's some specialties, brick-and-mortars, retail stores that are impacted more than others. We don't believe we've seen an impact from it.

是的。我們基本上在所有方面都有重疊。我不是賣弄，但除了在新聞、報紙和華爾街上看到相關報道之外，我們沒有——而且我們也意識到——我昨天讀到，有些專賣店、實體店、零售店受到的影響比其他店舖更大。我們認為尚未看到其產生影響。

(inaudible) at all, I guess. And then I guess on the online grocery, I just want to clarify, you gave 1,700 SKUs. And I think what you said was that possibly the price points would possibly be cheaper than Costco. Did I catch that right? And then maybe you were...

（聽不清楚）我想，根本沒有。然後，關於網上雜貨店，我想確認一下，你們提供了 1700 個 SKU。我想你剛才的意思是，價格可能會比 Costco 便宜。我沒聽錯吧？然後，也許你就是…

No, no, it'll be lower -- currently, you can go to certain other parties, Google Express, Instacart, as it was before October 1, costco.com, Costco Business Center, unlimited delivery within 40- or 70-mile radius of those 15 locations shipped down in the Southeast, I believe, boxed. I'm sure there's some others out there that I'm missing. When we look at the pricing that anybody, both a member and a nonmember, as the case may be, depending on each one and how they price their goods, what they ultimately have -- what their delivery price is, this is better, including on some of the items which you could buy at great value and better value than those areas on costco.com already.

不，不，價格會更低——目前，你可以選擇其他一些平台，例如 Google Express、Instacart（就像 10 月 1 日之前那樣）、costco.com、Costco Business Center，在東南部的 15 個地點方圓 40 或 70 英里範圍內無限次送貨，而且我相信是盒裝的。我相信還有一些我沒提到的。當我們查看定價時，無論是會員還是非會員，具體情況取決於每個人的定價方式和商品價格，以及最終的運費，這裡都更划算，包括一些你可以以超值價格購買的商品，比 costco.com 上的同類商品更划算。

Got it. And then just the last question. There seems to have been some rumblings that you are looking to expand into China. I don't know if you could comment on that a little bit.

知道了。最後還有一個問題。似乎有傳言說你們正計劃進軍中國市場。我不知道您是否可以就此發表一下看法。

It's the 20-year discussion is we're looking. As a rule, until we have permits to do something -- building permits to do something, we don't announce, whether it's in Alabama or China. But we are looking, and at some point, we'll announce something.

我們正在進行一場為期20年的討論。通常情況下，在獲得許可之前——例如建築許可——我們不會宣布任何消息，無論是在阿拉巴馬州還是在中國。但我們正在關注此事，在某個時候，我們會宣布一些消息。

Next question comes from the line of Matt Fassler with Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的馬特法斯勒。

Richard, my first question relates to the line item that talks about core margin categories on their own sales. And I guess that line item, this is inclusive of gas. And I might not have caught the number, ex gas, had been up for the first...

Richard，我的第一個問題與討論其自身銷售額的核心利潤類別的條目有關。我猜這項應該包含了汽油費。我可能沒注意到那個數字，前汽油費，它第一次就上架了…

It's exclusive of gas.

它不含天然氣。

Okay. So only in core categories. That number had been up, I think, each quarter of the year, and in fact, I think it'd been up something like 11 straight quarters. Last time it was down, I think, was in -- 10 straight quarters, second quarter of fiscal '15. And I know it was flat this quarter. And the differences are not very big, but it was a bit of a break in the pattern. So was there any particular area where you invested in price? And was there a concerted effort to invest to a greater degree in price that would have led to the increases in that line item abating here?

好的。所以僅限於核心類別。我認為，這個數字在今年的每個季度都在上升，事實上，我認為它已經連續上升了大約 11 個季度。我記得上次下跌是在——連續 10 個季度，也就是 2015 財年的第二季度。我知道這季度業績持平。雖然差異不大，但這確實打破了原有的模式。那麼，你有沒有特別關注的價格領域呢？是否有一項旨在加大價格投入的協同努力，從而導致該項目價格上漲的趨勢有所緩解？

Well, yes. But again, we don't sit -- honestly, we don't sit down. We decide like here's a bucket of money, if you will, and how we're going to use it. And we don't do a bunch of sensitivity analyses. I mean we're merchants and -- I'm not, but they are -- here. And we look at what are the things that drive business in retail grocery or retail nonfood, as the case may be. And certainly on key items, I think I mentioned -- I used the example of New York strip steaks where we were $7 and $8.99 and we went down to $6.99. And by the way, we did that and still had a decent margin because of how we bought it in on -- we're a giant buyer of this stuff. We've done it on several items and it works. So I think the comment you made, the point you made though is -- while it's not a lot directionally, it's different. That's fine. We're really not concerned about that.

是的。但是，我們還是不坐——說實話，我們不坐。我們就像是拿出一桶錢，然後決定如何使用它。我們不做大量的敏感度分析。我的意思是，我們是商人，而──我不是，但他們是──在這裡。我們會研究哪些因素推動了零售食品或零售非食品（視情況而定）的業務發展。當然，在一些重點菜餚上，我想我提到過——我以紐約牛排為例，我們之前的價格是 7 美元和 8.99 美元，後來降到了 6.99 美元。順便說一句，我們這樣做仍然獲得了不錯的利潤，因為我們的進貨方式——我們是這類產品的大買家。我們已經在好幾個產品上試過了，效果不錯。所以我覺得你提出的評論，你的觀點是——雖然在方向上沒有太大區別，但確實有所不同。沒關係。我們對此並不擔心。

Fair enough. And then secondly, so Instacart, I know, is a prominent delivery partner. I know that prior to Amazon acquiring Whole Foods, Whole Foods had made an equity investment in Instacart. Does that have any impact on that partnership on the future of -- and obviously, you're not the only partner Instacart has and it's probably a question a lot of their business partners are having. Is that a relevant consideration at all as we think about the forward 8 for Instacart?

很公平。其次，我知道 Instacart 是重要的配送合作夥伴。我知道在亞馬遜收購 Whole Foods 之前，Whole Foods 曾對 Instacart 進行股權投資。這是否會對雙方的合作關係以及未來的發展產生任何影響？顯然，你並不是 Instacart 唯一的合作夥伴，這可能是許多商業夥伴都在思考的問題。在考慮 Instacart 的未來 8 個發展方向時，這是否是相關的考慮因素？

No. In fact, when we announced -- when we started -- when we initiated this week, our discussion is both before and after that. Both before and after June 15 or 16.

不。事實上，當我們宣布——當我們開始——當我們啟動本週的討論時，我們的討論既包括在此之前，也包括在此之後。6月15日或16日之前和之後。

Great. And then finally, so the e-commerce business, I know, has accelerated over the past few months. And you spoke about -- you spoke in the past couple of quarters about some of the changes that you made replatforming, et cetera, and the capacity you have. Are there any particular categories where you're seeing that acceleration to the extent that you've kind of more than doubled the pace of growth in e-commerce? I know you're not to refresh that, obviously, and you're expanding your e-commerce efforts with some of these brand-new initiatives. But anywhere in particular where the business is taking off?

偉大的。最後，我知道，電子商務業務在過去幾個月發展迅速。在過去的幾個季度裡，您談到了您所做的一些改變，例如平台重構等等，以及您擁有的能力。是否有某些特定類別的成長速度特別快，以至於電子商務的成長速度翻了一番還多？我知道你顯然不會更新它，而且你正在透過一些全新的舉措來拓展你的電子商務業務。但具體到哪些地方，業務正在蓬勃發展？

Well, on the nonfood side, I think we mentioned 1 quarter or 2 ago appliances is a big area. Apparel -- on the nonfood area, (inaudible) apparel and sundries. So we continue, I think, to do a better job and then added foods on the food and sundries side -- on the dry food and sundries side and some big ticket items. And then I look at 2 examples. Again, it was only for, what, a 1- or 2-week period, the Samsung deal using the Citi Visa card. On top of great pricing on the TV to start with and white-glove service if you want it, it was a -- you've got our great price. And if you're an Executive Member, you've got 2%. And if you use the Citi Visa card, you've not only got a 2% -- you've got that 2% because you bought it at Costco. But on top of that, you've got a 15% Cash Card. And that impacted sales both in line, in store and as well as online. So these are soundbites but there's lots of them because there's lots that we haven't done yet.

嗯，在非食品領域，我想我們一兩個季度前提到過，家用電器是一個很大的領域。服裝－非食品區，（聽不清楚）服裝和雜物。所以，我認為，我們繼續做得更好，然後在食品和雜貨方面增加了食品——在乾貨和雜貨方面以及一些大件商品。然後我來看兩個例子。再說一遍，使用花旗銀行 Visa 卡購買三星產品的優惠活動，持續時間只有一到兩週。除了電視機本身價格優惠，如果您需要，我們還提供尊貴的售後服務，總之——您已經享受到了我們優惠的價格。如果您是執行會員，您將獲得 2% 的份額。如果你使用 Citi Visa 卡，不僅可以獲得 2% 的回饋——而且這 2% 的回饋是因為你在 Costco 購買的商品。除此之外，你還有一張 15% 回饋卡。這影響了線下門市、線上以及線下的銷售。這些都是一些簡短的介紹，但數量很多，因為我們還有很多事情沒有做。

Next question comes from the line of Paul Trussell with Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的保羅‧特魯塞爾。

First, on membership. I believe the last LivingSocial deal that you ran in 2016, you signed up approximately 200,000, 250,000 new members through that program-or-so. Could you discuss what the more recent program led to in terms of sign-ups? And then also, the number you gave earlier on the call in terms of the 4% growth in U.S. and Canada ex cannibalization, what would that number be all-in even if we included the club that did see some cannibalization? So just kind of overall U.S. maybe versus international growth in membership per club.

首先，關於會員資格。我相信，在 2016 年你開展的上一次 LivingSocial 活動，你透過該計畫註冊了大約 20 萬到 25 萬名新會員。您能否談談最近的專案在報名人數方面取得了哪些成果？還有，您之前在電話會議上提到的美國和加拿大4%的增長率（不包括蠶食效應），即使我們把那些確實受到蠶食效應影響的俱樂部也算進去，這個數字又會是多少呢？所以，就美國整體而言，每個俱樂部的會員人數成長可能與國際成長相比如何？

Yes, I don't have it. Again, I was trying to be helpful to the -- one thing I guess I want to warn, we're not going to start doing this new calculation every quarter. We try to be helpful here. But we know based on our discussions every day at the budget meeting that we felt that we're fine when the question has been asked about the average number of members. (inaudible) seems to be going down. The new -- total new member sign-ups seems to be -- the rate of growth seems to be slowing a little bit. Again, hopefully, the data points I gave you allay those concerns. But I don't have the detail beyond that. What we did is we took -- let's take all the cannibalized units. We know that's a big impact, and we -- all the new units, many of them are in small markets. That's an impact. That's going to impact it.

是的，我沒有。我再次強調，我只是想幫大家——不過我想提醒大家一點，我們不會每季都進行這種新的計算。我們盡力提供協助。但根據我們每天在預算會議上的討論，當被問及平均成員人數時，我們覺得我們沒問題。（聽不清楚）似乎正在下降。新會員註冊總數的成長速度似乎略有放緩。希望我提供的數據點能夠消除您的疑慮。但我沒有更多細節。我們所做的就是──讓我們把所有被拆解的單位都拿走。我們知道這將產生重大影響，而且我們——所有新單位，其中許多都在小市場。那確實會產生影響。那肯定會產生影響。

Understood. And on the LivingSocial sign-ups?

明白了。那麼，LivingSocial 的註冊用戶數量呢？

It was a little better than the one 18 months earlier.

比18個月前的那次稍好。

Fair enough. And then just on gross margins, you mentioned at the beginning of the call the benefit -- the pretax benefit that I think netted out to about $10 million-or-so. What line item within gross margins did that impact? And also, just wanted to inquire what, if any, margin impact you are assuming from the new Costco grocery rollout? And then...

很公平。然後，關於毛利率，您在電話會議開始時提到了收益——稅前收益，我認為淨額約為 1000 萬美元左右。這影響了毛利率中的哪個項目？另外，我想諮詢一下，您預計 Costco 新超市的推出會對利潤率產生什麼影響（如果有的話）？進而...

On the first one, I think it was a separate line item called other. That was the 2 basis points. And as it relates to the impact of the new thing, it's going to be so small to start with, we don't even know yet.

第一個條目，我記得是單獨列的，叫做「其他」。那是2個基點。至於這項新事物的影響，一開始會非常小，我們甚至還不知道。

Got it. And then just so on that point, as we think about gross margins over the near term, is it fair that we should think that there could -- maybe flat to slightly down will be kind of the near-term run rate just given the investments in price that you've made and the moderating contribution from Visa?

知道了。那麼，就這一點而言，當我們考慮近期毛利率時，考慮到你們在價格方面的投資以及 Visa 的貢獻有所緩和，我們是否可以認為短期內毛利率可能會持平或略有下降？

Well, we don't guide. Visa will be moderating, but moderating still has a plus sign in front of it, even if it's small. I look back though is we still have a chunk of those monies. We still have -- we have the new membership fee increase that started in June with -- again ultimately, it's $240 million. That increase is just the U.S. and Canada that'll hit the P&L, but the total hit to the -- the total benefit to the P&L line won't be for 23 months from June. So that's May of '19. But there's plenty of money out there to do both, to be able to -- whether margins go up or down a little bit, again, I get back to it, it is merchandising. We feel we've got plenty of capacity. I think the salient point is, is any of this related to competitive issues out there? For the most part, no. It's us.

我們不提供指導。Visa 將會進行審核，但即使審核力道很小，審核這個字前面仍帶有一個加號。回頭看看，我們仍然保留著其中的部分資金。我們仍然有——我們從 6 月開始實施新的會員費上漲計劃——最終，總額將達到 2.4 億美元。此次成長僅指美國和加拿大對損益表的影響，但對損益表的總影響——總收益要到 6 月起的 23 個月後才會顯現。那是2019年5月的情況。但市面上有很多錢可以同時做這兩件事，無論利潤率是略微上升還是略微下降，再說一遍，這就是商品銷售。我們覺得我們有足夠的產能。我認為關鍵在於，這些是否與當前的競爭問題有關？大多數情況下，不是。是我們。

Next question comes from the line of Charles Grom with Gordon Haskett.

下一個問題來自查爾斯·格羅姆和戈登·哈斯克特的母系家族。

Could you just remind us the profitability of your digital business relative to the club segment and also the SKU overlap between both and what you think the long-term opportunity is for the SKU count on the digital side?

能否請您簡單介紹一下貴公司數位業務相對於實體店業務的獲利能力，以及兩者之間的 SKU 重疊情況，並說明您認為數位業務的 SKU 數量在長期發展中有哪些成長機會？

E-commerce profitability is a higher percentage of pretax earnings and percent of sales than the brick-and-mortar. But there are a lot of things like that. Some of the ancillary businesses are that way. But it has continued. If it's come down a little, it's simply because we've invested in price. And I would say whatever investment on price is, that number of basis points is less than the reduction in the profitability in e-commerce because we've driven e-commerce profitability.

電子商務的獲利能力佔稅前利潤和銷售額的比例均高於實體店。但像這樣的事情還有很多。有些配套企業就是這樣。但這仍在繼續。如果價格略有下降，那隻是因為我們在價格方面投入了資金。而且我認為，無論在價格方面投入多少資金，這些基點數都小於電子商務獲利能力的下降，因為我們已經提高了電子商務的獲利能力。

Okay. And is that mostly on the merch margin side? Or is it on the SG&A side?

好的。這主要體現在商品利潤方面嗎？或這部分費用在銷售、管理及行政費用（SG&A）方面？

A little bit is SG&A, and a little bit's margin.

其中一小部分是銷售、管理及行政費用，一小部分是利潤。

Okay. And then just a follow-up on Chris' question earlier about the millennials. Could you speak to membership trends and renewal rates for that category or for that cohort of individuals?

好的。然後，我想就克里斯之前提出的關於千禧世代的問題做個後續回答。您能否談談該類別或該群體會員的趨勢和續費率？

I don't have any new data on that other than I think what I shared last quarter. Millennials, new members tend -- new members generally renew at a lower rate. Every year, you're stuck around your renew at a better, higher rate until you're really old. And millennials generally renew at about the same rate. And like that's always -- it's all first year members. Yes, in fact, I remember -- I don't have the detail on the one we just did. But the one we did 18 months ago versus walk-in, we saw those that sign up on LivingSocial renewed at like a percentage point higher rate in that first year of renewal. But again, that's plus or minus a little.

除了上個季度分享的數據之外，我沒有其他新的數據了。千禧世代的新會員往往續費價格較低。每年，你都會被困在續約的階段，享受更高更好的利率，直到你真的老了為止。千禧世代的續訂率也大致相同。和以往一樣──全是第一年的成員。是的，事實上，我記得——但我記不清我們剛剛做的那件事的細節了。但我們 18 個月前做的那項對比研究表明，透過 LivingSocial 註冊的用戶在第一年的續訂率比直接到店註冊的用戶高出大約一個百分點。但話說回來，這只是稍微的誤差。

Okay. And then just my last question is obviously the compression in your renewal rates and the timing of the Amazon-Whole Foods deal has sort of given a lot of people concern and is obviously a focal point on the call. And I wanted to circle back to Simeon's question earlier and your answer to his question with regards to Canada because I think it gives you a good proxy for sort of halfway for the renewal rate subsequent to the change in tender. So could you just remind us and just go over that again? You said the peak to trough was around 100 basis points from the time you rolled out that new credit card. And what was the recovery time? And therefore, you think it's going to be another quarter or 2 before your renewal rates ticked up. Can you just kind of discuss that? Because I think it's pretty important.

好的。最後一個問題顯然是，你們的續約率下降以及亞馬遜收購全食物超市的時機，已經引起了許多人的擔憂，顯然也是這次電話會議的焦點。我想回到西蒙之前提出的問題以及你對他的關於加拿大的回答，因為我認為這可以很好地近似反映出招標變更後續約率的中點。所以您能再提醒我們一次嗎？你說過，從推出那張新信用卡到收盤價，高峰到谷值大約是 100 個基點。恢復時間是多久？因此，你認為續約率可能還需要一到兩個季度才會上漲。能簡單討論一下這個問題嗎？因為我認為這非常重要。

Yes. And mind you, there's still some differences and nuanced differences between Canada and the U.S. But notwithstanding those differences, Canada, I think we did the transition in early fiscal '15.

是的。請注意，加拿大和美國之間仍然存在一些差異和細微差別。但儘管有這些差異，我認為加拿大在 2015 財年初就已經完成了過渡。

September of '14.

2014年9月。

September of '14, which was Q1 of '15. And we were in Canada. And then if I looked out 6 months later, it dropped -- it continued to drop for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- 6 quarters. And it dropped exact -- I mean, I'm rounding to 0.1%, but it dropped 1.0 percentage points. The next couple of quarters it picked up half of the delta, and it took another couple quarters to pick up all of the delta. Another quarter-plus to pick up the rest of the delta. This year, we did -- we converted in Q4 of '16. So we're now in the fourth quarter past that, whereas, I saw the trough in Canada, albeit some differences and nuances, 6 quarters out. So that will tell me it's probably a couple more quarters. But that's about as much analysis as we've done.

2014 年 9 月，也就是 2015 年第一季。當時我們在加拿大。然後，如果我6個月後再看，它就下降了——而且連續下降了1、2、3、4、5——6個季度。實際下降幅度正好是——我的意思是，我四捨五入到 0.1%，但實際上下降了 1.0 個百分點。接下來的幾季彌補了一半的差距，又過了幾個季度才彌補了全部的差距。還需要一個多季度才能彌補剩餘的差距。今年我們做到了——我們在 2016 年第四季實現了轉換。所以現在已經是第四季之後了，而我看到加拿大的低谷期（儘管有一些差異和細微差別）是在6個季度之後。所以這說明可能還要再幾季。但我們所做的分析也就僅限於此了。

Next question comes from the line of Oliver Chen with Cowen and [Ford] Company.

下一個問題來自 Oliver Chen 與 Cowen 和 [福特] 公司的關係。

Richard, as you do think about e-commerce and you become much more aggressive and considerate about what your strategies are, what are your thoughts about the framework for balancing e-commerce and the convenience factor against margins and cost control from a CapEx and expense perspective? What's your framework for how you're thinking about evaluating where you should allocate ROIC for the long term? And our second question was just about the value proposition story, which continues to be very compelling. How are you triangulating the value proposition against core merchandise margin and also working through with vendors in terms of maximizing it for the whole system and sharing and passing on some savings to customers? And that's also a little bit related to the multi-vendor mailer and where you are with that project.

理查德，當你思考電子商務，並且變得更加積極主動、更加深思熟慮地制定策略時，你認為從資本支出和費用角度來看，如何在電子商務和便利性因素與利潤率和成本控制之間取得平衡？您是如何考慮長期投資報酬率（ROIC）分配問題的？我們的第二個問題是關於價值主張的，這一點仍然非常有說服力。您是如何將價值主張與核心商品利潤率進行三角衡量，並與供應商合作，以最大限度地提高整個系統的利潤率，並將部分節省的成本分享給客戶？這也與多供應商郵件系統以及你目前在該專案上的進度有些關係。

It's all of the above. First of all, in terms of allocation, I mean, with -- first of all, the base e-commerce as we've gone to more fulfillment centers, frankly, it's been a net positive because we've driven down transportation costs, freight costs. We've driven down time to get it to you. The improvements -- the costs of the improvements to the site are de minimis. It's just that perhaps we were a little stubborn for a long time and we haven't done it. It wasn't our focus. But improving search, improving the site itself, expanding distribution points, those are small pieces of a $2.5 billion CapEx budget. So I don't really see that -- we've got more than enough money to do it. As it relates to driving business, some of these things are tests, clearly. Someone else earlier asked the question, what if this thing with grocery is really successful? Well, really successful is 2 things. It's really successful as a business and how does it impact people coming into -- walking into Costco because we know we're going to -- they're going to buy really a lot more stuff when they walk in. So we have to do that and we think we can manage that by using e-mail to drive people in store as well and the couponing and things like that. So again, time will tell, and we'll have to see where it goes. As it relates to working with vendors, it's pretty simple. Based on the volume and the efficiencies that we bring to purchasing product from a vendor, we better get the best price. And we all hear and sometimes we read and sometimes somebody accidentally us something. But we all hear about all the special deals or what one retailer, whether brick-and-mortar or someone else, I think like all of us out there, we have to keep our options open. But we feel pretty good about we're getting money. Some of the successes we've had, whether it's these special deals or examples of special deals, working with vendors on hot items and buyers' picks, what I spoke about last February or early March in the second quarter earnings call about, in some cases tweaking, sometimes significantly tweaking how we use the MVM and what items go in it, how we drive greater value and sometimes partnering with a vendor to do that. All those things are part of the equation. I think it's a lot easier for us to do it when we're trying to manage a few thousand items and the enormity of purchasing power we have within those items and the availability of sourcing those items for many people. So I think we feel pretty good about what we're doing and how we're getting the monies and how we're spending them. There's a lot going on. We'll have to wait and see. We're gratified that the things we're doing are driving brick-and-mortar traffic and comps. And we're gratified by some of these things that we were telling you over the last few quarters of earnings calls about improving the site, adding a few things, have started coming to fruition on e-commerce. When we think some of these new things, we're excited about it, but there's a lot of unknowns yet. A comment somebody in the room here mentioned. I think appliance is a great example. It used to be we sold some appliances in store and other big-ticket items like furniture. And if you -- no, we don't deliver, and go get your U-Haul or your friend's pickup truck. Well, that's not happening today. By displaying some items in store, we're driving more business. We're doing very well online with furniture with patio furniture with regular furniture with lawn and garden type big-ticket items with electronics, including white-glove service and now with appliances. We think appliances, part of it also is brands, having partnerships with GE and LG and Samsung, among others, which are relatively new in the way we're doing it. We think literally in 3-or-so years, we can add $1 billion of sales, which we started doing about 8 months ago.

以上皆是。首先，就分配而言，我的意思是——首先，隨著我們轉向更多的物流中心，坦白說，基礎電子商務帶來了淨收益，因為我們降低了運輸成本和貨運成本。我們花了很長時間才把它送到你手中。這些改進——對場地進行改進的成本微乎其微。或許只是我們一直以來都有些固執，所以才沒有去做。這不是我們關注的重點。但改善搜尋功能、改善網站本身、擴大分銷點，這些都只是 25 億美元資本支出預算的一小部分。所以我並不認為我們會有這樣的問題——我們有足夠的資金來做這件事。就駕駛業務而言，其中一些顯然是考驗。之前有人問過，如果這種與雜貨店的合作真的成功了會怎麼樣？真正成功包含兩件事。作為一項業務，它非常成功，而且它對走進 Costco 的人們——因為我們知道我們會去——會產生怎樣的影響？他們走進 Costco 後會買更多的東西。所以我們必須這樣做，我們認為我們可以透過電子郵件引導人們到店消費，以及發放優惠券等等方式來實現這一點。所以，時間會證明一切，我們拭目以待。至於與供應商合作方面，其實很簡單。根據我們從供應商購買產品的數量和效率，我們最好能獲得最優惠的價格。我們都聽過一些事，有時也會讀到一些事，有時別人會不小心把一些事告訴我們。但是我們都聽說過各種特價優惠，或者某個零售商（無論是實體店還是其他零售商）的各種促銷活動，我認為和我們所有人一樣，我們都應該保持選擇的靈活性。但我們對能拿到錢感到很滿意。我們取得的一些成功，無論是這些特別交易還是特別交易的例子，與供應商合作推出熱門商品和買家精選商品，正如我在去年二月或三月初的第二季度財報電話會議上談到的那樣，在某些情況下，我們會對 MVM 的使用方式和商品進行調整，有時甚至會進行重大調整，從而創造更大的價值商，有時我們會與供應商合作來實現這一點。所有這些因素都是等式的一部分。我認為，當我們試圖管理數千件商品，而這些商品蘊含著巨大的購買力，而且很多人都能獲得這些商品時，管理起來就容易得多。所以我覺得我們對正在做的事情、資金的來源以及資金的用途都相當滿意。發生了很多事。我們拭目以待。我們很高興看到我們所做的一切正在帶動實體店客流量和同店銷售成長。在過去幾季的財報電話會議上，我們曾向大家提到要改進網站、增加一些功能，而令人欣慰的是，這些改進和增加的功能在電子商務方面已經開始取得成果。當我們想到這些新事物時，我們感到很興奮，但仍有許多未知因素。房間裡有人提到了這一點。我認為家用電器就是一個很好的例子。以前我們會在店內販售一些家用電器和其他高價商品，像是家具。如果你——不，我們不提供送貨服務，那就去租一輛 U-Haul 卡車或借用你朋友的皮卡吧。嗯，今天不會發生這種事。透過在店內展示部分商品，我們正在促進業務成長。我們在網路上銷售的家具，包括庭院家具、普通家具、草坪和花園類大件商品、電子產品（包括尊享服務）以及現在的家用電器，都做得非常好。我們認為家電業務，其中一部分也包括品牌，與GE、LG和三星等公司建立合作關係，這種合作方式在我們看來是相對較新的。我們認為，在短短 3 年左右的時間裡，我們可以增加 10 億美元的銷售額，而我們大約在 8 個月前就開始著手實現這一目標了。

Next question comes from the line of Peter Benedict from Robert Baird.

下一個問題來自羅伯特·貝爾德的彼得·本尼迪克特。

Richard, just a quick one. You mentioned the manufacturing facilities during your prepared remarks. Can you talk a little bit more just about what you've done there and what kind the strategy is and some of the benefits you see when you start to take some of that stuff in-house?

理查德，就問一個問題。您在事先準備好的演講稿中提到了生產設施。您能否再詳細談談您在那裡所做的工作、採取的策略以及將其中一些工作內部化後您看到的一些好處？

Well, that's a continuation of some of the things we've done. Years ago, we opened our first ground beef plant. I think it was originally in Tracy, California. And the intention was -- is to: one, assure supply; and two, by definition, have great quality, but then two, lower the price per pound of landed ground beef to our locations. We did that and more. We now have a plant in California that supplies us. It's our plant, 4-plus million pounds a week of half a dozen SKUs. We're building a second plant on the East Coast right now because this one has been beyond capacity for a few years, but we now can accommodate one on East Coast and, by the way, reduce some freight costs along the way, so we'll get more efficiencies from that. The $300 million we're spending on a chicken plant in Nebraska just broke ground 1 month or 2 ago. We need over 400 million birds in the U.S. every year. This will be less than -- about 100 million, so just under 1/4 of our need. More importantly, we've got 2 other plants run by other well-known suppliers where we -- we call them dedicated facilities. We had them retrofit them, greatly reduce the number of SKUs they're supplying and manufacturing to supermarkets, restaurants and us and other clubs, and driving, guess what, if you greatly reduce the SKUs and you make the manufacturing more efficient, you can, save -- given the week and given what happens with all the byproduct in the markets themselves, we can guarantee sourcing and lower our costs by anywhere from $0.10 to $0.35 a bird depending on what month and what's going on out there in the markets. So it has worked well for us. We're looking to do that in other things. The fact that we source produce from 44 countries, it is what makes us who we are, but we're sourcing 30 SKUs-or-so, not 150 SKUs. We're building a -- in Canada, we built a commissary for baking needs. We've got -- so we'll continue to do that, but I think the biggest single commitment we made is this new chicken plant, but it's not like we've gone from 0 to $300 million in this example, we've done a lot of things.

嗯，這是我們之前所做一些事情的延續。多年前，我們開設了第一家牛肉碎加工廠。我認為它最初是在加利福尼亞州的特雷西。其目的在於：一、確保供應；二、顧名思義，保證品質優良，但同時降低運到我們所在地的每磅牛肉碎的價格。我們不僅做到了這一點，而且還做得更多。我們現在在加州有一家工廠為我們提供供貨。這是我們的工廠，每週生產超過 400 萬磅的六種 SKU 產品。我們現在正在東海岸建造第二家工廠，因為這家工廠已經超負荷運轉好幾年了，但我們現在可以在東海岸建造一家工廠，而且順便還能降低一些運輸成本，所以我們會從中獲得更高的效率。我們在內布拉斯加州投資 3 億美元興建的雞肉加工廠，一兩個月前才剛破土動工。美國每年需要超過4億隻鳥類。這將少於——大約1億，不到我們需求的四分之一。更重要的是，我們還有兩家由其他知名供應商營運的工廠，我們稱之為專用設施。我們讓他們進行改造，大幅減少他們向超市、餐廳、我們和其他俱樂部供應和生產的 SKU 數量。你猜怎麼著？如果你大幅減少 SKU 並提高生產效率，你就能節省成本——考慮到每週的情況以及市場上所有副產品的處理方式，我們可以保證採購，並根據月份和市場情況，將每隻鳥的成本降低 0.10 美元到 0.35 美元不等。所以這對我們來說效果很好。我們希望在其他方面也能做到這一點。我們從 44 個國家採購產品，造就了我們，但我們只採購 30 個左右的 SKU，而不是 150 個 SKU。我們正在加拿大建造一個——我們建造了一個滿足烘焙需求的中央廚房。我們已經投入了資金，所以我們會繼續這樣做，但我認為我們做出的最大單項承諾是這座新的雞肉加工廠，但這並不意味著我們在這個例子中從 0 到 3 億美元，我們做了很多事情。

Next question comes from the line of Scott Mushkin with Wolfe Research.

下一個問題來自 Wolfe Research 的 Scott Mushkin。

I wanted to just kind of attack the elephant in the room. We've had a lot of questions on kind of memberships, and I think the elephant in the room, basically, it's the old Peter Lynch of investing, invest in what you know. And I think a lot of people in the investment community have seen -- if they're Costco members, maybe have seen that their shopping frequency to Costco dropped as Amazon's come in with things like Subscribe & Save and other programs that they've done. So Richard, what I wanted to -- I mean, clearly, your sales are just amazing, like, they speed up and they speed up and they speed up and your frequency. What are we missing in the investment community where, again, it's the old Peter Lynch thing, kind of invest in what you know, where our experience is, I think, collectively, and I hear it from a lot of investors, but I also have experienced it myself in my own household, we're going to Costco less, and yet your sales are so darn strong. What are we missing? And why do you think we're missing it?

我當時只想直面這個顯而易見卻又無人提及的問題。我們收到了很多關於會員資格的問題，我認為最根本的問題，其實就是投資界的彼得林奇那句老話：投資你了解的東西。我認為投資界的許多人已經注意到——如果他們是 Costco 會員，可能已經注意到，隨著亞馬遜推出「訂閱省」等服務，他們在 Costco 的購物頻率下降了。所以理查德，我想說的是——我的意思是，很明顯，你的銷售額非常驚人，就像，它們一直在加速、加速、再加速，而且你的銷售頻率也越來越高。投資界究竟缺少了什麼？再說一遍，這又回到了彼得林區的老套路，那就是投資自己熟悉的東西。我認為，就我們的經驗而言，我聽到很多投資者這麼說，我自己在自己家裡也親身經歷過，我們去Costco的次數減少了，但你們的銷售額卻非常強勁。我們遺漏了什麼？你覺得我們為什麼會錯過它？

I wish I -- it was an easy explanation. We don't see it. That's not a good -- it's a good answer from the standpoint that we don't see it and that's good to the numbers. To the extent -- clearly, you've done some sampling, yourself, Scott. Others have as well. Some of that sampling shows what you just suggested that it appears that, including your family. Others, it doesn't show that. I don't know why. What we know is, is that we feel good -- well, certainly, we feel good about comps and frequency and renewal rates subject to the -- to some of the credit card stuff. We feel good about some of the things we're getting ready to offer. If this stuff is being sold out there at higher prices, and now we're going to -- those prices are going to be even lowered further by us with 1- and 2-day delivery or with the first -- 1 day, the same-day delivery with Fresh. We have to figure out how to communicate that to everybody, but it should -- that should continue to drive our business. We'll see. I don't have a good answer for that one. I think part of it is if you take -- using the -- grocery industry, the roughly, whatever it is, $900 billion or $1 trillion industry, everybody out there on this call and elsewhere will have their estimate of what delivery and online will be as a percentage of the total. Whatever it is today, it'll be more tomorrow, and it'll be more the next day. I think everybody, even though has extreme assumption, is it's not going to be 100% ever. The question is, is it going to go from, I'm making these numbers up, from 5 to 10 and then slow down? Is it going to go from 20 or 25? Is it going to 40. Who the (expletive) knows? Whatever it's going to be, we should have a piece of it. But clearly, whatever that brick-and-mortar or people actually drive somewhere and get it themselves, I think we're going to keep taking pieces of that. An extreme example is, not even groceries, on apparel, we have a $6-plus billion apparel business that's compounded for 3.5 years at 9-plus percent while the brick-and-mortar apparel is down. I know why, and we've explained why. So for every point, there seems to be a counterpoint. Within grocery itself, part of it's the unique items, whether it's Kirkland Signature items or some of the things we do uniquely ourselves, all those things, hopefully, we get it. If we can't get you to come in for it, we'll at least get you to come in occasionally by some of the things we do to drive you in like the Strip Steaks or like the Copper River Salmon or like organics. And to the extent you want to pay a little more, that little more will be a lot less more than it was the day before, even through us. So that's what we're going to do.

我希望——這很容易解釋。我們沒看到。這不算好——從我們看不到它的角度來看，這算是一個好答案，這對數據來說是好事。顯然，斯科特，你自己也做了一些調查。其他人也有。部分抽樣結果證實了你剛才所說的，似乎包括你的家人。對另一些人來說，則沒有這種跡象。我不知道為什麼。我們知道的是，我們感覺很好——當然，我們對信用卡方面的優惠、頻率和續費率感到滿意。我們對即將推出的一些產品和服務感到滿意。如果這些商品在外面以更高的價格出售，而現在我們將透過 1 天和 2 天送達服務，或透過 Fresh 的首款 1 天、當日送達服務，進一步降低這些商品的價格。我們必須想辦法把這一點傳達給所有人，但這應該——這應該繼續推動我們的業務發展。我們拭目以待。這個問題我沒有好的答案。我認為部分原因是，以食品雜貨業為例，這個行業大致規模為 9000 億美元或 1 兆美元，參加此次電話會議和其他地方的每個人都會對送貨上門和在線銷售佔總數的百分比做出自己的估計。今天擁有的，明天會更多，後天會更多。我認為每個人，即使抱持極端的假設，也都認為它永遠不可能達到 100%。問題是，它會從（我隨便舉個例子）5 成長到 10，然後放緩嗎？是從20還是25開始？會到40嗎？誰他媽知道？無論最終結果如何，我們都應該從中分一杯羹。但很顯然，無論是實體店還是人們親自開車去購買，我認為我們都會繼續從中分一杯羹。一個極端的例子是，即使不是食品雜貨，就服裝而言，我們有一個超過 60 億美元的服裝業務，在過去 3.5 年里以超過 9% 的複合增長率增長，而實體服裝店的銷售額卻在下降。我知道原因，我們也解釋過原因。所以，對於每一個觀點，似乎都有一個反駁的觀點。在雜貨店裡，一部分是獨特的商品，無論是 Kirkland Signature 的商品還是我們自己獨創的一些商品，所有這些，希望我們都能理解。如果我們不能讓你親自來品嚐，我們至少會透過一些吸引你的東西讓你偶爾來光顧，例如牛排、銅河鮭魚或有機食品。即使你願意多付一點錢，那多付的一點錢也會比前一天少得多，即使是透過我們購買也是如此。所以，這就是我們要做的事。

Yes, I mean, I think, right now, it seems like with the strength of the business that our experience maybe on the investment community is a little different than what's going on in -- for a lot of people. I had just one last one on the $75 free delivery. I've been on the site during the call. Is that -- if you sell items and you deliver for free for over $75 of the order size, are the profits equivalent there with going to the store?

是的，我的意思是，我認為，就目前而言，鑑於公司的強勁實力，我們在投資界的經驗可能與許多人的情況略有不同。我只剩下最後一個滿 75 美元包郵的商品了。通話期間我一直在線上。也就是說——如果你銷售商品，訂單金額超過 75 美元就免費送貨，那麼這種方式的利潤與去商店購買的利潤一樣嗎？

Repeat the question, somebody was mentioning something.

重複一遍問題，有人提到了什麼。

Yes. So I mean, basically, if it's $75, the delivery is free. What -- is that -- is the profit equivalent, if I go over $75 and I buy on this Costco grocery, is the profit equivalent there versus the store?

是的。所以我的意思是，基本上，如果訂單金額是 75 美元，就免運費。如果我消費超過 75 美元，在 Costco 超市購物的利潤與在其他商店購物的利潤相比如何？

Yes. And part of that, by the way, is what we do. I mean, it's this huge volume that we're doing, like any deliverer out there, including some of the ones that deliver our stuff and that are doing stuff third party with us, it's all about getting more things in the box. If we get you to maximize that shipment, that goes a big way. If we get the volume that we can bring to the table when third-party shippers are also looking for more volume or to spread that volume, that's all good for us and our member.

是的。順便說一句，這其中一部分就是我們所做的。我的意思是，我們現在的訂單量非常大，就像其他任何快遞公司一樣，包括一些為我們送貨的快遞公司和與我們合作的第三方快遞公司，一切都是為了把更多的東西裝進箱子裡。如果我們能幫助您最大限度地提高出貨量，那將大有裨益。如果我們能夠獲得足夠的貨運量，而第三方貨運商也在尋求更大的貨運量或擴大貨運量，那麼這對我們和我們的會員來說都是好事。

Next question comes from the line of Dan Binder with Jeffries.

下一個問題來自丹賓德和傑弗里斯的連線。

It's Dan Binder. On the topic of e-commerce, you talked about the higher profitability of an online sale. I'm just curious. If you would take $1 of sales out of the club and transfer it to online, does the better profit online completely offset the deleverage of pulling that $1 out of the club?

他是丹·賓德。關於電子商務，您談到了網上銷售更高的利潤率。我只是好奇而已。如果將俱樂部銷售額中的 1 美元轉移到線上，線上更高的利潤是否能完全抵消將這 1 美元從俱樂部轉移出去所帶來的槓桿損失？

Look, it's going to be a long time before we figure that out. At the end of the day, if all we're doing is substituting and taking sales out of brick-and-mortar and doing it online, that's a loss. That's a money-losing proposition. The fact of the matter is, is if we're going to lose it, a, we should lose it to ourselves. And b, can we drive more business any way, both in-store and online. The fact that you can get under this Costco grocery dry items throughout the entire Continental United States within 1 year, and 90% of it already starting 2 days ago, that includes lots of geographies where there's not a Costco within 150, 200 miles. So we think that we're going to drive some business outside of our existing members and, by the way, they're going to need to become a member to do this. So they're already doing it, despite ourselves, online with the limited amount of things we had at a higher price. So we think that -- will be some -- will somebody stop becoming a Costco member? Sure, there's going to be somebody. Will somebody shop less in-store because they're now in-filling or fulfilling some of that with buying direct? Yes. But will there be new people that didn't do it before? Absolutely. And will we figure out how to get you in the store, even if you don't want to drive to the store? Yes. And we've been pleasantly surprised by some little things we've done to do that. People like deals, and we do deals better than anybody.

你看，我們還需要很長時間才能弄清楚。歸根結底，如果我們只是用線上銷售替代線下銷售，從而減少實體店的銷售額，那將是一種損失。那是一筆賠錢的買賣。事實是，如果我們注定要失去它，那麼我們應該自己失去它。其次，我們能否透過任何方式（包括線上和線下）推動業務成長？事實是，你可以在一年內在美國大陸各地購買到 Costco 的干貨，而且其中 90% 的地區從兩天前就開始了，這包括很多方圓 150 到 200 英里內都沒有 Costco 的地區。所以我們認為我們將從現有會員之外拓展一些業務，順便說一句，他們需要成為會員才能做到這一點。所以，儘管我們不知情，他們已經開始在網路上以更高的價格出售我們數量有限的商品了。所以我們認為——會有一些——會有人停止成為 Costco 會員嗎？當然，一定會有人這麼做。由於現在可以透過直接採​​購來填補或滿足部分庫存需求，是否會有人減少在實體店購物？是的。但會有以前沒做過這件事的人加入嗎？絕對地。即使您不想開車來商店，我們也能想辦法讓您進店嗎？是的。我們為實現這一目標所做的一些小事，也為我們帶來了意想不到的驚喜。人們喜歡優惠，而我們比任何人都更擅長做優惠。

second question was around renewal rates. You talked about the next couple of quarters, possibly before you see that inflection. If I go back far enough, I can recall cycles where you had membership fee increases where the renewal rate would come off a little bit, not a lot. I don't -- I think the last cycle, you didn't see that. I'm just curious, as you look -- because you just raised membership fees, is it possible that, that renewal rate takes a little bit longer than just a couple of quarters until you lap that fee increase next year?

第二個問題是關於續約率的。你談到了接下來的幾個季度，可能要等到出現轉折點之後才會出現。如果我追溯得夠久遠，我記得以前會員費上漲的時候，續費價格會稍微下降一些，但不多。我不——我覺得上一輪比賽，你沒看到。我只是好奇，因為你們剛剛提高了會員費，那麼續費率是否有可能在明年再次上漲後，需要比幾個季度更長的時間才能恢復正常？

I think it's possible. I think what you're talking about originally though is when we do an increase, you'd see an almost an immediate drop in renewal rate for about 1 year and then it catch back up and it continue on. I think it's been like at least 2 if not 3 cycles, so 10 to 15 years prior to that where we saw that. Recognizing there's other things that made you want to renew your membership, having gas stations, having fresh foods, becoming the Executive Member, all those things have helped that as well. So it's hard to dissect it in that regard. Anecdotally, what we hear from -- again, from membership and from membership when they survey members that have dropped, that it has nothing to -- virtually nothing to do with raising the fee.

我認為這是有可能的。我認為你最初指的是，當我們提價時，續約率會在大約一年內幾乎立即下降，然後才會回升並繼續上升。我認為至少經歷了 2 個週期，甚至 3 個週期，也就是在此之前的 10 到 15 年裡，我們都看到了這種情況。意識到還有其他因素促使你續訂會員資格，例如加油站、新鮮食品、成為高級會員等等，這些也都起到了促進作用。所以很難從這個角度來剖析。我們從會員那裡聽到的消息——再次強調，是從會員那裡聽到的，以及從退會會員那裡聽到的——退會與提高會費幾乎沒有任何關係。

Okay. Just 2 other questions. On the promotional front. If I go back a couple quarters ago, it looked like you were pulling back on the MVM, hit the sales a little bit. But over the years, you've gotten a little bit more business on promotion, maybe a little less on EDLP. There's been a little bit of a shift. And now, I'm just listening to the call today, it sounds like you're going to be more active online. So I guess, just in terms of how it fits into the message of the customer about everyday low price and whether they should wait for that promotion, do you feel like you have the right balance today? Or do you think there'll be further tweaks, as you do more online, take away some of the MVM in the club?

好的。還有兩個問題。在宣傳推廣方面。如果我回顧幾個季度前的情況，看起來你們似乎在縮減 MVM 的投入，稍微削減了銷售額。但這些年來，促銷活動帶來的業務量略有增加，而 EDLP 帶來的業務量可能略有減少。情況發生了一些變化。我現在正在聽今天的通話，聽起來你以後會在網路上更活躍。所以我想，就它如何契合顧客對「天天低價」的期望，以及他們是否應該等待促銷活動而言，您覺得您現在是否找到了合適的平衡？或者你認為隨著線上活動的增多，俱樂部會進行更多調整，從而減少一些MVM（最有價值球員）的參與度嗎？

Well, first of all, the letter E means every day. What we talked about -- what we've changed back in February-ish, we continued. What I mentioned. Did we -- I gave a couple of examples what we've done online of late. So it's not substituting something else. The view is, our collective view is, is that there's -- we have the ability to do all the above, and we're doing it.

首先，字母 E 代表每天。我們繼續討論我們在二月左右做出的改變。我剛才提到的。我們——我舉了幾個例子，說明我們最近在網路上做了些什麼。所以它並不是在取代其他東西。我們的觀點，或者說我們共同的觀點，是－我們有能力做到以上所有事情，而我們正在這樣做。

Okay. And then my last question was just around traffic. Both, I think, in September and the quarter, and I think actually for quite a while, the U.S. traffic -- or at least a couple of quarters, the U.S. traffic has been better than international. I was just curious, with a younger international store base, why would that traffic be softer? Is it strictly cannibalization? Or is it something more than that as you compare it to the U.S. traffic growth?

好的。我最後一個問題是關於交通方面的。我認為，無論是 9 月還是本季度，而且實際上在相當長的一段時間內，美國流量——或者至少在過去的幾個季度裡，美國流量都比國際流量要好。我只是好奇，國際門市群體更年輕，為什麼客流量會比較低？這嚴格意義上來說是同類相食嗎？或者，與美國的交通成長相比，它是否具有更深層的意義？

It's 2 things. It's cannibalization and the newness of the -- it's cannibalization and new members in any state or any country, and that first renewal is less than the second year renewal is less than the third year's. Every time they renew, they're more likely to renew the next year at a higher rate than the previous year class, if you will. And so we've got newer market units, and we have cannibalization.

這是兩件事。這是蠶食，也是新成員的湧入——在任何州或任何國家都是如此，而且第一次續費少於第二次續費，第二次續費少於第三年續費。每次續約，他們第二年的續約率都會比前一年更高。因此，我們有了更新的市場單元，也出現了內部蠶食現象。

Next question comes from the line of Kelly Bania from BMO.

下一個問題來自BMO的凱莉·巴尼亞。

Just a couple more questions on the 2 new online initiatives. I guess, first, how will the prices compare for each of them to the stores in the club? I believe Instacart has 2 different models, one where the prices actually match the in-store prices, but I believe there's a margin impact for that for the retailer. So just any comments on how we should expect or what the message to members will be on how prices will be on the online versus in the club? And then are there any plans in terms of testing some more auto replenishment-type programs along with this and any plans to market or advertise this in a meaningful way?

關於這兩項新的線上舉措，還有幾個問題。首先，我想了解它們的價格與俱樂部商店的價格相比如何？我認為 Instacart 有兩種不同的模式，一種是價格與店內價格一致，但我認為這會對零售商的利潤率產生影響。那麼，關於線上、線下門市的價格差異，大家有什麼看法？或者說，俱樂部會向會員傳達什麼訊息？那麼，是否有計劃測試更多自動補貨類型的程序，以及是否有計劃以有意義的方式進行市場推廣或廣告宣傳？

On the latter part, I believe there's something already on the site in terms of auto replenishment. That's on there? I'm sorry, it doesn't replenish but it comes up with a list based on what you bought before. And again, yes, that'll be tweaked, but that was first order of business to get out there. First of all, in terms of Instacart having 2 different models, the same prices in-store or not, I think they only had one model with us currently, prior to this week, and which included however they charge for delivery or they mark up our goods. So this will be lower when you go on to Instacart and even lower when you go on to Costco grocery or Costco -- the fresh Costco e-commerce. Did I answer that?

關於後一部分，我認為網站上已經有自動補貨方面的功能了。上面有這個嗎？抱歉，它不會自動補貨，而是根據您先前的購買記錄產生清單。是的，這一點還需要調整，但這是我們首要的任務。首先，關於 Instacart 有兩種不同的模式，無論店內價格是否相同，我認為在本週之前，他們只在我們這裡提供一種模式，無論他們收取多少運費，或者他們如何提高我們商品的價格。所以，如果你去 Instacart 購物，價格會更低；如果你去 Costco 超市或 Costco – 新鮮 Costco 電商平台購物，價格還會更低。我回答過這個問題嗎？

Next question comes from the line of Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.

下一個問題來自北海岸研究公司的 Chuck Cerankosky。

When you're looking at the various reasons people shop the Costco clubs, are you able to look at just how much they enjoy that shopping experience? You've got great sales numbers, and there's a lot of reasons for being in the store, but is there just a factor that indicates people enjoy being in the club?

當你研究人們在 Costco 購物的各種原因時，你是否能夠看到他們究竟有多享受那種購物體驗？你們的銷售業績非常好，顧客光顧本店的理由也很多，但是有沒有哪個因素顯示人們喜歡待在俱樂部裡呢？

Well, I'm biased, but of course. And we all enjoy being in a club. What was the first part of your question?

當然，我承認我帶有偏見。我們都喜歡待在俱樂部裡。你問題的第一部分是什麼？

Well, you've got various reasons like saving money to go to a Costco club and high quality. But is there just flat out simply an experiential reason to be in the clubs that is driving traffic numbers that are better than a lot of other brick-and-mortar retail?

去 Costco 購物的理由有很多，例如省錢和品質好。但是，去夜店消費是否僅僅是因為其獨特的體驗，從而帶動了比許多其他實體零售店更好的客流量呢？

Well, I think it's several -- look, Chuck, and again I am biased. It's several things. The gas stations help, fresh foods is second to none, and in our view, that's even gotten -- the motor [oil data] has gotten bigger not smaller since June. There's Kirkland Signature items. There's treasure hunt, fresh. There's organics. So I mean, I think that's where we do. When I look -- when I go to the budget meetings every 4 weeks and I look at even some of the things we've got coming in for the various holidays, whether it's outerwear apparel for the winter or some of the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, just -- I think our members are -- should be as excited as ever about some of the exciting new things we have. They keep driving that value proposition. And all the fees I mentioned earlier in the call, the tweaking the MVM, the -- using the e-mails to get you in to buy it. When everybody out there was at $8.99 to $10.99 on choice New York strip steaks, we went from $7.99 to $6.99. That not only drives business and takes it away from chicken and ground beef, it drives traffic. And we know how to do that kind of stuff pretty well.

嗯，我認為有好幾個——聽著，查克，我再次聲明，我的觀點可能帶有偏見。這包含好幾個面向。加油站有所幫助，新鮮食品更是首屈一指，在我們看來，情況甚至變得更糟了——自 6 月以來，機油數據不但沒有減少，反而增加了。這裡有 Kirkland Signature 的產品。尋寶遊戲，新鮮刺激。有有機食品。所以我的意思是，我認為我們就是這麼做的。當我每 4 週參加預算會議，查看我們為各種節日準備的一些物品時，無論是冬季的外套，還是感恩節和聖誕節等節日的物品，我認為我們的會員應該會像以往一樣對我們擁有的一些令人興奮的新產品感到興奮。他們一直在強調這個價值主張。還有我之前在電話會議中提到的所有費用，調整 MVM，以及——利用電子郵件誘使你購買它。當其他商家把精選紐約牛排的價格定在 8.99 美元到 10.99 美元之間時，我們把價格從 7.99 美元降到了 6.99 美元。這不僅能帶動雞肉和牛肉的銷量，還能增加客流量。我們很擅長做這類事情。

Going back to membership. Our work has been showing that household formations are looking a little better than the census numbers, which are about 1 million new households per year right now. Are you seeing that in membership sign-ups in the U.S.?

回到會員制。我們的研究表明，家庭組成情況比人口普查數據略好一些，目前人口普查數據顯示每年新增家庭約 100 萬戶。您在美國的會員註冊中也觀察到了這種情況嗎？

New households? I don't know. If you want to e-mail me the question, I can find out.

新家庭？我不知道。如果你想透過電子郵件把問題寄給我，我可以查清楚。

Next question comes from the line of Scot Ciccarelli with RBC Capital Markets.

下一個問題來自加拿大皇家銀行資本市場的 Scot Ciccarelli。

Rob Iannarone on for Scot Ciccarelli. Just one housekeeping item. Organic sales, can you tell us how much that was for the year?

羅布·伊納羅內 (Rob Iannarone) 換下斯科特·西卡雷利 (Scot Ciccarelli)。一件家務事。有機產品的銷售額，請問今年的具體金額是多少？

Organic? It was up a little over 20% and about $5.5 billion.

有機的？漲幅略高於 20%，約 55 億美元。

Great. And one follow-up also food-related here. Anything you're seeing changing in either inflation, deflation? Has the tone of the conversation changed with any suppliers you talk to?

偉大的。這裡還有一個與食物相關的後續問題。你觀察到通貨膨脹或通貨緊縮方面有任何變化嗎？當你與供應商交談時，談話的語氣是否有改變？

It's pretty stable. I mean, everybody's hoping for a little -- well, we're not hoping for inflation. Everybody's hoping for inflation. They can't -- it doesn't hurt us. But it's been pretty stable. I mean, if I look at LIFO indices or any type of those metrics, we've gone from deflation to flat or, literally, low single-digit basis points up on a basket. Taking -- not taking gas out of the equation, which is quite inflationary right now.

它相當穩定。我的意思是，大家都希望經濟能稍微好轉一些——當然，我們並不希望通貨膨脹。大家都盼著通貨膨脹。他們做不到──這不會傷害我們。但它一直相當穩定。我的意思是，如果我看一下後進先出指數或任何類型的這類指標，我們已經從通貨緊縮轉變為持平，或者更確切地說，一籃子商品價格僅上漲了幾個基點。（這裡不考慮汽油，因為汽油目前價格上漲幅度相當大。）

Next question comes from the line of Joe Feldman with Telsey Advisory Group.

下一個問題來自 Telsey Advisory Group 的 Joe Feldman。

Two quick ones. Pickup in-store, I know we've talked about this before with you guys but just curious if you've changed your thinking on it at all or if there's any potential to do a test like a buy online, pick up in store situation?

兩個簡短的問題。店內取貨，我知道我們之前和你們討論過這個問題，但我只是好奇你們的想法是否有所改變，或者是否有可能進行一次類似線上購買、店內取貨的測試？

Yes. We look at it, but at this point, we're not prepared to do it. We do it with tires. You can order them online and schedule your appointment.

是的。我們正在考慮，但目前我們還沒有做好實施的準備。我們用輪胎來做到這一點。您可以在線訂購並預約。

Got it. Is it a space issue or a labor issue, you think?

知道了。你認為這是空間問題還是勞動力問題？

Well, it's, first of all, to tell you the truth, in our view, and maybe we're stubborn, it's a commonsense issue. You order and then you got -- we have to separate it into dry, refrigerated, frozen and wait for you. And it's clearly a space issue. I mean, we're doing literally twice the volume of some others out there -- 2 to 3x the volume versus our 2 direct competitors. And I'm sure at some point, we'll try it, but it's not on the agenda in the next couple of months.

首先，說實話，在我們看來，也許我們很固執，這是一個常識問題。您下單後，我們會將其分成乾貨、冷藏貨、冷凍貨，然後等您取貨。這顯然是個空間問題。我的意思是，我們的銷量是其他一些公司的兩倍——是我們的兩個直接競爭對手的 2 到 3 倍。我相信在某個時候我們會嘗試一下，但未來幾個月內不會有這個計劃。

Got it. And then the other topic, I think you said the store mix for this year, new stores was 2/3 U.S., 1/3 international. I feel like that you were trying to push more towards 50-50 the past couple years. Just anything to do that you can mention there?

知道了。至於另一個主題，我想您提到了今年的門市組合，新店中 2/3 位於美國，1/3 位於國際。我覺得你這兩年一直在努力往五五開的方向發展。有什麼可以提一下的嗎？

We're still trying. It's just that there's a longer pipeline, and we've had a lot going on. So there's -- we will get there. I look at it. I think the good news is if you'd asked me 5, 6, 7 years ago, I don't think we'd have as many opportunities in the U.S. as we still think we have. I mean, saturation continues, but that -- the time with saturation ultimately occurs for new locations keeps being pushed out a little bit further. Why don't we take 2 last questions?

我們仍在努力。只是管道比較長，我們最近事情很多。所以——我們會到達那裡的。我看了看。我認為好消息是，如果你在 5、6、7 年前問我這個問題，我認為我們在美國不會像現在這樣擁有這麼多機會。我的意思是，市場飽和現象仍在持續，但是──對於新的市場而言，市場最終達到飽和的時間卻不斷被延後。我們何不回答最後兩個問題呢？

The next question comes from the line of Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer.

下一個問題來自布萊恩·納格爾和奧本海默的對話。

This is David Bellinger on for Brian. So my first question is on the price investments you detailed earlier. Just to be clear, did those step up in Q4 versus the trend over the first 3 quarters of the year? And if so, was that in some way a reaction to the Amazon-Whole Foods deal?

這裡是大衛貝林格替布萊恩報道。我的第一個問題是關於您之前詳細介紹的價格投資。為了明確起見，這些指標在第四季是否比前三個季度的趨勢有所上升？如果真是如此，這是否在某種程度上是對亞馬遜收購全食超市交易的一種反應？

No, they didn't, other than there's more weeks -- there's 17 weeks versus the first 3 quarters that had 12 weeks. And it had absolutely nothing to do with that. I mean, we price Whole Foods twice a week in many, many markets around the country, and we're kind of scratching our head. We did that before the announcement of the acquisition, by the way. They come down in prices of some items. Sure. Overall, and some of you have done your own price baskets while we read about up to 43%, it's a lot closer to 0 than it is 43%. And even with something dramatic, others out there are going to be impacted a lot more than we are, other than people wanting to have stuff delivered, and we're providing that option based on how we do stuff.

不，他們沒有改變，只是時間更長了——有 17 週，而前三個季度只有 12 週。但這和那件事完全沒有關係。我的意思是，我們在全國許多很多市場每週對 Whole Foods 進行兩次定價，我們對此感到非常困惑。順便一提，我們在宣布收購之前就完成了這項工作。部分商品的價格有所下降。當然。總的來說，雖然你們有些人自己也做了價格籃子，而我們看到的價格籃子高達 43%，但實際上它更接近 0 而不是 43%。即使發生重大事件，除了人們想要收貨之外，其他人受到的影響也會比我們大得多，而我們正是根據我們的做事方式來提供這種選擇。

Got it. And then as my follow-up, can you just give us any comments around the recent trajectory of food price deflation and what your expectations are going into 2018.

知道了。那麼，作為我的後續問題，您能否就近期食品價格通貨的走勢以及您對 2018 年的預期發表一些評論？

We -- it's pretty flat right now. And within fresh, you're going to see variations like meat has come down a little bit. It was way up for 1 year. That can be seasonal. Produce depends on crops, recent events. Oil -- gasoline depends on recent events, the hurricanes, but other than that -- taking some of those things out, it's pretty flat.

我們——現在地勢相當平坦。而在新鮮食品方面，你會發現一些變化，例如肉類的價格略有下降。一年來一直居高不下。這可能是季節性的。產量取決於作物種類和近期發生的事件。石油——汽油價格取決於最近發生的事件，例如颶風，但除此之外——排除這些因素，價格基本上持平。

The next question comes from the -- the last question comes from the line of Mark Astrachan with Stifel.

下一個問題來自——最後一個問題來自 Stifel 的 Mark Astrachan 一線。

I wanted to ask, can you give the percentage of sales that Kirkland Signature represents? And I'm just curious if you think about the margins relative to what else is in-store, given increasing competition out there and, obviously, the favorability of the KS products, would you think about increasing the offerings there going forward to help sort of fund and offer uniqueness within the store?

我想問一下，Kirkland Signature的銷售額佔比是多少？我很好奇，考慮到市場競爭日益激烈，以及KS產品本身的受歡迎程度，您是否會考慮增加KS產品的供應量，以籌集資金並在店內提供獨特性？

Yes. Well, percentage-wise, ex gasoline, even though it says Kirkland Signature, gasoline is about 24%, 25% of our total sales -- our non-gas sales. We'll continue to add items as they make sense. We're not really working towards the number. We think the number will keep going up a little bit because we do like it, but we've also -- we remind ourselves and our head of merchandising reminds our buyers every day, don't fall in love with it because it has your name on it and, each year, which items, even Kirkland Signature, we just continue because the brand does better. Maybe ours is a better value in our minds and it -- maybe it is a better value, but we're still not successful with it. And by the way, part of the focus of our buyers probably before that is to find more brands. We want more brands.

是的。嗯，從百分比來看，不包括汽油，儘管上面寫著 Kirkland Signature，但汽油約占我們總銷售額的 24% 到 25%——也就是我們的非汽油銷售額。我們會根據實際情況繼續添加商品。我們其實並不是朝著這個數字努力。我們認為這個數字還會繼續小幅增長，因為我們確實喜歡它，但我們也——我們每天都在提醒自己，我們的商品主管也在提醒我們的採購員，不要因為某個品牌有你的名字就愛上它，而且每年，即使是 Kirkland Signature，我們也會繼續銷售一些產品，僅僅因為這個品牌表現更好。或許在我們看來，我們的方案更有價值，而且──或許它的確更有價值，但我們仍然沒有成功。順便說一句，在此之前，我們採購人員的部分重點可能是尋找更多品牌。我們希望有更多品牌。

Got it. And then just lastly, you'd previously talked about e-commerce expansion being done organically. Curious if that's still the case. Or would you potentially take a look at other things, whether it's an actual retailer, whether it's a logistics provider, something that could help sort of bridge what you're doing externally now with something internally? And related to that sort of views on competitive dynamics, meaning you buy something that isn't necessarily something you want but something that somebody else may want that ultimately could negatively impact your business.

知道了。最後，您之前也談到過電子商務的擴張是自然而然進行的。想知道現在情況是否仍然如此。或者您是否考慮過其他方面，例如零售商、物流供應商等，看看能否將您目前在外部開展的工作與內部業務進行某種程度的銜接？與這種競爭動態觀點相關的是，你購買的東西不一定是你想要的，而是其他人可能想要的，這最終可能會對你的業務產生負面影響。

I think of the latter part of that, no. That's going to be the last thing. I always joke we're not smart enough to figure that one out. I think we're more likely to, first of all, look for partnerships and ventures to jointly venture something rather than to buy something. As you might expect, we, along with other large (inaudible) retailers, get calls every day about everything, whether it's delivery services, food-related meal stuff, all kinds of stuff. And we're fortunate in the sense that, one, we've got some good relationships like the recent expansion of what we're doing with Instacart. That helped. So I don't see us doing that. That being said, we'll be open-minded to anything, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. We've got a lot going on right now with some of the things we're doing that we're excited about. And every time -- when we tried something -- I keep bringing up the steak idea or the steak example or the Copper River Salmon answer, then we figure out what else can we do. And there's a lot of those what elses. And so we've got our plate pretty full of those kind of things. And we've got -- look, we just rolled this thing out. It's an -- what we rolled out 3 days ago was a soft opening, if you will. There's no publicity out there for it. We'll have to see how it goes, what it does first.

我認為後半部不是。這將是最後一件事。我總是開玩笑說，我們不夠聰明，想不出這個問題。我認為我們更有可能先尋求合作夥伴關係和合資企業來共同開展某項事業，而不是購買某件東西。正如你所料，我們和其他大型（聽不清楚）零售商一樣，每天都會接到各種各樣的電話，無論是送貨服務、與食品相關的餐飲用品，還是其他各種各樣的東西。從某種意義上說，我們很幸運，因為我們建立了一些良好的合作關係，例如最近與 Instacart 的合作擴展。那很有幫助。所以我覺得我們不會那麼做。話雖如此，我們對任何事都持開放態度，但這件事我們還得拭目以待。我們目前正在進行一些令我們興奮的事情。每次我們嘗試做某件事時，我都會提起牛排的想法、牛排的例子或銅河鮭魚的答案，然後我們再想想還能做些什麼。還有很多類似的「還有什麼？」的問題。所以我們現在有很多這類事情要處理。我們已經——你看，我們剛剛推出了這個產品。三天前我們推出的，可以說是試營運。目前還沒有任何宣傳。我們得先看看情況如何，看看它到底會做什麼。

Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.

謝謝大家。祝你有美好的一天。

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