好市多 (COST) 2018 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Christy, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Costco Wholesale Corporation First Quarter Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to CFO, Richard Galanti. You may begin.

大家下午好。我叫克里斯蒂，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表 Costco Wholesale Corporation 歡迎各位參加第一季財報電話會議。（操作說明）謝謝。現在我將把會議交給財務長理查德·加蘭蒂。你可以開始了。

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're 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提交給美國證券交易委員會的報告中確定的其他風險和不確定性。前瞻性聲明僅代表其發布之日的情況，除法律要求外，本公司不承擔更新這些聲明的義務。

In today's press release, we reported operating results for the first quarter of fiscal '18, the 12 weeks ended November 26. Reported net income for the quarter came in at $640 million or $1.45 a share. That's a 17% increase compared to last year's first quarter results of $545 million or $1.24 a share.

在今天的新聞稿中，我們公佈了 2018 財年第一季（截至 11 月 26 日的 12 週）的營運業績。據報道，該季度淨利潤為 6.4 億美元，即每股 1.45 美元。與去年第一季 5.45 億美元（合每股 1.24 美元）的業績相比，成長了 17%。

In comparing the year-over-year results, there were 2 items noted in today's release. First one, this year's first quarter had benefited from a $41 million or $0.09 a share income tax benefit related to a change in accounting rules for stock-based compensation. And secondly, last year's first quarter results benefited from a nonrecurring $51 million legal settlement. This $51 million figure represented a 19 basis point benefit to gross margin and a benefit to the first quarter 2017's earnings per share of $0.07 a share. So excluding those 2 items, the reported 17% increase in earnings would have been up 16%.

在比較年比業績時，今天發布的報告中提到了 2 項內容。首先，今年第一季受益於與股票選擇權激勵會計準則變更相關的 4,100 萬美元或每股 0.09 美元的所得稅優惠。其次，去年第一季的業績得益於一筆一次性支付的 5,100 萬美元法律和解金。這 5,100 萬美元使毛利率提高了 19 個基點，使 2017 年第一季每股收益提高了 0.07 美元。因此，如果排除這兩項因素，報告中的 17% 的收益成長將變為 16%。

A variety of other items impacted the year-over-year comparison. To the positive, gasoline profitability was higher year-over-year as was, to a lesser extent, incremental -- some incremental benefit from our co-branded credit card program metrics. Offsetting these year-over-year positives were costs related to Hurricanes Irma and Maria as -- and a slightly higher year-over-year normalized income tax rate, about 70 basis points.

還有其他各種因素影響了同比比較結果。積極的一面是，汽油利潤率同比有所提高，此外，我們的聯名信用卡計劃指標也帶來了一些增量收益，儘管增幅較小。抵消這些同比利好因素的是與颶風艾爾瑪和瑪麗亞相關的成本，以及同比略微上升的正常所得稅率，約 70 個基點。

Now turning to the income statement, I'll start with sales. Net sales for the first quarter were $31.12 billion, a 13.3% increase from last year's $27.47 billion, while this year's 12-week quarter included 1 less sales day in the United States than the first quarter of last year due to the calendar shift for Thanksgiving. Our pre-Thanksgiving and Black Friday holiday weekend sales fell into the first quarter this year compared to having fallen into the second quarter last year. Combined, these 2 factors produced an estimated net benefit to this year's first quarter sales results by an estimated 1.5% in the U.S. and about 1.3% worldwide.

現在來看損益表，我先從銷售額開始。第一季淨銷售額為 311.2 億美元，比去年同期的 274.7 億美元成長了 13.3%。由於感恩節的日曆調整，今年第一季（12 週）在美國的銷售日比去年第一季少了 1 天。今年感恩節前和黑色星期五假日週末的銷售額落在了第一季度，而去年則落在了第二季度。這兩個因素加在一起，預計今年第一季在美國的銷售業績淨增加約 1.5%，全球淨增加約 1.3%。

As you saw on the release today, reported U.S. comparable sales increase was 10.3. Ex gas and FX, the 10.3 was at 8.7. Canada was reported at 11.3, ex gas and FX, was a 4.3; Other International, a plus 10.1 reported, and ex gas and FX, 8.2. All told, the total company was at 10.5 reported and a 7.9 after taking into -- after taking out the effects of gas inflation and FX.

正如您今天在新聞稿中看到的，美國同店銷售額成長了 10.3%。扣除天然氣和外匯因素後，10.3 的匯率為 8.7。加拿大股市報告上漲 11.3 個百分點，剔除天然氣和外匯因素後上漲 4.3 個百分點；其他國際股市報告上漲 10.1 個百分點，剔除天然氣和外匯因素後上漲 8.2 個百分點。總的來說，該公司公佈的總市值為 10.5，扣除天然氣通膨和匯率的影響後，市值為 7.9。

E-commerce, which we, several months ago, started reporting each month. For the 12 weeks, e-commerce comp sales were 43.5% up. And ex gas inflation -- I'm sorry, ex FX, it was 42.1%. Now this number includes the holiday shift of Thanksgiving, but it's a little different than in-store because of Cyber Monday, and we estimate that's somewhere north of 5% and perhaps up to 10% of benefit in that number. So that 42% would come down a little bit if you'd normalize it, still a very strong number.

電子商務，我們從幾個月前開始每月進行報道。過去 12 週，電子商務同店銷售額成長了 43.5%。剔除天然氣通膨因素－抱歉，剔除外匯通膨因素，通膨率為 42.1%。這個數字包含了感恩節假期的客流量，但由於網路星期一的到來，與實體店的客流量略有不同，我們估計這部分客流量的增幅在 5% 以上，甚至可能達到 10%。如果將 42% 這個數字進行標準化處理，它會略微下降一些，但仍然是一個非常高的數字。

In terms of Q1 sales metrics. First quarter traffic was up 5.9% worldwide and 6.6% in the U.S. Again, these 2 figures positively impacted by the Thanksgiving holiday shift as just discussed. FX impacted total sales by about 110 basis points, and gasoline inflation contributed another 142 basis points. So gas and FX together for the entire company was about 200 -- 2.5 percentage points, 250 basis points. As well, cannibalization weighed in on comps to the tune of minus 105 basis points. For the last several quarters, we've had more impact from that as we've done several more relos than we had done in the past.

就第一季銷售指標而言。第一季全球流量成長 5.9%，美國流量成長 6.6%。正如剛才討論的，這兩個數字再次受到感恩節假期出行習慣轉變的正面影響。匯率波動使總銷售額下降了約 110 個基點，汽油價格上漲又使總銷售額下降了 142 個基點。因此，整個公司的天然氣和外匯加起來大約是 200 - 2.5 個百分點，250 個基點。此外，蠶食效應也對同業造成了負面影響，導致同業績效下降了 105 個基點。最近幾個季度，由於我們進行的重新部署次數比以往更多，因此我們受到的影響也更大。

Average front-end transaction or ticket was up 4.3% and, again, a little over half of that which was the gas and FX benefit. So about 2 -- or a little over 2% normalized transaction figure.

平均前端交易或票據增加了 4.3%，其中略多於一半是汽油和外匯收益。所以大約是 2——或略高於 2% 的正常交易量。

Next on the income statement, membership fees. Reported in Q1, $692 million. That's up $62 million or 9.8% year-over-year and 7 basis points. Now that $62 million increase in fees, about $24 million of the $62 million increase related to membership fee increases. About 3/4 of that $24 million membership fee increase benefit came from the fee increases we took in the U.S. and Canada effective June 1, 2017 and the balance from the fee increases taken in September of '16 or the beginning of Q1 '17. And our other international operations, that goes back again to September of '16. But all told, that plus-$24 million is in that plus-$62 million. So ex that $24 million, we were still a little bit up 6% and up in the low to mid-5% range if you take out the FX benefit. We would expect, by the way, to see the impact of the fee increase based on how it impacts the income statement over time, with deferred accounting to continue to be even more positive year-over-year delta in the upcoming 3 or so quarters.

接下來是損益表中的會費。第一季報告顯示，營收為 6.92 億美元。與去年同期相比，成長了 6,200 萬美元，增幅為 9.8%，上升了 7 個基點。現在，費用增加了 6,200 萬美元，其中約 2,400 萬美元與會員費增加有關。這 2,400 萬美元會員費成長帶來的收益中，約有 3/4 來自我們於 2017 年 6 月 1 日在美國和加拿大實施的會員費增長，其餘部分來自 2016 年 9 月或 2017 年第一季初實施的會員費增長。我們的其他國際業務，可以追溯到 2016 年 9 月。但總的來說，這額外的 2400 萬美元包含在額外的 6200 萬美元之中。除去那 2,400 萬美元，我們仍然小幅上漲了 6%，如果扣除外匯收益，上漲幅度在 5% 到 5% 之間。順便說一句，我們預計，費用增加的影響將取決於它對損益表的長期影響，遞延會計將在接下來的三個季度左右繼續實現更積極的同比增幅。

Our membership renewal rates were -- came in at 90.0% in the U.S. and Canada and 87.2% worldwide. These are the same renewal rate percentage figures we had at the end of the previous fiscal quarter, Q4 '17.

我們的會員續費率在美國和加拿大為 90.0%，全球為 87.2%。這些續約率百分比數據與我們上一財季末（2017 年第四季）的數據相同。

In terms of number of members at Q1-end -- in terms of total households, at Q4-end, we had 49.4 million. We ended Q1-end 12 weeks later with 49.9 million, up a little over 1 -- up right at 1% during the 12 weeks. And total cardholders at Q1 -- Q4-end 12 weeks ago, we had 90.3 million cardholders, now 91.5 million.

截至第一季末，以成員數量計算——截至第四季末，以家庭總數計算，我們有 4,940 萬戶。第一季末（12 週後），我們的數字為 4,990 萬，成長略超過 1，在 12 週內成長了 1%。截至 12 週前（第一季末至第四季末），我們的持卡人總數為 9,030 萬，現在為 9,150 萬。

In terms of paid Executive Members, they stand at 18.8 million, and that's an increase also of about 246,000 over the past 12 weeks, where we're still being able to convert and add new Executive Members at the rate of about 21,000 a week in the quarter.

付費高級會員人數達到 1880 萬，比過去 12 週增加了約 24.6 萬，而且我們本季仍能以每週約 2.1 萬的速度轉化和增加新的高級會員。

In terms of -- again I mentioned earlier, in terms of the portion of membership increase related to the recent annual increase, that year-over-year number will continue to increase, and we'll share that with you each quarter going forward.

至於——我之前再次提到——就與近期年度增長相關的會員增長部分而言，這一同比數字將繼續增長，我們將從現在開始每個季度與您分享這一數字。

Going down to the gross margin line. Our reported gross margin first quarter was lower year-over-year by 33 basis points. I'll ask you to just jot down 2 columns of numbers, not 4, just for first quarter and basically what we reported for Q1 '18, and the second column would be without gas inflation so if that was impactful to understanding the numbers.

一直到毛利率線。我們公佈的第一季毛利率年減了33個基點。我請你記下兩列數字，不是四列，只記錄第一季的數據，基本上就是我們2018年第一季報告的數據。第二列不包括汽油價格上漲的影響，看看這對理解這些數據是否有影響。

The first line item is merchandise core. Year-over-year, on a reported basis, it was down 12 basis points. Ex gas inflation, it was flat or 0. Ancillary businesses, plus-600 on a reported basis and plus-9, ex gas inflation; 2% Reward, minus 1 basis point and minus 2 basis points; Other, minus 26 and minus 26. So all told, in total, on a reported basis, that was a minus 3 if you add up those numbers. And ex gas inflation, it was a minus 19.

第一項是核心商品。以報告數據計算，年減了 12 個基點。不計天然氣通膨，持平或為 0。輔助業務，按報告基準為 +600，不計天然氣通膨為 +9；2% 獎勵，-1 個基點和 -2 個基點；其他，-26 和 -26。綜上所述，根據報告，總共是 -3。剔除天然氣通膨因素，實際值為-19。

Now overall, again, it was 33 excluding the 19 -- excluding the benefit from the nonrecurring $51 million legal settlement last year, that was 19 basis points. Again, the total gross margin was lower year-over-year by 14 and was flat excluding gas deflation -- gas inflation.

總的來說，33，不包括19——不包括去年一次性5,100萬美元法律和解帶來的收益，那就是19個基點。同樣，總毛利率年減了 14%，若不計入天然氣通貨緊縮（即天然氣通膨），則毛利率持平。

The core merchandise component margin was lower by 12, as you can see on the chart but, again, flat excluding gas price inflation in the quarter. But within the subcategories within core, food and sundries and softlines merchandise departments, year-over-year in Q1 were up, and hardlines and fresh foods year-over-year were down.

從圖表中可以看出，核心商品組成部分的毛利率下降了 12%，但如果排除本季的汽油價格通膨，則毛利率持平。但就核心商品、食品雜貨和軟商品部門的子類別而言，第一季同比有所增長，而硬商品和生鮮食品則較去年同期有所下降。

Ancillary and other business gross margins, again on the chart I just shared with you, plus-6 basis points and plus-9 ex gas inflation. Higher year-over-year margin contribution came from gas, hearing aids -- hearing aids mostly, offset by lower year-over-year margin contributions in pharmacy, e-commerce and food court.

如我剛才與您分享的圖表所示，輔助業務和其他業務的毛利率為+6個基點，扣除天然氣通膨後為+9個基點。同比利潤貢獻增加主要來自汽油和助聽器（主要是助聽器），但藥房、電子商務和美食廣場同比利潤貢獻降低，抵消了這些增長。

In terms of the 2% Reward, the fact that, that hits margin by a little bit indicates the fact that we're still getting higher penetration of sales from members -- an increasing penetration of sales from members that opted to become an Executive Member.

就 2% 的獎勵而言，這稍微影響了利潤率，這表明我們仍然從會員那裡獲得了更高的銷售滲透率——選擇成為高級會員的會員的銷售滲透率不斷提高。

Lastly, in Other, we had the positive nonrecurring legal year-over-year settlement that was a 19 basis point number. Most of the rest is some incremental costs this year primarily related to our new centralized return facilities. Going back 2 or 3 years ago, we tested this in one region. And in the last several months, we rolled out to the entire United States. And so there'll be some small incremental costs related to that, that hits the margin in each of the next couple of quarters.

最後，在其他方面，我們看到非經常性法律訴訟的年度結算額為 19 個基點。其餘大部分是今年新增的一些成本，主要與我們新的集中退貨設施有關。兩三年前，我們曾在某個地區測試過這項技術。在過去的幾個月裡，我們將業務推廣到了整個美國。因此，這將帶來一些相關的小額增量成本，並在接下來的幾季中影響利潤率。

Moving to reported SG&A. Our SG&A percentage in Q1 year-over-year was lower or better by 34 basis points. More importantly, I think ex gas inflation, it was still better or lower by 20 basis points. Again, on a reported basis, it came in at 10.3 -- 10.36%. Doing the little chart again, the 2 columns, reported and without gas inflation, core operations, lower or better by 24 basis points. Put a plus sign in front of that. And ex gas inflation, plus 12; Central, plus 8, and ex gas, plus 7; stock compensation, plus 2 and plus 1; total reported, lower or better, plus 34 basis points, and ex gas, plus 20 basis points or lower by 20 basis points.

轉為已報告的銷售、一般及行政費用。第一季我們的銷售、管理及行政費用百分比較去年同期下降或改善了 34 個基點。更重要的是，我認為剔除天然氣通膨因素後，情況仍然比之前好，甚至低了20個基點。再次，據報道，這一數字為 10.3 - 10.36%。再做一次小圖表，兩列分別代表報告的和未報告的天然氣通膨情況，核心營運情況，下降或改善 24 個基點。前面加個加號。剔除天然氣通膨後，加 12；中央政府加 8，剔除天然氣後加 7；股票補償加 2 和加 1；報告總額，低於或高於，加 34 個基點，剔除天然氣後加 20 個基點或低於 20 個基點。

Now looking again at the chart, the operations component was lower or better by 24 basis points and better by 12, ex gas inflation. This basically is a function of strong top line sales. As you know, we've reported in each of the last several months and today in the quarter very strong sales, both in-store and online. Central expense also, lower by 8 basis points or 7 without gas. Again, when we look at all the detail, first and foremost, it's strong sales results. No real surprises here. As we've been told, higher sales drives lower SG&A.

現在再看一下圖表，營運部分下降或改善了 24 個基點，剔除天然氣通膨因素後改善了 12 個基點。這基本上取決於強勁的銷售業績。如您所知，在過去的幾個月以及本季度，我們都報告了非常強勁的銷售業績，包括實體店和線上銷售。中央費用也降低了 8 個基點，不含天然氣則降低了 7 個基點。再說一遍，當我們仔細查看所有細節時，首先也是最重要的是強勁的銷售業績。沒什麼好意外的。正如我們所知，銷售額越高，銷售、一般及行政費用就越低。

Next to the income statement, preopening. $5 million lower this year in Q1, coming in at $17 million compared to $22 million, really a function of opening schedule. This year in Q1, we opened 7 openings, 5 net new openings plus 2 relos, all in North America. And last year in Q1, we opened 9, 8 of which were net new, but 9 openings, again, all in North America. All told, reported operating income in Q1 came in at $951 million, up $102 million or 12% higher year-over-year. Excluding the legal settlement, basically, it was up -- would have been up $153 million from an adjusted $849 million last year. We're up 19% without that legal settlement.

損益表旁邊是開業前的數據。今年第一季營收比去年同期減少了 500 萬美元，為 1,700 萬美元，而去年同期為 2,200 萬美元，這主要是由於開業時間安排的問題。今年第一季度，我們新增了 7 個職位，其中 5 個為淨新增職位，2 個為搬遷職位，全部位於北美。去年第一季度，我們開設了 9 家新店，其中 8 家是淨新增店，但 9 家新店全部位於北美。總的來說，第一季報告的營業收入為 9.51 億美元，比上年同期成長 1.02 億美元，增幅達 12%。除去法律和解費用，基本上是成長了——比去年經調整後的 8.49 億美元增長了 1.53 億美元。不計那筆法律賠償，我們的股價也上漲了19%。

Below the operating income line, reported interest expense was up $8 million year-over-year at $37 million this year in Q1 compared to $29 million a year earlier. Higher year-over-year basically because of the result of the debt offering we did this past May in conjunction with our special dividend.

在營業收入之外，報告顯示，今年第一季利息支出年增 800 萬美元，達到 3,700 萬美元，去年同期為 2,900 萬美元。年比上漲主要是因為我們今年 5 月發行的債券以及我們派發的特別股息取得了成功。

Interest income and other was lower year-over-year by $4 million. Actual interest income in the quarter was better by $5 million. However, it was more than offset by about a $9 million impact, a negative impact from FX contracts -- FX-related items, not just contracts. Those fluctuate plus or minus that amount it seems each quarter based on how we manage foreign currency payables in different countries around the world.

利息收入和其他收入比去年同期減少了 400 萬美元。本季實際利息收入比預期高出500萬美元。然而，外匯合約帶來的約 900 萬美元的負面影響抵消了這一損失——外匯相關項目，不僅僅是合約。這些金額似乎每季都會根據我們在世界各地不同國家管理外幣應付帳款的方式而上下波動。

Overall, pretax income was higher by 11% or $90 million in the quarter, coming in at $936 million, up $141 million or up 18% excluding the $51 million one-time legal settlement benefit last year in Q1.

總體而言，本季稅前收入成長了 11%，即 9,000 萬美元，達到 9.36 億美元，如果不包括去年第一季 5,100 萬美元的一次性法律和解收益，則增長了 1.41 億美元，增幅達 18%。

In terms of income taxes, our tax rate in Q1 '18 came in at 30.4% for the quarter, last year was 34.4%. On a normalized basis, again taking out that unusual item that we mentioned in the press release today, last year's tax rate would have come in -- last year, there was a small incremental difference. Last year, what I'd call normalized tax rate would have been a 34.1%, which would again have been lower by about 70 basis points than this year's normalized tax rate of 34.8%, again taking out that item that we mentioned in the press release.

就所得稅而言，我們 2018 年第一季的稅率為 30.4%，去年同期為 34.4%。如果按正常情況計算，再次剔除我們今天在新聞稿中提到的那個特殊項目，去年的稅率將會是——去年，稅率略有增加。去年，我所說的正常稅率是 34.1%，這比今年的正常稅率 34.8% 低了大約 70 個基點，再次排除了我們在新聞稿中提到的那個項目。

As I mentioned earlier in the call, again, we mentioned that's a positive discrete tax item this year. Overall, reported net income was higher by 17%, coming in at $640 million compared to last year's $545 million. And again, excluding the 2 items, since one of them was a tax item, excluding the 2 items in our press release, net income would have been higher by 16 percentage points.

正如我之前在電話會議中提到的，我們再次提到，這是今年一個積極的獨立稅收項目。總體而言，報告顯示淨收入成長了 17%，達到 6.4 億美元，而去年同期為 5.45 億美元。再次強調，如果排除新聞稿中的兩項內容（其中一項是稅收項目），淨收入將增加 16 個百分點。

A few other items of note before we turn it over to Q&A. Capital expenditures were $820 million, and we would expect for the year for it to still be in the mid- to high 2s and depreciation at $335 million.

在進入問答環節之前，還有幾點需要注意。資本支出為 8.2 億美元，我們預計本年度資本支出仍將維持在 2% 到 2% 的中高水平，折舊為 3.35 億美元。

Warehouse expansion. So I think we talked about somewhere -- we expect somewhere between 20 and 25 openings. Over half of them will be in the U.S. We expect 3 in Canada, 2 in Korea and 1 each in Australia and Mexico. As well, we plan to relocate 6 warehouses this year, 4 in the U.S. and 2 in Canada. And that, again, compares to 2 or 3 a year in recent years. We opened quite a few extra in fiscal '16 as well -- fiscal '17 as well. As of Q1-end, total warehouse square footage stood at $108 million -- 108 million square feet.

倉庫擴建。所以我想我們之前討論過，我們預計會有 20 到 25 個職缺。其中超過一半將在美國。我們預計加拿大有 3 個，韓國有 2 個，澳洲和墨西哥各有 1 個。此外，我們計劃今年搬遷 6 個倉庫，其中 4 個在美國，2 個在加拿大。而近年來，這種情況平均每年發生2到3起。我們在 2016 財年和 2017 財年也額外開設了不少門市。截至第一季末，倉庫總面積為 1.08 億美元——1.08 億平方英尺。

In terms of stock buybacks, in all of fiscal '17, we spent $473 million for just under 3 million shares at an average price of $157.87. In the first quarter, we repurchased 734,000 shares for $119 million or an average price of $162.51. And needless to say, we've repurchased more stock early in the fiscal quarter.

就股票回購而言，在 2017 財年，我們花了 4.73 億美元，以平均每股 157.87 美元的價格回購了近 300 萬股股票。第一季度，我們以 1.19 億美元的價格回購了 734,000 股股票，平均價格為每股 162.51 美元。毋庸置疑，我們在本財季初期就回購了更多股票。

Before I turn it back to Christy for Q&A, I'll give you a quick update on e-commerce and our credit card relationship with Citi Visa. Worldwide, e-commerce sales in the first quarter of '18 were $1.3 billion, up 40% year-over-year. Again, somewhere between 5% and 10% of benefit that was the holiday shift. We continue to improve our offerings, and we continue to improve our member experience with better search, checkout and returns processes. In the quarter, our site traffic conversion rates and orders were up nicely year-over-year, and we enjoyed basically stronger metrics for both the Thanksgiving, Black Friday week as well as Cyber Monday, which falls into Q2 this year versus -- falls into Q2 this year and last year.

在把問答環節交還給克里斯蒂之前，我先快速報告電子商務以及我們與花旗Visa信用卡的合作關係。2018 年第一季度，全球電子商務銷售額為 13 億美元，較去年同期成長 40%。同樣，假期輪班帶來的收益佔總收益的 5% 到 10%。我們不斷改進產品和服務，並透過改善搜尋、結帳和退貨流程，不斷提升會員體驗。本季度，我們的網站流量轉換率和訂單量年增率顯著，感恩節、黑色星期五以及網路星期一的各項指標均較去年同期有所提升。今年的網路星期一屬於第二季度，而去年則屬於第二季度。

Warehouses are supporting costco.com with signage in tablets used in search and purchase, and people can purchase the dot-com items via members from our warehouses, selected items. Online grocery, as you know, at the call a fiscal quarter ago, we talked about that week, in the first week in October, we introduced 2 new delivery options on costco.com: a dry grocery 2-day delivery and our same-day fresh -- the latter -- and also same-day fresh delivery through Instacart. Both of those rolled out early October. They've been positive to-date while still in the soft openings/limited marketing mode. We rolled out in Q1 '18. We added -- enhanced the value of the Executive Membership. Q1 '18, we have now members who are Executive Members purchasing from Costco Travel will also receive a 2% Reward on all their travel purchases. And of course, with travel and the like on the -- using their Citi Visa card, they get an additional 3%, so 5% between the 2.

倉庫透過平板電腦上的標誌支援 costco.com，使用者可以使用平板電腦進行搜尋和購買，並且可以透過我們倉庫的會員購買 .com 上的商品（部分商品除外）。如您所知，在上個財季的電話會議上，我們談到了線上雜貨業務。在 10 月的第一周，我們在 costco.com 上推出了 2 種新的配送選項：乾貨 2 天送達和當日新鮮送達——後者——以及透過 Instacart 提供的當日新鮮送達服務。這兩項產品均於10月初推出。儘管目前仍處於試營運/有限行銷階段，但他們的回饋一直都很正面。我們在 2018 年第一季推出了這項服務。我們增加了－提升了高級會員資格的價值。2018 年第一季度，我們現在有執行會員透過 Costco Travel 購買旅行產品，所有旅行消費均可獲得 2% 的獎勵。當然，如果使用他們的 Citi Visa 卡進行旅行等消費，他們還可以額外獲得 3% 的優惠，因此兩者加起來可以享受 5% 的折扣。

We are also now offering a buy online, pick up in store on selected items, including jewelry and some laptop computers. We're seeing people coming in to pick them up, and many of them -- over half of them are shopping while they're there. Look, overall, all these efforts are having a positive impact on our business, both online and in warehouse, and results in a greater sales momentum and increased awareness of our digital presence. As well is we've done quite a few things online to increase traffic in our warehouses. I think I shared with some of the -- shared a few of those with you last time, whether it's hot buys on USDA choice prime steaks leading into the back-to-school Labor Day weekend. And so we think that we can use the Internet and online and e-mails to drive traffic both ways.

我們現在也提供部分商品的線上購買、離線取貨服務，包括珠寶和一些筆記型電腦。我們看到有人來取貨，而且很多人——超過一半的人在取貨的同時還會購物。總的來說，所有這些努力都對我們的業務產生了積極的影響，無論是在線上還是在倉庫，都帶來了更大的銷售勢頭，並提高了人們對我們數位化存在的認識。此外，我們也在網路上做了不少事情來增加我們倉庫的客流量。我想我上次跟你們分享過一些——比如在開學季勞動節週末到來之際，USDA特選​​級牛排的超值優惠。因此，我們認為可以利用網路、線上和電子郵件來雙向引導流量。

In terms of Citi Visa Anywhere card. When the conversion to Citi Visa occurred back in June of '16, there were 11.4 million co-branded cards or 7.4 million accounts. Those were transferred over to Citi for the conversion. As of Q1-end, we now have 2.1 million new approved member accounts or 2.8 million new cards out there. And that includes about 263,000 new accounts opened during the 12-week first quarter. And we continue to be pleased with the adoption and utilization of the card to-date, it's been overall very good for us and our partners.

以花旗Visa Anywhere卡為例。2016 年 6 月，當花旗銀行將聯名卡轉換為 Visa 卡時，共有 1,140 萬張聯名卡，即 740 萬個帳戶。這些資金被轉移到花旗銀行進行轉換。截至第一季末，我們新增了 210 萬個已核准的會員帳戶，或發行了 280 萬張新卡。其中包括在第一季（12 週）開設的約 263,000 個新帳戶。我們對迄今為止該卡的採用和使用情況仍然感到滿意，這對我們和我們的合作夥伴來說總體上都非常好。

Lastly, our fiscal '18 second quarter scheduled earnings release date for the 12-week second quarter ending February 18, this again will be after the market close on Wednesday, March 7, and with the earnings call that afternoon at 2 p.m. So we'll release the earnings shortly after the market closes and, at the top of the next hour, do the call.

最後，我們 2018 財年第二季（截至 2 月 18 日的 12 週第二季）的預定收益發布日期是 3 月 7 日星期三股市收盤後，收益電話會議將於當天下午 2 點舉行。因此，我們將在市場收盤後不久發布財報，並在下一個整點進行電話會議。

With that, I'd like to open it up for questions with Christy, back to you.

接下來，我想向克莉絲蒂提問，現在輪到你了。

(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from Michael Lasser from UBS.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自瑞銀集團的麥可·拉塞爾。

Richard, are you now at a -- is membership per club now at a growth level that can be sustained from here? And where there any unit promotions that contributed to the growth in that metric that you experienced during the quarter?

理查德，你現在每個俱樂部的會員人數是否已經達到可以持續成長的水平？在這個季度中，是否有任何部門促銷活動促成了該指標的成長？

I think the biggest thing, if you go back a few quarters ago where it was -- yes, that average came down a little bit, it's a function of 2 primary things -- well, 3: number of openings and, certainly, they fluctuate quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year; two, we have huge membership sign-ups in certain new markets, particularly Australia, Asia, Iceland was off the charts, great, and so those compared to in the U.S. and Canada where we've been forever. So those timings, you might get -- and then when we relo -- when we add a new unit to an existing market, and I gave a couple of examples of that last time, that will tend -- and we might have 65,000 members per warehouse in 3 locations in the greater -- in the east side of Seattle here or in the San Jose area, I think those are the 2 examples I gave you. We opened up a new unit, which adds $120 million, $130 million of incremental sales but only adds a few -- literally, a few thousand additional members because you now have members that are shopping more frequently because we're closer to them. And so that will continue to happen. The timing of openings, as I said, that will move up and down. I think overall, the number -- the metric did come up both last quarter and this quarter year-over-year for the first time, and yes, we're adding some new markets as well. That will help us. My guess is the average, if you take the total number of warehouses at quarter-end and divide it by the total number of locations, I mean, it's in the low 60s. It will probably remain, plus or minus that a little bit. To the extent it was a little less, we'll look at it and say, well, usually the reason is there were less year-over-year openings in a few of these international markets. We feel very good about our renewal rates, and so far so good on what we've felt on the impact of the credit card switch and the auto bill, and so, so far so good.

我認為最重要的一點是，如果你回顧幾個季度前的情況——是的，平均值略有下降，這主要取決於兩件事——好吧，3：一是開業數量，當然，開業數量會逐季度和逐年波動；二是我們在某些​​新市場，特別是澳大利亞、亞洲，會員註冊量巨大，冰島更是爆表，太棒了，所以這些與我們一直深耕的美國和加拿大相比。所以，你可能會遇到這樣的情況——然後當我們搬遷——當我們在現有市場增加一個新單元時，我上次舉了幾個例子，這往往會——我們可能會在大西雅圖地區的三個地點，每個倉庫擁有 65,000 名會員——比如西雅圖東部或聖何塞地區，我想這就是我給你舉的兩個例子。我們開設了一家新店，增加了 1.2 億美元到 1.3 億美元的銷售額，但只增加了幾千名會員，因為現在我們的門市離顧客更近了，所以顧客們購物的頻率也更高了。所以這種情況還會繼續發生。正如我所說，開業時間會有起伏。我認為總體而言，該指標在上個季度和本季度都實現了同比首次增長，而且，是的，我們也新增了一些市場。那對我們有幫助。我猜平均而言，如果你用季度末的倉庫總數除以地點總數，我的意思是，大概在 60 出頭。大概會維持不變，上下略為浮動。如果略少一些，我們會進行分析，然後說，通常原因是某些國際市場的年度新增職位數量有所減少。我們對續約率感到非常滿意，而且到目前為止，我們對信用卡轉換和自動帳單的影響也感到滿意，所以，到目前為止一切都很好。

In the past, you've given a little bit more detail on renewal rates by Gold Star primary business membership cohorts. Is there any reason why you've decided not to give that detail?

過去，您曾更詳細地介紹 Gold Star 主要企業會員群的續費率。你決定不透露這個細節有什麼原因嗎？

I think the biggest reason, over the years, some of you on this call have known us for 20 or 25 years doing this, and as we've gotten so granular, it almost has become a distraction. Rest assured, anything that is impactful, we're going to make sure that you know about. But at the end of the day, what's important is total number of members and growth, existing renewal rates, of course. And part of the other challenges is, for years, we had -- to be, early on in our career, a wholesale member, you had to have a bona fide business license, truly was a small business owner. And then over -- that evolved into a business membership where you would have business add-ons. And many of those were not for business purposes but small business with 10 members -- with 10 employees, and the employer bought the memberships for his or her employees. And then after that, with the Executive Membership coming on, those people would get off of that primary membership and have their own membership. So we know more about our business member versus not based on what they're buying than anything else.

我認為最大的原因是，多年來，在座的各位中有些人已經認識我們 20 到 25 年了，我們一直在做這件事，而且隨著我們越來越細緻地處理細節，這幾乎成了我們的一種幹擾。請放心，任何有影響力的事情，我們都會確保您知道。但歸根結底，重要的是會員總數和成長情況，當然還有現有的續費率。而其他挑戰的一部分是，多年來，在我們職業生涯的早期，要成為批發會員，你必須擁有真正的營業執照，並真正成為小型企業。然後，它演變成了一種商業會員制，會員可以獲得商業附加服務。其中許多會員並非出於商業目的，而是擁有 10 名成員（10 名員工）的小型企業，雇主為自己的員工購買了會員資格。然後，隨著執行會員制度的建立，這些人將不再是普通會員，而是擁有自己的會員資格。因此，我們對企業會員的了解，主要取決於他們的購買行為，而不是其他任何因素。

And then my follow-up question is on the potential for tax reform. Would you treat any savings that you might get from potential tax reform as any other windfall that you get and reinvest that back in the business in the form of price, lower prices?

接下來，我的問題是稅制改革的可能性。你會把從潛在的稅改中獲得的任何節省視為其他意外之財，並將其以降低價格的形式再投資到企業中嗎？

Well, first, we have to wait and see what actually happens. I know in the first year, what we're reading about today, there's still some one-time offsets to that for earnings overseas. Historically, our earnings overseas, to the extent that, that cash hasn't come back, that will be a partial offset, I believe, to what we currently read today. Look, going forward, we're going to do what's long term right for our stockholders' valuation. And with us, that includes all the things you heard about historically. But we'll have to wait and see and talk about it more when we get there.

首先，我們得拭目以待，看看實際情況如何。我知道在第一年，正如我們今天所看到的，海外收益仍然會有一些一次性的抵銷措施。從歷史數據來看，我們在海外的收益，如果現金沒有回流，我認為這將部分抵消我們今天所看到的損失。展望未來，我們將做對股東長期價值有利的事。對我們來說，這包括你從歷史上聽說過的一切。但我們得等等看，到了那裡再詳細討論。

Next question comes from the line of Chuck Grom from Gordon Haskett.

下一個問題來自戈登·哈斯克特的查克·格羅姆那一串。

Just on the gross margins, I think you said the core-on-core was flat. I was wondering if you could shed some color there on the Visa benefit and then also what the total core was as a percentage of their own sales. And if you could just amplify on any of the category color directionally that you gave earlier.

僅就毛利率而言，我想你說過核心業務之間的成長持平。我想請您詳細介紹一下 Visa 的優惠政策，以及核心業務佔其自身銷售額的百分比是多少。如果你能進一步闡述你之前提到的任何一種顏色方向就更好了。

Yes. Getting back to the previous person's questions about the granular -- why we respond to it with granularity, the big benefits were in the first year. There was some incremental benefit. But going forward, we're really not going to specify the detail. Needless to say, incrementally, it's a lot lower than going from nothing to the big benefit that we got in the first 12 months, and we'll continue to get. And the good news is it's growing as a percent of sales. The -- in terms of core-on-core, I think it was down a few basis points. I don't have that detail in front of me. And again, I know that was a big question last -- I was about to say last semester -- last quarter and compared to prior quarters. With -- there's so many moving parts. What I can tell you is that we feel very good about our margins, that a lot of the stuff we have done and we'll continue to do is offensive, not defensive, and not -- and we are -- probably the biggest surprise is it's worked as good, if not better, than we thought it was going to work.

是的。回到上一個人關於細粒度的問題——為什麼我們要以細粒度的方式應對，最大的好處體現在第一年。確實有一些額外的好處。但今後，我們真的不會再詳細說明了。毋庸置疑，從長遠來看，這遠低於我們在最初 12 個月內從零到獲得巨大收益的轉變，而且我們將繼續獲得這種收益。好消息是，它佔銷售額的比例正在成長。就核心對核心的表現而言，我認為下降了幾個基點。我手頭上沒有相關細節資訊。我知道，上學期——我本來想說上個季度——與之前的幾季相比，這是一個很大的問題。——這裡面牽涉的環節太多了。我可以告訴你們的是，我們對目前的利潤率非常滿意，我們已經做了很多事情，並且將繼續做很多事情，都是進攻性的，而不是防守性的，而且——我們確實是——最大的驚喜可能是，它的效果比我們預想的還要好。

Okay, great. And then just on any early readings with Instacart? I know when you did Google Express that most of the purchases were fill-in trips and were, therefore, complementary. I was just curious what your early takes are with that effort.

好的，太好了。然後，在 Instacart 的早期閱讀中呢？我知道你以前做 Google Express 的時候，大部分購買都是臨時行程，因此都是免費的。我只是好奇你對這份工作的初步看法是什麼。

Yes, look, all the numbers are great partly because they expanded themselves in terms of the number of locations over the last 12 months. Two, it's front and center now on our website. But one of the things I mentioned here, we both -- both we and Instacart chose -- have chosen for the first 2 or 3 months of this thing to basically have a soft opening, if you will, to make sure that we don't screw it up. And when I say we don't screw it up, it's growing very nicely and -- but clearly, when we market it, we think it will take off even more. But so far, so good.

是的，你看，所有數據都很棒，部分原因是他們在過去 12 個月擴大了營業地點的數量。第二，它現在在我們網站的顯眼位置。但正如我在這裡提到的，我們雙方——我們和 Instacart 都決定——在最初的 2 到 3 個月裡，採取試營運的方式，以確保我們不會搞砸。我說，如果我們不搞砸它，它的發展勢頭非常好——但很明顯，當我們把它推向市場時，我們認為它會取得更大的成功。但目前為止，一切順利。

Okay. So then when you look at the acceleration in your digital sales in November, that was really just your core costco.com business?

好的。那麼，當你觀察11月份數位銷售的加速成長時，那其實只是你的核心costco.com業務嗎？

Yes.

是的。

Next question comes from the line of John Heinbockel from Guggenheim.

下一個問題來自古根漢美術館的約翰·海因博克爾。

So Richard, on BOPUS, the thought of starting with jewelry and PCs, what sort of drove that? How far can you take that operationally, right? You think about other products like big bulky stuff, paper, beverage, can you do that operationally? And then is that what your customers want? Are you hearing from members that they want more BOPUS items?

所以理查德，關於 BOPUS，當初決定從珠寶和個人電腦入手，是什麼促使你做出這樣的決定？從操作層面來說，你能把這種理念發揮到什麼程度呢？你想想其他產品，像是大件物品、紙張、飲料，你能在營運上做到嗎？那麼，這真的是你的客戶想要的嗎？您是否收到會員回饋，希望獲得更多線上購買線下自提服務（BOPUS）商品？

Well, first of all, we haven't heard from a lot of members. I'm not so sure that we -- we haven't asked them either, by the way. But we do see the strength in our numbers particularly in-store. I mean, the online is fantastic, but in-store is 95% of our business. When we looked at doing it our way, we still scratch our head about doing one -- even consider doing what some of the others are doing, not just other warehouse clubs but other retailers. There's a lot of cost to that. So far, we haven't seen a reason to do that. In the case of these couple of items -- these couple of categories, what we found is that there are a lot of people that won't buy it because they don't want -- they can't have it shipped to their office or their place of work, and they don't want it left at their doorstep. And so here's a way for them to buy it. And we saw a nice piece of business being done that way. And as you might expect, since they're not coming over to pick up their groceries that we've bought and set and put the refrigerated stuff in the refrigerator and the frozen stuff in the freezer, they just go up to the cage and get this. Over half of them went in and shopped before they pick up their laptop or their jewelry. So that's what we like, and we'll keep evolving it. And we'll see, it's just a start.

首先，我們還沒有收到很多會員的回覆。我不太確定我們——順便說一句，我們也沒有問過他們。但我們確實看到了我們客流量的優勢，尤其是在門市方面。我的意思是，線上業務固然很棒，但實體店業務占我們總業務的 95%。當我們考慮以自己的方式做事時，我們仍然感到困惑——甚至考慮效仿其他一些公司正在做的事情，不僅僅是其他倉儲式超市，而是其他零售商。這樣做代價很高。到目前為止，我們還沒有看到這樣做的理由。就這幾類商品而言，我們發現很多人不買是因為他們不想——他們不能把商品寄到辦公室或工作場所，他們也不想把商品放在家門口。所以，這是他們購買它的一種方式。我們看到一筆不錯的生意就是這樣完成的。不出所料，由於他們不會過來取走我們買好、擺放好、把冷藏食品放進冰箱、把冷凍食品放進冷凍櫃的食品雜貨，他們只會走到籠子前拿走這些東西。超過一半的人在取筆記型電腦或珠寶之前都先進去購物了。這就是我們喜歡的，我們會繼續改進它。我們拭目以待，這只是個開始。

And then the -- when you think about the tenor of openings here, right, so do you think -- are we more at the low end of that 20 to 25? And obviously, we haven't -- we sort of haven't done many in Asia of late. Is that just the way the real estate timing folds and we're going to get a surge in overseas openings in the next 18 months? And then I think you're doing just 1 business center this year, is that right?

然後——當你思考這裡開場的基調時，對吧，那麼你認為——我們是否更傾向於 20 到 25 的低端？顯然，我們最近在亞洲並沒有開展太多項目。房地產市場的時機就是這樣嗎？未來 18 個月內，海外市場將會迎來一波成長嗎？那麼，我想你們今年只打算蓋一個商務中心，是嗎？

Only 1 business center this year?

今年只有一家商務中心？

We've already opened up in San Francisco. So we have 1 in Minnesota, and maybe...

我們在舊金山已經開業了。所以我們在明尼蘇達州有1個，也許…

We'll have at least 2 this year, having opened 1 already, and maybe a third. That's just a matter of timing. I think it's currently on the list for -- right after the fiscal year. A lot of that has to do with timing. In terms of the 20 to 25, history would suggest that it's at the lower end versus the higher end. There are a couple -- and the real difference is now things that we don't have on the plate already, it's can we push them -- can we move -- do we get lucky with weather in the winter as we push a couple based on when different hurdles occur with permits or whatever.

今年我們至少會開兩家店，目前已經開了一家，也許還會開第三家。這只是時機問題。我認為它目前被列入了——就在財政年度結束後。這很大程度上與時機有關。就 20 到 25 歲這個年齡層而言，歷史數據表明它處於較低水平，而不是較高水平。有幾個問題——真正的區別在於我們現在面臨的是一些我們還沒有考慮的事情，那就是我們能否推進這些問題——我們能否有所進展——當我們推進這些問題時，能否在冬季幸運地遇到天氣好轉，從而克服許可證或其他方面的各種障礙。

All right. And then just lastly, are you also -- you talked about the gas benefit. Was that de minimis? Or how big was that?

好的。最後，您也談到了汽油方面的優勢。那算是微不足道的小事嗎？或者說，它有多大？

Well, we're trying to -- there's no good time to have a little less granular, but when you add them all up, it will have a big impact to the bottom line. But at the end of the day, gas is good, there have been some quarters -- if you look at the last 8 or 12 quarters, which I haven't looked at, it's probably more than $0.01, and there have been quarters when it was $0.05. And it could be anything within there, a little on either side of that. They were good.

嗯，我們正在努力——雖然沒有什麼時候是合適的，但把所有因素加起來，會對最終結果產生很大的影響。但說到底，汽油價格不錯，也出現過一些小波動——如果你看看最近 8 或 12 個季度（我沒有具體查看過），價格可能超過 0.01 美元，甚至有些季度的價格是 0.05 美元。它可能包含其中的任何內容，也可能包含其兩側的任何內容。他們很棒。

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

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的凱倫·肖特。

First, just a housekeeping question. What was inflation in the quarter? Did you give that?

首先，問個例行問題。本季通貨膨脹率是多少？你給了嗎？

No, we didn't. Overall, ex gas -- so maybe the basket was up a couple of percentage points. We don't really look at LIFO anymore. We have it, but we don't look at it. Our guess -- I mean, I think, if there was anything, it was maybe ex gas, there was a tiny amount of inflation. But that's at the cost side. Given investing in price and given the competition you see from other retailers out there, my guess is there is probably little, if any, inflation.

不，我們沒有。總體而言，不計汽油價格——所以籃子價格可能上漲了幾個百分點。我們現在基本上不再關注後進先出法了。我們有，但我們不去看。我們猜測——我的意思是，我認為，如果真有什麼影響的話，那可能是天然氣價格上漲，導致輕微的通貨膨脹。但這指的是成本方面。考慮到價格方面的投入以及其他零售商的競爭，我猜測通貨膨脹可能很小，甚至沒有。

Okay, so that was a law of timing. There's been lot of -- I mean, PPI has clearly been high -- I mean up and elevated whilst CPI has been a lot more muted. So I guess, that's kind of -- I'm wondering how much of that impacted your margins? Or how can we think about that in terms of...

好吧，這就是時機法則。有很多——我的意思是，PPI 顯然一直很高——我的意思是，持續上漲，而 CPI 則相對平穩得多。所以我想問的是──我想知道這在多大程度上影響了你們的利潤率？或者我們可以從哪個角度來思考這個問題…

I don't think that impacted -- I really don't think that impacted it, Karen. It's really us looking at what happens when we get hot on pricing, or hotter, and recognizing we have these benefits from credit card and from membership. And that's what we do.

我不認為那會造成影響——我真的不認為那會造成影響，凱倫。我們實際上是在觀察當我們加大價格力度時會發生什麼，並意識到我們從信用卡和會員制中獲得了這些好處。這就是我們所做的。

Okay. And then I guess, in terms of grocery delivery and then Instacart, I guess, you didn't give an update. Are you still at the 500 SKUs for grocery delivery and 1,700 on Instacart? And then anything to indicate on that component of the business, whether or not this is drawing a customer who's kind of been dormant and now you're seeing incremental trips? Anything you could point to because, obviously, the concern is that there will be cannibalization with this offering.

好的。至於生鮮配送和 Instacart 方面，我想你們沒有給更新資訊。你們的生鮮配送服務仍然只有 500 個 SKU，而 Instacart 上的 SKU 卻有 1700 個？那麼，關於這項業務，是否有任何跡象表明，它是否吸引了原本處於休眠狀態的客戶，並開始增加他們的旅行次數？任何你能指出來的事情都可以，因為很明顯，人們擔心的是，這項舉措會造成內部競爭。

Yes. We really haven't. I mean, it's still -- even though there are big increases in what they were doing the day before or the day after with us, going back to in early October, it's been -- it was a soft -- and it's miniscule relative to our company size. We'll look -- we'll wait 6 months and then take a look at it.

是的。我們真的沒有。我的意思是，儘管他們與我們合作的前一天或後一天的業務量大幅增加，但從 10 月初開始，業務量一直很疲軟，而且相對於我們公司的規模而言微不足道。我們會看看——我們會等6個月，然後再看看。

Okay. And then lastly, how many units on BOPUS right now?

好的。最後，目前有多少家庭選擇線上訂購線下取貨（BOPUS）服務？

I'm sorry, how many units...

抱歉，請問有多少台？

Are on the buy online, pick up in store for those small number of items?

少量商品支​​撐線上購買、線下取貨嗎？

Very limited. Hold on, hold on. All warehouses are doing jewelry and laptops in U.S.

非常有限。等等，等等。美國所有倉庫都在處理珠寶和筆記型電腦。

Our next question comes from the line of Simeon Gutman from Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的西蒙·古特曼。

Richard, first on membership, can you talk about how successful the couple of promotions that you ran in the quarter and how it performed relative to other ones you've done in the past? And just generally, is the environment, the competitive environment, for club membership any different than it's been in the past?

理查德，首先關於會員方面，你能談談你在本季度開展的幾項促銷活動的成功程度，以及它們與你過去開展的其他促銷活動相比表現如何嗎？總的來說，俱樂部會員的競爭環境與過去有何不同？

Well, first of all, I'm not sure what we did this first quarter. We did -- during Q4, we did the Groupon/LivingSocial, and that went fine. But I'm not sure of anything we did this quarter.

首先，我不太清楚我們第一季都做了些什麼。第四季我們做了，我們參加了 Groupon/LivingSocial 的推廣活動，效果很好。但我對我們本季所做的任何事情都不太確定。

Okay. And what about the environment? Is it any different as far as competitors being promotional for new members? Is there anything to call out versus how it looked like in the past?

好的。那麼環境狀況如何呢？競爭對手在招募新會員方面是否有任何差異？與過去相比，有什麼值得指出的地方嗎？

I don't think they're more promotional, but our competitor -- our direct competitors have been very promotional one more than the other. But -- whether it's a monthly one or ex -- a certain amount of dollars off to try it out. And so we -- no, we haven't really seen any dramatic difference in that, and it's been that way for a while.

我不認為他們更熱衷於促銷，但我們的競爭對手——我們的直接競爭對手——確實非常熱衷於促銷，而且彼此之間的促銷力度也很大。但是——無論是按月還是按次——都會提供一定金額的折扣來讓您試用。所以，我們——不，我們並沒有看到這方面有任何顯著的變化，這種情況已經持續了一段時間。

Okay. My follow-up on the online sales, you gave a little bit of color. I don't know if you talked about categories that are out-comping the house average. And are there -- is there any gross margin implication of the categories? I realize you're in a -- there's still a range even within a pretty tight band, but curious if -- just thinking about the products that are growing faster than the house, online versus others, if that's doing anything for the gross margin.

好的。關於線上銷售的後續報道，你補充了一些細節。我不知道你們有沒有討論過那些優於房屋平均水準的類別。這些類別對毛利率有影響嗎？我知道你處於一個——即使在一個相當小的範圍內仍然存在一個範圍，但我很好奇——只是在思考那些增長速度比房屋更快的產品，以及在線與其他渠道相比，這是否對毛利率有任何影響。

Well, yes. But keep in mind, with all this wonderful growth, it's still a very small -- it's 5% of our -- less than 5% of our company. So it doesn't have that big impact to the overall company. Where we're -- electronics, it probably does because we've been very successful online with electronics. And given the white glove service, hopefully, members understanding that if they're an executive member and they have the co-brand card, they get an extra 5 off and they get a 4-year warranty. That includes using the co-brand card. So all those things we help drive the business, notwithstanding we haven't let everybody know. And I think apparel has been good. But part of that is that we are doing more apparel online. And I think we're also getting better, with a small B, on targeting certain types of e-mails to members that do some of these things.

是的。但請記住，儘管取得瞭如此可喜的成長，它仍然非常小——僅占我們公司的 5%——不到 5%。所以它對公司整體的影響並不大。就我們所處的領域而言——電子產品，這很可能是因為我們在電子產品領域取得了巨大的線上成功。鑑於我們提供的尊貴服務，希望會員們能夠理解，如果他們是高級會員並且持有聯名卡，他們可以額外享受 5% 的折扣，並獲得 4 年的保固。這包括使用聯名卡。所以，儘管我們還沒有讓每個人都知道，但所有這些事情都有助於推動業務發展。我認為服裝方面做得很好。但部分原因是，我們正在加大服裝的線上銷售力度。而且我認為我們在向做這些事情的成員發送特定類型的電子郵件方面也越來越好（小寫 B）。

Next question comes from the line of Dan Binder from Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞集團的丹賓德。

So first question was on the Visa cardholder. I'm just curious, you're over a year in now, do you have any comparative data on how that cardholder's spending in the club versus the Amex cardholder previously?

所以第一個問題是關於Visa持卡人的。我只是好奇，現在已經過去一年多了，你有沒有關於這位持卡人在俱樂部消費與之前美國運通卡持卡人消費對比的數據？

The only thing I look at -- I don't know that. The only thing -- but in many cases, it's the same member. We believe you have a higher spend because of better rewards, better promotions. The fact that Visa is accepted in more places, if it is your top of wallet -- if my old reward card, co-branded card, it was my top of wallet and now the new Citi Visa is, there are many more places I can use my new one. And so that's driven more outside spend. And the beauty of co-brand programs for big companies, whether it's airline, retail, hotel, travel, is that there's some revenue share there. And so those are the metrics we've looked at. We also, of course, doubled the reward on all Costco purchases, gas 4, but not a double, but everything else used to be 1, and now it's 2. So all those things are helping us trend in the right direction there.

我唯一關注的——我不知道。唯一的問題是──但在許多情況下，是同一個成員。我們相信，您消費額增加是因為獲得了更好的獎勵和促銷活動。Visa卡被更多地方接受的事實是，如果它是你錢包裡的主卡——如果我以前的獎勵卡、聯名卡是我錢包裡的主卡，而現在新的花旗Visa卡也是，那麼我可以在更多的地方使用我的新卡。因此，這推動了更多外部支出。對於大型公司而言，無論是航空公司、零售商、飯店或旅遊公司，聯合品牌計畫的妙處在於可以從中獲得一定的收入分成。以上就是我們考察的指標。當然，我們也把 Costco 所有購物的獎勵翻了一番，汽油獎勵翻了 4 倍，但不是翻倍，其他所有商品以前都是 1 倍，現在是 2 倍。所以所有這些措施都在幫助我們朝著正確的方向發展。

And then with regard to renewal rates, you highlighted that the renewal rate was the same as where we were at the end of fourth quarter. I know last quarter, you're talking about the trajectory and how you think it will follow your experience in Canada. Do think that next quarter, we could see the first tick-up in renewal rates?

關於續約率，您強調續約率與第四季末的水平相同。我知道上個季度，你談到了發展軌跡，以及你認為它將如何借鑒你在加拿大的經驗。你認為下個季度續約率會出現首次小幅上漲嗎？

I think a quarter ago, we said 1 to 2 quarters. And so we have one more quarter of flat to -- could it -- we're talking about tenths of a percentage point, 0.05 is what we'll average it up or down. So we want to hedge our bets here a little bit. But we believe that's the case, but we've got one more quarter of free pass here. We were pleased with what we saw in Q1 compared to Q4-end.

我想大約一個季度前，我們說過需要 1 到 2 個季度。因此，我們還有四分之一的持平——可能——我們說的是十分之一個百分點，0.05 是我們平均會向上或向下調整的幅度。所以我們希望在這裡稍微分散一下風險。但我們相信情況確​​實如此，不過我們還有最後一個季度的豁免期。與第四季末相比，我們對第一季的表現感到滿意。

Then lastly, do you have any numbers around membership growth in comp stores?

最後，您能否提供一些關於競爭對手門市會員成長的數據？

No, we don't, only because -- we did that last quarter because we knew there was a lot of concerns around it, and we thought that was a data point. And I'm sorry, we just don't have that.

不，我們沒有這樣做，只是因為——我們上個季度這樣做是因為我們知道對此有很多擔憂，我們認為那是一個數據點。很抱歉，我們沒有那種東西。

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 on the core margin being flat ex gas, usually when you're going to these periods of -- into the teeth of the renewal, the membership fee increase. You tend to invest in gross margin, and I think most expected it to be down. So going back to a prior question, is mix helping you? The price environment is pretty promotional out there, so just trying to understand why that came in flat versus sort of the historical experience of how you would invest into the fee increase period.

因此，在核心利潤率保持不變（不含汽油）的情況下，通常當你進入這些時期——進入續約的關鍵時期，會員費會上漲。你通常會投資於毛利率，我認為大多數人都預料到毛利率會下降。回到之前的問題，Mix 對你有幫助嗎？目前的價格環境相當優惠，所以我只是想了解為什麼價格持平，這與以往在費用上漲期間的投資經驗有所不同。

Look, our philosophy is we invest in this stuff. We're also pragmatic. There's a lot out there, but -- I think we have a benefit also, we can take it -- give it our limited nature of our -- limited nature, a limited number of items. We could do some hot buys on a limited number of items that are truly wow and drive sales and item, an extra $10 million or $20 million in a week or a few weeks. And so it seems to work for us. We feel good that we've got -- we're looking at this stuff offensively, and we'll see how we use it.

我們的理念是，我們要投資這些東西。我們也務實。外面有很多東西，但是——我認為我們也有一個優勢，我們可以利用——考慮到我們有限的——有限的性質，有限數量的物品。我們可以對數量有限的真正令人驚艷、能夠帶動銷售的商品進行一些特價採購，在一周或幾週內，每件商品就能額外帶來 1000 萬或 2000 萬美元的收入。所以這對我們來說似乎很有效。我們感覺很好，因為我們擁有——我們正以進攻的心態看待這些東西，我們會看看如何利用它們。

And then in terms of the -- following up on the tax question, you talked about doing what's right for the shareholders, the valuation of the stock. I mean historically, I think the -- your motto is customer, employee, vendor, shareholder. So is that the way how we should think about that potential tax flow through?

然後，關於稅務問題，您談到要為股東做正確的事情，也就是股票估值。我的意思是，從歷史上看，我認為──你們的座右銘是顧客、員工、供應商、股東。那麼，我們應該這樣看待這種潛在的稅收流動嗎？

I'm -- we'll drive you crazy a little bit, sure. I mean, yes, we're going to keep doing what's right. And again, I'm not trying to be cute. First of all, we don't know what the tax plan is going to do and we don't know what the impact to the first year of it based on some offsets. But you can rest assured that we'll do the right thing, and we'll drive business the way we do it that helps all those stakeholders.

我們肯定會讓你有點抓狂的。我的意思是，是的，我們會繼續做正確的事。再次聲明，我不是賣萌。首先，我們不知道稅務計畫會如何實施，也不知道根據一些抵銷措施，該計畫對第一年會產生什麼影響。但您可以放心，我們會做正確的事，我們會以有利於所有利害關係人的方式來推動業務發展。

And then lastly, just a couple of quick follow-ups. Does the calendar -- does the 53rd-week shift end up being a point of headwind for this upcoming quarter? And the other line within gross margin, I think you said 26 basis points. When you say some of that is going to stick around for the next 3 quarters, is that 26 basis points or something like...

最後，還有幾個簡短的後續問題。日曆上的第 53 週調整是否會成為即將到來的季度的一大阻力？另一個關於毛利率的指標，我想你說的是 26 個基點。您說其中一些措施會持續到接下來的三個季度，是指26個基點還是其他什麼數字？

No, no, no. Within the 26 is 19 of that 26 was that $51 million legal settlement benefit to gross margin in Q1 of '17 a year ago, so year-over-year was minus 19 basis points. So what we're talking about is the other 7. And the other 7 primarily has to do with a major switch we did and how we handle return and disposed of salvage merchandise. And we tested it for a couple of years in 1 or 2 regions, 1 region then another. And then just the last 6 or 7 months, we've rolled it out throughout the United States to sell in all 12 depots that do this for us that could handle the entire United States. And needless to say, we did because it works, tends to be positive. There's the start-up cost, if you will, of getting it rolled out and done and the efficiencies that we afford over time. So that 7 hopefully will be 6, 5, 4, 3. But a year from now, it will be 0 in theory and then go the other way a little bit. But at the end of the day, we wanted to point it out because it is a little unusual, and we recognize that you guys are very sensitive to these basis points of margin.

不，不，不。這 26 中，有 19 是 2017 年第一季毛利率因 5,100 萬美元的法律和解而獲得的收益，因此同比下降了 19 個基點。所以我們討論的是另外 7 項。這另外 7 項主要與我們進行的一項重大變革以及我們如何處理退貨和處置殘次品有關。我們在一兩個地區進行了幾年的測試，然後在一個地區測試了另一個地區。在過去的六、七個月裡，我們已經將這項服務推廣到全美各地，在我們負責配送的 12 個倉庫進行銷售，這些倉庫可以覆蓋整個美國。毋庸置疑，我們這麼做是因為它有效，而且往往會帶來正面的影響。啟動成本（或前期成本）包括啟動和完成這項工作的成本，以及隨著時間的推移我們所獲得的效率提升。所以，7 希望會變成 6、5、4、3。但一年後，理論上會變成 0，然後又會往另一個方向發展一點。但歸根究底，我們還是想指出這一點，因為它有點不尋常，而且我們也意識到你們對這些基點利潤非常敏感。

And then the 1.5 points sale shift?

然後是那1.5個百分點的銷售轉變？

That's for Q2.

這是第二季的情況。

That's a headwind?

那是逆風嗎？

Yes, that will be a headwind, yes. And it will be a bigger headwind for e-commerce because -- we don't know if it's 5% or 10% probably in the high singles, it's a guess.

是的，那將是一個不利因素。這對電子商務來說將是更大的阻力，因為——我們不知道是 5% 還是 10%，可能在個位數高位，這只是猜測。

Next question comes from the line of Edward Kelly from Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的愛德華‧凱利。

Can I just ask about traffic? It wasn't that long ago, I guess, that traffic had slipped to kind of like 2% or so, and we were also sort of thinking maybe this is the new norm. Obviously, you have seen dramatically better traffic growth this year. I guess like just thinking about things in hindsight, was there something unusual about that period of 2016? And then as we think about things going forward, is there anything really that would cause things to slip to that kind of level again given the levers that you now have to pull in this business, whether it's the fee increase or tax or whatever it might be?

可以問一下交通狀況嗎？我想，不久之前，交通流量下滑到了大約 2% 左右，我們當時也覺得這或許會成為新的常態。顯然，今年的流量成長非常顯著。事後看來，2016 年那段時間有什麼不尋常之處嗎？那麼，當我們展望未來時，考慮到你現在在這個行業中可以採取的各種措施，例如提高收費、增加稅收或其他任何措施，真的有什麼因素會導致情況再次滑落到那種程度嗎？

I think a little of it had to do with credit cards switch leading up to June of '16. For about 9 months prior -- from June 16 backwards, we didn't sign up any new members but we had American Express -- agree, there's no sense signing up somebody for a card that's going to go away in June of 2016. And so there's probably some negative impact and confusion, and the confusion probably into the first few weeks of the new card given it was overnight transition, which was a pain in the behind. And so I think that probably had a -- it certainly wasn't a positive impact. My guess, it was a little bit of a small impact. I think it's -- I remember when those numbers were coming down, we were asked, and like you just said, we said maybe it's the new normal, we don't know, we felt good about our business. And one of the things we did is said how can we get it more exciting out there. And part of that was pricing and the like. So I -- we also had a little bit of hiccup from a traffic standpoint with the multi-vendor mailers. If you recall -- the good thing is there's fewer items with greater values and more sales than an MVM. However, the offset to that was we probably dug a little bit deeper than we should have in terms of fewer MVM days and during the course of the year. And we saw that impact Q -- basically December of '16 to February or March of '17, so pretty much Q2 of fiscal '17. And then as we said on that Q2 call, which was a disappointing quarter, we said it's easy, we'll change it back, we'll add some more days. We kept the lower -- fewer items and the greater values, and that's working nicely, but we have more days. And so we had less -- where we had tweaked a little bit too much and have -- had fewer MVM days or higher traffic-helping days. We were back to pretty much normal in that, maybe a few less but nothing that really impacts us.

我認為這其中一部分原因與 2016 年 6 月之前的信用卡轉換有關。在之前的大約 9 個月裡——從 6 月 16 日開始，我們沒有招募任何新會員，但我們有美國運通卡——同意，為一張將在 2016 年 6 月消失的卡招募新會員是沒有意義的。因此，可能會有一些負面影響和混亂，而且由於是一夜之間過渡，這種混亂可能會持續到新卡推出後的前幾週，這真是太麻煩了。所以我認為這很可能產生了——肯定不是正面的影響。我猜，影響應該不大。我覺得──我記得當那些數字下降的時候，有人問過我們，就像你剛才說的，我們說也許這就是新常態，我們不知道，但我們對自己的生意感覺很好。我們做的其中一件事就是思考如何讓比賽更精彩。其中一部分原因在於定價等等。所以，從流量角度來看，我們在多供應商郵件推廣方面也遇到了一些小問題。如果你還記得的話——好處是，與 MVM 相比，價值更高、銷售量更大的商品數量更少。然而，這樣做的代價是，我們在 MVM 天數和全年的活動量方面可能挖掘得比應該的要深一些。我們看到這種影響發生在 2016 年 12 月到 2017 年 2 月或 3 月，也就是 2017 財年的第二季。正如我們在第二季財報電話會議上所說（那是一個令人失望的季度），我們說這很容易，我們會改回來，我們會增加一些工作日。我們保留了較低的商品數量和較高的單價，效果很好，但我們有更多的時間。因此，我們減少了——因為我們調整得有點過頭了——MVM 天數減少了，或者流量幫助天數減少了。在這方面，我們基本上恢復正常了，可能少了些什麼，但沒有什麼真正影響到我們。

And just a follow-up on tax format. I know it's a difficult question to ask, but maybe if we think about it in like a bigger picture sense of investment and how you think about driving sales. And as -- when you think about sort of like where you'd like to spend money, particularly if you were to potentially get some windfall, everyone sort of thinks about price, but are there other things that sort of like would really like to have but are expensive or an earnings headwind currently that makes the return calculation a little different, whether it's the enhanced digital or fulfillment or something on labor? I'm just trying to figure out, are there other areas of the business besides just price that you sort of thinking about that you would like to invest in if you had the opportunity?

關於稅務格式，還有一點需要補充說明。我知道這是一個很難問的問題，但也許如果我們從更宏觀的投資角度來思考，以及你如何看待推動銷售，就會有所啟發。而且——當你考慮你想把錢花在哪裡時，特別是如果你有可能獲得一筆意外之財，每個人都會想到價格，但是有沒有其他一些你真的很想擁有但價格昂貴或目前存在盈利阻力的東西，使得回報計算略有不同，無論是增強型數字技術、履行服務還是勞動力方面的東西？我只是想弄清楚，除了價格之外，如果你有機會的話，你是否還考慮過投資業務的其他領域？

Well, first of all, I would like to think that we would be doing those anyway. We have strong cash flow. As you know, we generate cash flow well in excess of our CapEx and keep increasing the regular dividend, have done the specials a few times and bought back stock that have to at least cover -- a little more than, frankly, cover that, which over 5,000 employees get as part of the compensation. And so I'd like to think that -- I don't think we're going to sit around the table and say we've got this big bucket of money, what can we do that we weren't prepared to do yesterday? I know -- now as we said, I think you'll see us do what we do well. It's merchandising and driving businesses and taking care of our employees and also we're taking care of our shareholders. I'm not trying to be cute. We don't know what we're going to do yet because we -- first, we got to figure out what's going to actually happen.

首先，我認為無論如何我們都會做這些事。我們現金流充裕。如您所知，我們產生的現金流遠遠超過資本支出，並且不斷提高常規股息，我們已經進行過幾次特別派息，併回購了股票，這些股票至少要能夠覆蓋——坦白說，還要略多於覆蓋——超過 5,000 名員工作為薪酬的一部分所獲得的股息。所以我想說——我不認為我們會圍坐在桌旁說，我們有了一大筆錢，我們可以做一些昨天還沒準備好做的事情嗎？我知道——正如我們所說，我想你會看到我們發揮我們的優勢。我們既要進行商品銷售和推動業務發展，又要照顧好我們的員工，同時也要照顧好我們的股東。我不是賣萌。我們還不知道接下來該怎麼做，因為──首先，我們得弄清楚到底會發生什麼事。

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

下一個問題來自高盛的馬特法斯勒。

A couple of follow-ups. One on the calendar shift, can you talk about whether it was a particularly profitable 1.5 of sales? Clearly, you were going to do a lot more sales per day and probably per employee hour. I'm not sure about the margin profile that you generate on that week. And so any impact on operating margin rate from that shift and presumably, whatever that was, would reverse in the following quarter.

還有一些後續問題。日曆上的這一天，您能談談這1.5天的銷售額是否特別獲利嗎？顯然，你們每天的銷售額以及每位員工每小時的銷售額都會大幅提高。我不確定你那一週產生的利潤率狀況。因此，這種轉變對營業利潤率的任何影響，無論這種影響是什麼，都將在下一季逆轉。

This is -- I'm shooting from the hip on this one. Look, having extra strong sales in a warehouse on that day, they're more profitable as a percent of pretax because you've already budgeted your labor and is busier. We kind of know it. On the other end, hopefully we budget properly there, so maybe we -- it doesn't -- it's not a complete offset. But I don't -- we're talking about a few weeks here and there, I don't think it's a big deal either way.

這是──我完全是憑感覺說的。你看，如果倉庫當天的銷售額特別高，那麼稅前利潤的百分比就會更高，因為你已經為勞動力做了預算，而且那天也更忙。我們其實心裡明白。另一方面，希望我們那邊的預算安排得當，所以也許我們——但事實並非如此——這並不能完全抵消損失。但我不這麼認為——我們說的是幾週的時間，我覺得無論如何都不算​​什麼大事。

Okay. And then another question, you were asked on e-commerce about profitabilities related to category shift. If you think about the growth of the business, you think about some of the accommodations you're making and the incremental offers that you are providing, can you talk a bit about the gross margin profile of e-commerce in total? I think you addressed it briefly, I think, as part of the gross margin discussion. But any sense as to the direction? And I also know it's small, you made that point as well. But just as it gets bigger, is the direction you're taking in, in moving to gross margin in that category one way or the other or through that channel, I guess, I should say?

好的。然後，你被問到有關電子商務中品類轉變所帶來的獲利能力的問題。如果您考慮業務成長，請考慮您正在做出的一些調整以及您正在提供的增量優惠，您能否談談電子商務的整體毛利率情況？我認為您在討論毛利率時已經簡要地提到過這一點。但方向有把握嗎？我知道它很小，你也提到了這一點。但隨著規模的擴大，你採取的方向，是透過某種方式或透過某種管道，提高該類別的毛利率嗎？

First of all, gross margins in e-commerce even 2 years ago was a little lower than the warehouse but the SG&A was a lot lower than the warehouse. So bottom line, it was a lot higher than the warehouse, recognizing it wouldn't exist if it didn't have the warehouse. So it's all one big happy family there. At the end of the day, what we have found and what everybody else found before us probably is if we can figure out -- and we have, we think -- figure out how to communicate effectively with our members on some particularly hot buys, it really drives business and not just online. And so I think there's enough -- we have so much, in my view, flexibility and comfort in our margin. And because we're not being -- our view is our margin, whether it's a basis point lower or a basis point higher, is because of what we wanted to do, not because we were impacted by losing something to someone else. And I think we're fortunate in that regard. And even within very competitive products, electronics is very competitive, we over-index to higher-end stuff. It's all competitive everywhere, but within the electronics here, it's probably a little better, a little less competitive, which makes us look better. So there's so many -- we have -- in my view, there's so many buckets we can pull from. I don't see that as a big thing to worry about analyzing at this juncture.

首先，即使在兩年前，電子商務的毛利率也比倉儲式零售略低，但其銷售、管理及行政費用卻比倉儲式零售低得多。所以歸根結底，它比倉庫高得多，因為如果沒有倉庫，它就不會存在。所以那裡就像一個幸福的大家庭。歸根結底，我們發現，而且之前所有人可能也都發現，如果我們能夠弄清楚——而且我們認為我們已經弄清楚了——如何就一些特別熱門的商品與我們的會員進行有效的溝通，這真的能夠推動業務發展，而且不僅僅是在線上。所以我認為足夠了——在我看來，我們的餘地非常大，有很多靈活性和舒適感。而且因為我們沒有——我們認為我們的利潤率，無論是降低一個基點還是提高一個基點，都是因為我們想這樣做，而不是因為我們受到他人損失的影響。我認為在這方面我們很幸運。即使在競爭非常激烈的產品領域，例如電子產品，競爭也非常激烈，我們對高階產品的關注度也過高。各行各業都充滿競爭，但在這裡的電子產品領域，競爭可能稍微好一些，沒那麼激烈，這讓我們看起來更好。所以，在我看來，我們有很多資源可以從中汲取靈感。我認為在這個階段，這不是什麼值得過度分析的大問題。

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

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的保羅‧特魯塞爾。

Just to follow up on the e-commerce conversation. You've had a series of announcements on the last few calls, including partnerships and the buy online, pick up in store Costco grocery. I just wanted to take a step back real quick, Richard, and if you could just talk overall kind of your mindset and approach to e-commerce and kind of omnichannel and what's kind of led to -- I think a lot of us view this as a bit of a turn in the narrative in the way that you all have kind of approached the business historically.

只是想跟進一下關於電子商務的話題。在最近幾次電話會議上，你們發布了一系列公告，包括合作夥伴關係以及 Costco 網上購買、店內取貨的雜貨店服務。理查德，我想先簡單回顧一下，你能不能談談你對電子商務和全通路的整體看法和方法，以及是什麼導致了——我認為我們很多人都認為這是你們在歷史上開展業務方式上的一個轉折點。

I think we've still done things our way, and we continue to evolve. Needless to say, there's a lot of views out there, like several people on the call here, and that -- and there's a range of views. I think what we've hopefully communicated is that in our own way, there's lots of little buckets out there and low-hanging fruit that we haven't touched. Perhaps we should have touched some of them earlier, who knows? But we seem to be running on many cylinders here, and the things we're doing are working, importantly, not only for e-commerce or omnichannel but for in-store, and driving business that way as well. And we feel fortunate in that regard. It's funny, I remember on the last earnings call 3 months ago when we talked for the first time about the 2 new delivery options on grocery on costco.com site, these 2 links. And on the one hand, there are some out there that view this, yes, they figured it out. There's others saying they had to do this because something else is wrong. Our view is we're kind of doing pretty well, first and foremost, with driving our brick-and-mortar business, understanding that some of it was going to evolve irrespective of this. We believe we're very successful with big-ticket items, furniture, big-ticket electronics. What was evolving already 10 years ago online even with us was white glove service on things you had to install or build like a patio set or a swing set or a big screen television. One of the things I talked about last quarter was white goods. Over the last several months, we've improved our direct relationships with LG and Samsung rather than trying to -- rather than that -- rather historically when we were doing white goods not terribly well with just a limited couple of items, not with the highest-end stuff that we could sell in-store. All of a sudden, we have great value, incredible value plus extra warranties and all that stuff if you use your Visa card. And we think that we can take an item that was well under $100 million in sales and, in a matter of few years, be $1 billion. That $1 billion is still just under a percent of sales, but it's $1 billion. There's lots of things that we are able to do in this tough new world. I'd mentioned before apparel, where brick-and-mortar apparel is flat or down. And total apparel, including online, is up a few percentage points. We've got, worldwide, a $7 billion -- close to a $7 billion apparel business that's compounded the last 3-plus years in over 9%. Two reasons, growth in signature and weakness in brick-and-mortar, then some manufacturers willing to sell to us for the first time so -- suppliers, and amazing pricing. And so we'll keep doing that.

我認為我們仍然堅持自己的方式做事，並且不斷發展和進步。毋庸置疑，對此有很多不同的看法，就像這裡電話會議上的幾個人一樣——而且觀點也多種多樣。我認為我們希望傳達的訊息是，在我們自己的領域裡，還有很多我們尚未觸及的小目標和唾手可得的成果。或許我們應該早點接觸到它們中的一些，誰知道呢？但我們似乎在各個方面都進展順利，而且我們所做的事情也確實有效，重要的是，不僅對電子商務或全通路有效，而且對實體店也有效，並以這種方式推動了業務發展。在這方面，我們感到很幸運。真有意思，我記得在三個月前的上次財報電話會議上，我們第一次談到了 Costco.com 網站上的 2 個新的雜貨配送選項，就是這兩個連結。一方面，有些人認為，是的，他們已經弄清楚了。還有一些人說他們不得不這樣做，因為出了其他問題。我們的觀點是，首先，我們在推動實體業務方面做得相當不錯，我們也明白，無論發生什麼，有些事情都會改變。我們相信我們在銷售高價商品、家具和高價電子產品方面非常成功。早在 10 年前，甚至在我們這個時代，網路上就已經開始出現一種趨勢：為需要安裝或搭建的東西提供白手套服務，例如露台家具、鞦韆架或大螢幕電視。我上個季度談到的一個話題是白色家電。在過去的幾個月裡，我們改善了與 LG 和三星的直接關係，而不是像過去那樣，只銷售有限的幾款白色家電產品，而不是我們能在店內銷售的最高端產品，而且銷售情況也不太理想。突然之間，如果您使用 Visa 卡，我們將提供超值優惠、難以置信的優惠，外加額外的保固和其他各種福利。我們認為，我們可以將銷售額遠低於 1 億美元的產品，在短短幾年內，銷售額提升至 10 億美元。這10億美元雖然只佔銷售額的不到百分之一，但畢竟是10億美元。在這個充滿挑戰的新世界裡，我們有很多事情要做。我之前提到過服裝，實體店的服裝銷售要不是停滯不前，就是一落千丈。包括線上銷售在內，服裝總銷售額增加了幾個百分點。我們在全球擁有價值 70 億美元的服裝業務——在過去 3 年多的時間裡，該業務的複合成長率超過 9%。兩個原因，簽名數量增長和實體店疲軟，然後一些製造商願意第一次向我們出售產品——供應商，以及驚人的價格。所以我們會繼續這樣做。

That makes sense. And also in looking at your strong top line over the last few months, it's occurred globally. You've spoken a bit about kind of the investments in price and some of the product on the U.S. front. Is that the same story and what's happening in Canada and other places around the world? Or are there any other kind of unique factors that we would attribute some of the shift in those regions, too?

這很有道理。此外，從你們過去幾個月強勁的營收數據來看，這種情況是全球性的。您剛剛談到了一些關於美國市場價格和產品的投資。加拿大和世界其他地方的情況也是如此嗎？或者，是否存在其他獨特的因素，可以歸因於這些地區的這種轉變？

It's everywhere. The fact that the warehouse club concept is newer in some of those countries, the fact that we're opening more units -- when we opened 1 unit in Sevilla, in Seville, Spain, a smaller market than Madrid, but you had vendors, even international vendors, and certainly local vendors, that would not -- were a little queasy. They knew how big we are, and if we come, and so it would be great. They have a lot of customers that weren't thrilled. Once we get that second one opened, it helps the first one as well. We saw the same thing -- we've seen the same thing happen in Australia over the first few years. And again, it gets back to what we are, a global sourcing and a global supplying company. And we're -- clearly, with 8 or so locations in Australia, we bring the purchasing power of $130 billion retailer to that market, and that helps us as well. Then I think the fact that our fruits and signature items have become a high end, incredibly low-priced brand, incredibly a high-value brand, that's helped us as well.

它無所不在。倉儲式會員店的概念在某些國家還比較新，而且我們正在開設更多分店——我們在西班牙塞維利亞開設了一家分店，塞維利亞的市場比馬德里小，但那裡的供應商，甚至是國際供應商，當然還有當地供應商，都不願意——這讓我們有點不安。他們知道我們規模有多大，如果我們能來，那就太好了。他們有很多客戶對此並不滿意。一旦第二個洞打開，對第一個洞也有幫助。我們看到了同樣的事情——在澳洲的頭幾年裡，我們也看到了同樣的事情發生。歸根結底，我們是一家全球採購和全球供應公司。顯然，我們在澳洲擁有大約 8 個門市，將這家價值 1300 億美元的零售商的購買力帶到了該市場，這對我們也有很大幫助。我認為，我們的水果和招牌產品成為高端、價格極度低廉、極具價值的品牌，這也對我們有幫助。

And lastly from me quickly, I might have missed it, but on the -- from the Visa card, did you outline any particular benefit to gross margins or SG&A in this quarter?

最後，我可能錯過了，請快速問一下——關於 Visa 卡，您在本季度是否列出了對毛利率或銷售、管理及行政費用的任何具體好處？

Well, for the first 4 quarters, since it was so large going from the prior program to what this great new program has done for us, we did. And going forward, we aren't. We did say that incrementally, it was a little benefit percentage-wise.

嗯，在前四個季度，由於從之前的計劃到這個偉大的新計劃的轉變如此之大，我們確實做到了。而展望未來，我們不會再這樣做了。我們確實說過，從增量來看，收益百分比並不高。

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

接下來的問題來自BMO的凱莉·巴尼亞。

Just curious on the SG&A line, you mentioned some incremental costs to think about over the next few quarters. Can you quantify that at all for us? And were there -- in terms of the shift, was there any impact, the calendar shift, to SG&A or membership or any other line items this -- in the quarter?

我只是對銷售、一般及行政費用這一項有點好奇，您提到未來幾季需要考慮一些新增成本。您能為我們量化一下嗎？那麼，就時間調整而言，日曆調整是否對本季的銷售、管理及行政費用、會員費或其他任何項目產生了影響？

There's a lot of little things. I mean, first of all, in terms of the shift help, as Matt asked early about an extra percentage of help, it helps a little bit, but it's hard to quantify. There's a little bit of shift with some holiday pay issues, but you're talking about, my guess, is small amount of basis points. The thing you first asked, the first part of the question you asked was about this thing, it will continue for the next few quarters? That had -- that's a margin item. That had to do with us changing the way to make it, frankly, more efficient and less costly for handling returns. And doing it centrally, if you will, at each of 12 depots across the country in the United States. Talking about U.S., we started -- we tested this for the first time probably 3 years ago. And we -- over the last 6 months, we went from 2 to 12 depots, so added 10 of them. And so there's about -- that was -- much of that extra -- that line item that was 26 basis points, of which 19 was the one-time thing from last year, those other 7 basis points, much of that is that, but that's a margin hit. And so that will be a little bit of a margin hit in each of the upcoming, probably, 2 or 3 quarters. And I'm hoping it will dwindle a little bit, but that will be what it will be.

有很多小事。我的意思是，首先，就輪班幫助而言，正如 Matt 之前問到的額外幫助百分比，這確實有點幫助，但很難量化。假期工資方面確實有一些小的變化，但我猜想，你指的是很小的幾個基點。你首先問的那個問題，你問題的第一部分是關於這件事的，這件事會在接下來的幾個季度持續下去嗎？那是一項利潤項目。坦白說，這與我們改變退貨處理方式有關，目的是提高效率，並降低成本。而且，可以說是在美國全國 12 個倉庫集中進行這項工作。說到美國，我們大概在3年前第一次進行了這項測試。在過去的 6 個月裡，我們的倉庫數量從 2 個增加到 12 個，也就是增加了 10 個。所以，大約有──那是──那筆額外的──26個基點的項目，其中19個是去年的一次性項目，剩下的7個基點，大部分都是這樣，但這會造成利潤率下降。因此，在接下來的兩到三個季度裡，利潤率可能會受到一些影響。我希望這種情況能有所緩解，但最終結果可能就是這樣了。

Great. And then just on online, with the acceleration online of grocery, just curious if you have any -- based on what you've seen so far, it's been very successful with just even a soft launch. So you mentioned getting deeper into using some e-mail and some targeted e-mail. Just curious, what else can we expect to come from online? Do you have any plans for adding an auto replenishment feature? Anything you can share with us on that would be great.

偉大的。然後，隨著線上雜貨銷售的加速發展，我很好奇您是否有任何看法——根據您目前所看到的，即使只是試運營，也已經非常成功了。所以你提到要更深入地使用電子郵件，以及一些定向電子郵件。我很好奇，我們還能期待從網路上獲得什麼？你們有計劃增加自動補貨功能嗎？如果您能與我們分享一些相關信息，那就太好了。

First of all, with regard to like delivery, we've done no marketing of it per se. So it truly has been a soft opening, both on our part, in the case of same-day grocery, on Instacart's part. We want to get it right. Percentage-wise, it's going crazy but it's a very small, small amount of business relative to our company. Well, even with the comments we made -- I made about the laptops and the jewelry, that's a test. We looked at it and, of course, we've been asked a hundred times, what about order online, pick up in store, we scratch our head and recognizing our place is a lot busier than others, we don't see how that makes sense, and we don't hear a lot of members asking about it. But we looked at it and said where are some areas where it might makes sense, and so we trying. Tires make sense, and that's been very successful over the last year, 1.5 years, where you can order the tires online to go to the location that you want them installed at, your traditional warehouse that you shop at, and that's driven -- in our view, that's driven volume to the tire business for us.

首先，關於送貨上門服務，我們本身並沒有進行任何行銷推廣。因此，無論是我們（就當日雜貨配送而言）還是 Instacart（就當日雜貨配送而言），這都確實是一次試營運。我們想把事情做好。從百分比來看，這確實很瘋狂，但相對於我們公司而言，這只是非常非常小的業務量。好吧，即使我們發表了一些評論——我評論了筆記型電腦和珠寶——那也是一種考驗。我們研究過這個問題，當然，我們也被問過上百次，關於網上訂購、店內取貨的問題，我們感到困惑，也意識到我們店裡比其他店要忙得多，我們不明白這樣做有什麼意義，而且我們也沒有聽到很多會員問過這個問題。但我們研究了一下，覺得有些地方可能適合這樣做，所以我們就嘗試了一下。輪胎銷售模式很有意義，而且在過去一年半的時間裡非常成功，你可以在網上訂購輪胎，然後送到你想安裝的地方，也就是你平時購物的傳統倉庫，這推動了——在我們看來，這推動了我們輪胎業務的銷量增長。

And any from the auto replenishment?

自動補貨的商品也包括在內嗎？

No comment at this point. We'll let you know if and when we decide. We're looking at that and some other things, but...

目前不予置評。我們會在做出決定時通知您。我們正在研究這個問題以及其他一些事情，但是…

Next question comes from the line of David Schick from Consumer Edge.

下一個問題來自 Consumer Edge 的 David Schick。

We've talked a lot about digital and what you're trying digitally. My question is what you're seeing digitally in e-commerce, is that causing any merchandising decisions pushing anything back to the club? Are you noticing anything in those trends that could change your merchandising?

我們已經談了很多關於數位化以及你在數位化方面所做的嘗試。我的問題是，您在電子商務領域看到的數位化趨勢，是否會影響到任何商品銷售決策，從而導致某些商品被退回到俱樂部？你注意到這些趨勢中有什麼可能會改變你的商品銷售策略嗎？

Yes, I mean, one thing that we've done is we've done a better job of e-mailing people to get them into the warehouse. I mentioned the New York strip steaks. We've also done some items that if you bought in-store a baby seat -- a car seat, the banner that's at the top of your e-mail includes some hot items. Or if you bought tires, the banner includes some automotive or garage items. Some of those are online and some of them are in-store. The tires, I just mentioned. Right now, what we're doing is high-fiving each other. It's working to drive business in-store and drive business online.

是的，我的意思是，我們所做的一件事就是，我們更好地透過電子郵件通知人們進入倉庫。我提到了紐約西冷牛排。我們也推出了一些熱門商品，如果您在店內購買了嬰兒座椅或汽車座椅，您電子郵件頂部的橫幅廣告中就會包含一些熱門商品。或者，如果您購買了輪胎，橫幅廣告中還會包含一些汽車或車庫用品。有些是線上銷售，有些是線下銷售。我剛才提到的輪胎。現在，我們正在互相擊掌慶祝。它旨在促進實體店和線上業務的成長。

Just any update on the wage outlook for -- you guys have stayed ahead of it and been very transparent with it. But just talking about the wage outlook, now 90 days since your last quarter.

關於薪資前景，能否提供一些最新資訊？你們一直密切關注著這一趨勢，並且非常透明。但就目前而言，關於薪資前景，距離你們上個季度已經過了 90 天。

No. We feel good about that. We've taken up -- well, of course, we took up wages throughout -- using the U.S. as the base here, we took about 1.5 years ago, March of '16. And in several markets, we start people at a little higher than that where we have to, some parts of the Bay Area, some parts of New York. And there are only a couple of cities, Seattle and San Francisco, where there's a minimum of $15, but rest assured we'll stay ahead of the game on that.

不。我們對此感到很滿意。我們已經開始——當然，我們已經開始支付工資——以美國為基地，我們大約在1.5年前，也就是2016年3月開始在這裡工作。在某些市場，例如舊金山灣區的某些地區和紐約的某些地區，我們不得不把起薪定得比這更高。目前只有西雅圖和舊金山這兩個城市有 15 美元的最低消費額，但請放心，我們會在這方面保持領先。

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

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

So a couple housekeeping items and then a question. I don't think we've talked about -- much about inflation. Or if we did, I missed it. And I wanted you to -- what did the inflation look like in the quarter, what's your outlook.

所以先說幾件家務事，然後問個問題。我認為我們還沒有過多地討論通貨膨脹問題。或者，如果有的話，我錯過了。我想請您談談—本季的通膨情況如何，您的展望是什麼。

Yes, we did talk briefly about it. Look, it's -- we think it's up a little, but it's muted by the fact that -- driving better value, and so really not a big issue either way. Next question?

是的，我們曾經簡單地談過這件事。你看，我們認為它略有上漲，但由於——它帶來了更好的價值——所以無論如何，這都不是什麼大問題。下一個問題？

Yes, then the cost of hurricanes, that's the other -- if there was a cost, I didn't hear what you said what the cost was.

是的，颶風造成的損失，那是另一個問題——如果有損失的話，我沒聽到你說損失是多少。

We did -- we're trying to be a little less granular because there are some offsetting things that we threw out there. The 2 of them together were a couple of $0.03 in total, but not that big of a difference. I'm learning how to not tell you stuff...

沒錯——我們想盡量把細節說得沒那麼細緻，因為我們提出了一些相互抵消的因素。這兩個加起來總共才 0.03 美元，但差別並不算大。我正在學習如何不告訴你一些事情…

Then my last, my real question is, when you take a step back, and we've talked about e-commerce forever, the Amazon impact and concerns about it, you've historically said, "We want people in our stores. We don't believe in a lot of this stuff," particularly the buy online and the click-and-collect types of businesses, the -- you want people in your stores or your warehouses. So I guess, just from a philosophical perspective, since your sales are so darn strong, why are you guys moving so aggressively with some of the e-commerce, either trials or even just rolling it out? It seems that if I look at it over time, it could be harmful to keeping people in your warehouses. And I just want to know philosophically what made you guys change your mind and why you're doing it?

那麼，我的最後一個，也是我真正的問題是，當你退後一步，我們已經談論電子商務很久了，亞馬遜的影響以及人們對它的擔憂，你過去曾說過，“我們希望人們光顧我們的商店。”我們不太相信這些東西，」尤其是網上購物和點擊提貨之類的業務——你希望人們在你的商店或倉庫裡。所以，從哲學角度來看，既然你們的銷售額如此強勁，為什麼你們要如此積極地推進電子商務，無論是試營運還是全面推廣呢？從長遠來看，讓員工留在倉庫裡可能對他們有害。我只是想知道，從哲學層面來說，是什麼讓你們改變了想法，以及你們為什麼要這樣做？

Well, first of all, I think, well, we want to be responsive and we want to make sure that we don't -- we're not being stubborn about things. But we also want to do it our way. I think we've gotten comfortable there are some things that we can do that we think can drive our total company sales and profitability without impacting it and also recognize if we have 3,800 -- on average, about 3,800 items in-store, maybe we have twice that online. This is a rounding error for everybody else in terms of what they offer their customers in terms of items. And so we have to figure out how to do it and still have that value of what we do. And so I think -- and we've also figured out how to do it without spending hundreds of millions of dollars. We are -- the 2-day dry grocery, up to 2-day dry grocery that we're doing to a handful of our depots which covers essentially the entire continental United States, we're able to do that pretty cheaply because we're already allowing business members to go to the business -- not depots, but the business centers, because you can already buy it online and have it delivered. But we brought in about just under 500 items that were more retail consumable type items. So our view is that these are relatively inexpensive ways to try things, and they're working. We do have to -- Scott, of course, we have to measure how we do going forward if -- we'd love for orders on the grocery orders online to be fill-in, not stop you from coming. We recognize that you may come a few less times during the year. How do we change that? And we also recognize there are some people that live 30 to 60 minutes away from us, sometimes 10 miles, sometimes that's 40 miles. And that's been a big boon for us that would -- where we see this could help. So there's again -- and life has changed on big-ticket, big-sized items and items that you've got to install and, in many cases, items that you want somebody else to take the old mattress or the old refrigerator away. So we can show -- we've got, I think, some confidence in those areas that we can show the best value on the high-end stuff, in those areas as well. So I think it's all working probably a little better than we thought it would.

首先，我認為，我們希望能夠積極回應，並確保我們不會——我們不會固執己見。但我們也想照自己的方式去做。我認為我們已經確信，我們可以做一些事情來推動公司的整體銷售額和獲利能力，而不會對其產生影響。我們也意識到，如果我們店內平均有 3800 件商品，那麼我們在網路上可能有兩倍於此的商品數量。對於其他所有商家來說，這在他們向顧客提供的商品種類方面只是一個四捨五入的誤差。所以我們必須想辦法做到這一點，同時也要保持我們所做工作的價值。所以我認為——而且我們也找到了無需花費數億美元就能做到這一點的方法。我們提供 2 天送達的乾貨配送服務，目前已覆蓋美國大陸大部分地區，我們只在少數倉庫提供這項服務。我們之所以能夠以相當低廉的價格提供這項服務，是因為我們已經允許企業會員前往企業中心（不是倉庫，而是商業中心）購買商品，因為會員已經可以在網上購買並送貨上門。但我們引進了近 500 件商品，這些商品更像是零售消耗品。因此，我們認為這些都是相對便宜的嘗試方法，而且效果不錯。當然，史考特，我們必須衡量一下我們未來的發展情況——我們希望網路上訂購的食品雜貨都能順利完成，而不是阻止你們來購物。我們理解您一年可能會少來幾次。我們該如何改變這種狀況？我們也意識到，有些人住在離我們 30 到 60 分鐘車程的地方，有時是 10 英里，有時是 40 英里。這對我們來說是一大福音，我們認為這可以有所幫助。所以，生活又改變了——對於價格昂貴、體積龐大的物品，以及需要安裝的物品，還有在很多情況下，你希望別人幫你把舊床墊或舊冰箱搬走的物品，生活都發生了變化。所以我們可以證明——我認為，我們對這些領域有一定的信心，我們能夠在這些領域的高端產品上展現最佳價值。所以我覺得一切進展可能比我們預想的要好一些。

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

下一個問題來自 Northcoast Research 的 Chuck Cerankosky。

I just wanted to see if you could take sort of a 30,000-foot view and talk about how the mix is different and changing as these economies improve, not only in the U.S. but maybe also comment on Canada and the rest of your operations.

我只是想看看您能否從宏觀角度談談，隨著這些經濟體的改善，產品組合發生了哪些變化，不僅是美國，也請您談談加拿大以及您在其他地區的業務。

Bigger-ticket items, jewelry, I think, has improved. Electronics, expanded electronics, not just computers or laptops or iPads, tablets and televisions but the whole audio side. Audio is everything from these boxes that you put outside, telephones and jewelry. So I think from a -- is the company getting any better? Who knows? Certainly, there's money out there to be spent on this stuff, and we've seen some pickup in those areas. And the Internet helped that a little bit.

我認為，像珠寶這類價格較高的商品，品質有所提升。電子產品，擴展電子產品，不僅包括電腦、筆記型電腦、iPad、平板電腦和電視，還包括整個音訊領域。音訊涵蓋了從室外音響、電話到珠寶等所有音頻設備。所以我覺得──這家公司的情況有好轉嗎？誰知道呢？當然，這方面是有資金投入的，而且我們已經看到這些領域出現了一些成長。互聯網在這方面起到了一定的作用。

By Internet, you mean e-commerce?

你說的網路是指電子商務嗎？

Yes. Well, thank you, everyone, and we'll be around. Happy holidays.

是的。謝謝大家，我們還會再來的。節日快樂。

Thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference call. You all may now disconnect.

感謝您的參與。今天的電話會議到此結束。你們現在可以斷開連結了。