好市多 (COST) 2018 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. My name is Josh, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q3 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Mr. Richard Galanti, CFO, you may begin your conference.

午安.我叫喬什，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。此時此刻，我謹代表全體與會者歡迎參加第三季財報電話會議。（操作員指示）財務長理查德·加蘭蒂先生，您可以開始會議了。

Thank you, Josh, and good afternoon to everyone. I'll start, of course, by stating that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and that 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，喬希，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，這些陳述涉及風險和不確定性，可能導致實際事件、結果和/或業績與此類陳述所指出的內容存在重大差異。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 our operating results for the third quarter of fiscal 2018, the 12 weeks that ended on May 13. Net income for the quarter was $750 million or $1.70 per share. That compared to $700 million or $1.59 per share last year in the third quarter. Now last year, in the third quarter, our net income was positively impacted by the $82 million or a plus $0.19 per share tax benefit, and that was in connection with the $7 per share special cash dividend that we had done at the time.

在今天的新聞稿中，我們公佈了 2018 財年第三季（截至 5 月 13 日的 12 週）的營運業績。本季淨利為7.5億美元，即每股1.70美元。相比之下，去年第三季營收為 7 億美元，即每股 1.59 美元。去年第三季度，由於我們當時派發了每股 7 美元的特別現金股息，8,200 萬美元（即每股 0.19 美元）的稅收優惠對我們的淨收入產生了積極影響。

I'll start by reviewing our third quarter operating results and then allow some time, of course, for Q&A. In terms of sales, net sales for the quarter came in at $31.62 billion or 12.1% increase over last year's third quarter sales of $28.22 billion. Net sales for the first 36 weeks of fiscal '18 increased 12.0% to $95.02 billion, up from $84.82 billion from last year-to-date -- last year for the first 3 quarters year-to-date.

我將先回顧我們第三季的經營業績，然後當然會留一些時間進行問答環節。從銷售額來看，該季度淨銷售額為 316.2 億美元，比去年第三季的 282.2 億美元成長了 12.1%。2018 財年前 36 週的淨銷售額成長 12.0%，達到 950.2 億美元，高於去年同期的 848.2 億美元（去年同期為前三個季度）。

In terms of comparable sales, which we reported in the press release, for the 12-week period, U.S. was 9.7%. Excluding the impact of gas inflation, it was 7.7%; Canada on a reported basis for the 12 weeks' comps were 11.3 and, ex gas inflation and FX impact, was up 4.8%; Other International reported at 11.8%, ex gas inflation and FX, 5.8%. So all told, total company at 10.2% comp and, ex gas inflation and FX, up 7.0%. E-commerce, which we, of course, separate out here, is 36.8% for the 12 weeks and 35.5% ex FX, so that continued strong. Similar statistics in the press release for the 36 weeks year-to-date.

根據我們在新聞稿中報告的同店銷售額，在過去 12 週內，美國銷售額佔比為 9.7%。剔除汽油通膨的影響，成長率為 7.7%；加拿大按報告數據計算，12 週的年成長率為 11.3%，剔除汽油通膨和匯率影響後，成長率為 4.8%；其他國際地區的報告成長率為 11.8%，剔除汽油通膨和匯率影響後，成長率為 5.8%。綜上所述，公司整體業績年增 10.2%，剔除天然氣通膨和匯率因素後，成長 7.0%。當然，我們在這裡將電子商務單獨列出，其 12 週佔比為 36.8%，剔除匯率因素後為 35.5%，因此繼續保持強勁勢頭。新聞稿中也列出了今年迄今 36 週的類似統計數據。

In terms of third quarter sales metrics, third quarter traffic or shopping frequency was up 5.1%, both worldwide and within the U.S. Strengthening foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar impacted sales by approximately 145 basis points to the positive. And gasoline inflation added an additional 170 basis points. Cannibalization weighed on the comp to the tune of minus 60 basis points. Our average front-end transaction or front-end ticket was up 4.9%. And again, excluding the benefits from both gas inflation and FX, that average ticket would have been up somewhere in the mid- to high single digits, about 1.7%, 1.8% up.

就第三季銷售指標而言，第三季客流量或購物頻率成長了 5.1%，無論是在全球範圍內還是在美國境內。外幣兌美元走強對銷售額產生了約 145 個基點的正面影響。汽油通膨又使這數字增加了170個基點。蠶食效應使同業表現下降了 60 個基點。我們的平均前端交易金額或前端訂單金額成長了 4.9%。再次強調，如果排除汽油價格上漲和匯率波動的好處，平均票價應該會上漲個位數中高段，大約上漲 1.7% 到 1.8%。

Next, on the income statement. Membership fee income reported in the quarter, $737 million, up $93 million from $644 million during Q3 of last year or up 14.4%. The benefit of strong foreign currencies was about $9 million of that $93 million increase. So ex that, it would have been up $84 million. Now of the $93 million increase year-over-year, a little over half related to the membership fee increases that we have taken in the last year, 1.5 years, the majority of which came from the $5 and $10 annual fee increases taken last June 1 in the U.S. and Canada and the small balance of that from the fee increases taken, Other International operations starting back in September of 2016. We will continue, by the way, to see membership fee based on the deferred accounting, the June 1 of '17 increases in the U.S. and Canada last year will continue to see the benefit of that year-over-year increase in the membership fee line. It will peak in Q4 this coming quarter, the 16-week quarter, and then still year-over-year increases, but in all or at least 3, maybe 4 of the -- all of next year in fiscal '19 as well.

接下來，來看損益表。本季會員費收入為 7.37 億美元，比去年第三季的 6.44 億美元增加了 9,300 萬美元，增幅達 14.4%。強勢外幣帶來的好處約為9,300萬美元的成長中的900萬美元。除去這些，金額將增加 8,400 萬美元。在與前一年相比增長的 9300 萬美元中，略多於一半與我們在過去一年半里提高的會員費有關，其中大部分來自去年 6 月 1 日在美國和加拿大實施的 5 美元和 10 美元的年度費用增長，其餘一小部分來自自 2016 年 9 月開始實施的其他國際業務的費用增長。順便一提，會員費將繼續按照遞延會計處理，去年美國和加拿大的會員費在 2017 年 6 月 1 日的增長將繼續帶來會員費同比增長的好處。它將在本季度（16 週的季度）達到峰值，然後仍將同比增長，但至少在明年 2019 財年的 3 個月，甚至 4 個月內都將保持增長。

In terms of membership fee renewal rates. Our U.S. and Canada member renewal rates at Q3-end came in at -- were 90.1%, similar to what they -- where they stood a quarter earlier at 90.1%, a slight uptick but still rounding to the 90.1%. Worldwide rates improved from 87.5% up -- improved to 87.5%, up from 87.3% 12 weeks ago at Q2-end, with the uptick in renewal rates and Other International operations led by Asia, both Taiwan, Japan and Korea.

就會員費續費費率而言。第三季末，我們美國和加拿大的會員續費率為 90.1%，與上一季的 90.1% 相似，略有上升，但仍四捨五入為 90.1%。全球費率從 87.5% 提高至 87.5%，高於 12 週前第二季末的 87.3%，續保費率和其他國際業務的成長主要由亞洲（包括台灣、日本和韓國）帶動。

In terms of number of members at Q3-end. In terms of total member households at the end of Q2, it stood at 50.4 million and 12 weeks later, at the end of Q3, it is now -- it then stood at 50.9 million. Total cardholders, 92.2 million a quarter ago, 12 weeks ago and, at Q3-end, 93.0 million.

以第三季末的成員數量來看。截至第二季末，會員家庭總數為 5,040 萬戶；12 週後，截至第三季末，會員家庭總數為 5,090 萬戶。截至第三季末，持卡人總數為 9,220 萬，12 週前為 9,300 萬。

During the fiscal quarter, we had 2 new openings. Also at Q3-end, as of Q3-end, our paid Executive Member base stood at 19.0 million households. That's an increase of 199,000 households from 12 weeks earlier, about 17,000 new Gold Star members per week.

本財季，我們新增了 2 個職缺。截至第三季末，我們的付費高級會員家庭數量已達 1,900 萬戶。與 12 週前相比，增加了 199,000 戶家庭，每週新增約 17,000 名金星會員。

Related to the benefit from last year's fee increases, that year-over-year quarterly fee increase, as I mentioned, will continue to benefit both Q4 and into several quarters next year but on a diminished amount each year-over-year quarter.

關於去年費用上漲帶來的好處，正如我之前提到的，這種同比季度費用上漲將繼續惠及第四季度以及明年接下來的幾個季度，但每個季度同比漲幅都會減少。

Going down to the gross margin line. Our reported gross margin third quarter was lower year-over-year by 46 basis points, coming in at 11.05% during third quarter of fiscal '18 compared to 11.51%. Now that minus 46 basis point figure year-over-year on a reported basis, excluding gas inflation, it was minus -- it would have been minus 28%. And let me again ask you, as I usually do, to jot down just a couple of columns for Q3 '18. The first one would be as-reported and the second one would be excluding the impact of gas inflation.

一直到毛利率線。我們報告的第三季毛利率年減了 46 個基點，2018 財年第三季為 11.05%，而 2018 財年第三季為 11.51%。現在，按報告數據計算，年減了 46 個基點，不包括汽油價格上漲，實際下降幅度為 -28%。讓我再次像往常一樣，請您記下 2018 年第三季的幾列資料。第一個例子將以實際報告得出，第二個例子將排除天然氣價格上漲的影響。

The 5 line items would -- first one would be merchandise core. In Q3 '18, on a reported basis, that was down year-over-year by 33 basis points and, ex gas inflation, down by 17 basis points. Ancillary businesses. Reported, minus 10 basis points year-over-year, minus 6% ex gas inflation. 2% Reward plus 2 as-reported and flat without gas inflation. Other, minus 5 and minus 5. And I'll talk about that in a second. So total, if you add up those 2 columns, on a reported basis, again, gross margin was lower by 46 basis points, ex gas inflation, lower by 28 basis points.

這 5 個項目分別是──第一個是核心商品。2018 年第三季度，以報告數據計算，年減 33 個基點；剔除天然氣通膨因素後，年減 17 個基點。輔助業務。據報道，年減 10 個基點，不計天然氣通膨因素下降 6%。2% 獎勵加 2%（如報告所示），且不考慮通貨膨脹因素。其他的，減 5，減 5。我稍後會談到這一點。因此，如果將這兩列數據加起來，按報告數據計算，毛利率下降了 46 個基點；剔除天然氣通膨因素後，毛利率下降了 28 個基點。

Now the core -- as I mentioned, looking at the core merchandise categories in relation to their own sales, so core-on-core, if you will, margins year-over-year in Q3 were lower actually by minus 4 basis points. Subcategories within core gross margin year-over-year in Q3, food and sundries was up slightly. And hardlines, softlines and fresh foods, the other 3 components of core, were down just slightly. The slightly year-over-year core-on-core gross margins in the third quarter resulted from our continuing investment in price to drive sales and widening the value gap between us and our competition. Ancillary and other businesses gross margin were reported down 10 and down 6 ex gas. Some of that is increased gas sales penetration, which is a much lower-margin business, the other parts of it is -- some of the other ancillary business were down a little bit as well. 2% Reward was flat ex gas, as I mentioned. And Other, which was a -- excuse me, Other, which was a minus 5 year-over-year comparison, 5 basis points. Last year, we're incurring some incremental costs. Well, we have been -- as I mentioned in the last 2 quarters, we've been incurring some incremental costs primarily related to the rollout of our new centralized returns facilities. This will continue to impact us for one more quarter in Q4. In each of the prior 2 quarters I had mentioned on a -- kind of a sequential basis on a year-over-year, Q1, it was -- we estimated it was about 7 basis point negative impact in Q2, minus 6; and in Q3, minus 5. And again, there'll be some small detriment, I assume, in Q4, and then we'll have anniversaried that.

現在來看核心業務——正如我之前提到的，從核心商品類別本身的銷售額來看，也就是核心業務之間的利潤率，第三季比去年同期下降了 4 個基點。在第三季核心毛利率子類別中，食品和雜貨較去年同期略有成長。硬商品、軟商品和新鮮食品（核心商品的另外三個組成部分）略有下降。第三季核心毛利率比去年同期略有下降，這是由於我們持續增加價格投入以推動銷售，並擴大了我們與競爭對手之間的價值差距。輔助業務和其他業務的毛利率下降了 10%，剔除天然氣業務後下降了 6%。部分原因是天然氣銷售滲透率的提高，而天然氣業務的利潤率則低得多；其他部分原因是──其他一些輔助業務也有所下降。正如我之前提到的，2%的獎勵是固定的，不含汽油費。而其他方面，也就是──抱歉，其他方面，年比下降了 5 個基點。去年，我們產生了一些額外的成本。正如我在過去兩個季度中提到的，我們一直在產生一些額外的成本，主要與我們新的集中退貨設施的推出有關。這將持續影響我們，直至第四季。在我之前提到的兩個季度中－以年比順序來看，第一季我們估計受到的負面影響約為7個基點，第二季為-6個基點；第三季為-5個基點。我估計第四季也會出現一些小的負面影響，然後我們就會迎來一年的倒數計時。

Moving to SG&A. Our SG&A percentage in Q3 year-over-year was lower or better by 32 basis points on a reported basis and, ex gas inflation, better or lower by 16 basis points, coming in at 9.98% of sales this year reported compared to 10.30% last year. Like with gross margin, I'll ask you to take the 2 columns. First one, as reported Q3 '18, and the second column would be excluding the impact of gas inflation for Q3 '18.

移至銷售、一般及行政管理部門。第三季度，我們的銷售、一般及行政費用佔銷售額的百分比同比下降或下降了 32 個基點（按報告基準計算），若不計入天然氣通膨因素，則下降或下降了 16 個基點，佔今年報告銷售額的 9.98%，而去年為 10.30%。就像計算毛利率一樣，我請你取這兩列資料。第一列數據為 2018 年第三季報告數據，第二列數據則不包括 2018 年第三季天然氣價格上漲的影響。

First one, operations, better or plus 26 basis points on a reported basis and plus 13 basis points or lower ex gas; central, minus one and minus 3; stock compensation, plus 2 and plus 1; other, plus 5 and plus 5. So if you add those 2 columns up, the first column would add up to the reported 32 basis point improvement in SG&A. And again, ex gas inflation, it would be plus 16 basis points.

首先是運營，按報告基準計算，改善或增加 26 個基點，剔除天然氣成本後，改善或降低 13 個基點；中央運營，減少 1 個基點，減少 3 個基點；股票補償，增加 2 個基點，增加 1 個基點；其他，增加 5 個基點，增加 5 個基點。因此，如果將這兩列加起來，第一列的總和將與報告的銷售、一般及行政費用改善 32 個基點相符。再次強調，剔除天然氣通膨因素，這數字將上升 16 個基點。

Basically, it's all about sales. Core operations, lower, better, strong top line sales led to improvement in payroll, benefits and other variable and fixed costs generally speaking. Central expense was higher year-over-year, as you can see on the little chart we just made, by 1 basis point on a reported basis and 3 without gas, primarily related to our continuing IT efforts. Stock compensation, again, lower by a little. Again, strong sales helped that. Other, better by 5. That really is nothing this year. Last year, we pointed out that there were 2 nonrecurring legal items in Q3 last year totaling $14 million or 5 basis points. And we didn't have any detriment related to that this year.

說到底，一切都與銷售有關。核心營運、更低、更好、強勁的營收成長，整體改善了薪資、福利和其他可變成本和固定成本。正如您在我們剛剛製作的小圖表中看到的那樣，中央支出同比增加了 1 個基點（按報告計算），不計天然氣支出則增加了 3 個基點，這主要與我們持續的 IT 工作有關。股票補償再次略有下降。同樣，強勁的銷售業績也起到了推波助瀾的作用。其他方面，比 5 好。今年這真的不算什麼。去年，我們指出，去年第三季有 2 項非經常性法律項目，總計 1,400 萬美元，即 5 個基點。今年我們沒有因此而遭受任何損失。

Next on the income statement is preopening. Preopening this year came in at $8 million, lower by $7 million from last year's $15 million. This year in Q3, as I mentioned, we had 2 openings, one in Mexico and one in Korea. Last year, we had 3 openings, one each in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Last year -- and the number was -- we also had some additional spend in Q3 relating to the fourth quarter openings last year in France and Iceland. Upcoming in Q4 this year, we had 15 total openings, 13 net new units plus 2 relocations. That compares to 12 gross and net locations last year in the quarter. All told, reporting operating income in Q3 came in at $1,067,000,000 or up $99 million or 10% higher than -- year-over-year than last year's $968 million.

損益表上的下一個項目是開業前利潤。今年的開業前準備工作收入為 800 萬美元，比去年的 1500 萬美元減少了 700 萬美元。正如我之前提到的，今年第三季我們有兩家新店開業，一家在墨西哥，一家在韓國。去年，我們有 3 個職缺，分別位於美國、加拿大和墨西哥。去年——具體數字是——我們在第三季還有一些額外的支出，與去年第四季在法國和冰島的開幕有關。今年第四季度，我們總共有 15 個新店開業，其中 13 個為淨新增單元，另有 2 個為搬遷單元。相較之下，去年同期共有 12 個營業地點（包括毛營業地點及淨營業地點）。總的來說，第三季報告的營業收入為 10.67 億美元，比去年同期的 9.68 億美元增加了 9,900 萬美元，增幅達 10%。

Below the operating income line, reported interest expense came in at $16 million, higher year-over-year at $37 million this year. That compares to $21 million a year ago. That's mostly a result of last May's $3.8 billion debt offering that we did in conjunction with our special dividend.

在營業收入項下，報告的利息支出為 1,600 萬美元，比上年同期的 3,700 萬美元有所增加。相比之下，一年前這一數字為 2,100 萬美元。這主要是由於去年 5 月我們與特別股息同時進行的 38 億美元債務發行。

Interest income and other was higher or better year-over-year by $23 million in the quarter. Actual interest income and most of the interest income for the quarter is better or higher by $6 million. We also benefited year-over-year comparison by various FX items to the tune of $17 million. That's the number that fluctuates both ways. Generally speaking, it's in the 0 to $15 million range. For this one, it was plus $17 million. Overall, pretax income was higher by 11% or $106 million in the quarter coming in at $1,071,000,000 compared to last year's $965 million.

本季利息收入和其他收入比上年同期增加了 2,300 萬美元。本季實際利息收入和大部分利息收入比預期高出 600 萬美元。我們也受惠於年比各項外匯項目，金額高達 1,700 萬美元。這是一個波動幅度很大的數字。一般來說，金額在 0 到 1500 萬美元之間。這次，額外花了1700萬美元。總體而言，本季稅前收入成長了 11%，即 1.06 億美元，達到 10.71 億美元，而去年同期為 9.65 億美元。

In terms of income taxes, our tax rate in the third quarter of this year came in at 28.8% compared to last year's reported tax rate of 26.8%. Now last year, of course, on a normalized basis -- because I mentioned that we had an $82 million tax benefit related to the perpetual dividend, last year's normalized rate was 35.3%. For fiscal '19, based on our current estimates, which, of course, are always subject to change, we anticipate our effective total company tax rate for the entire year, with the change in U.S. tax rates benefiting the entire year, the tax rate to be approximately 28% as we'll have the full fiscal year under the new U.S. federal rates.

就所得稅而言，今年第三季我們的稅率為 28.8%，而去年公佈的稅率為 26.8%。當然，去年以正常水平計算——因為我提到過，我們與永續股息相關的稅收優惠為 8,200 萬美元，所以去年的正常稅率為 35.3%。對於 2019 財年，根據我們目前的估計（當然，這些估計總是會發生變化），我們預計全年的有效公司總稅率，由於美國稅率的變化將使全年受益，稅率約為 28%，因為我們將在整個財政年度適用新的美國聯邦稅率。

Before I leave the subject of tax law changes, I'll make a couple of comments on that in terms of what our plans are vis-à-vis the savings. As I had mentioned last quarter-end, we don't -- really don't expect any major changes to our capital allocation plans. We generate good cash and pretty much do the things that we want to do in terms of expansion and in terms of regular dividend and in terms of stock buybacks as well. As mentioned on last year's earnings call, we would -- where I said we would use some of the income tax savings in the U.S. to benefit our U.S. employees and that there'll be increases in their hourly wage rates, effective June 11, our U.S. starting wages will increase from $13 and $13.50 an hour to $14 and $14.50 an hour, so $1 an hour for entry level, with all other hourly warehouse employees receiving hourly increase of anywhere from $0.25 to $0.50 per hour. The estimated annualized cost of these increases that will impact about 130-plus thousand employees in the United States will be $110 million to $120 million pretax, with Q4 being impacted by a little more than $25 million pretax.

在結束關於稅法變更的話題之前，我想就我們關於節省稅款的計劃發表幾點看法。正如我在上個季度末提到的那樣，我們真的不預期我們的資本配置計劃會有任何重大變化。我們產生了良好的現金流，並且在擴張、定期分紅和股票回購方面，基本上都能實現我們想要做的事情。正如我在去年的財報電話會議上提到的，我們將利用美國的部分所得稅節省來惠及我們的美國員工，並提高他們的時薪。從 6 月 11 日起，我們美國員工的起薪將從每小時 13 美元和 13.50 美元提高到每小時 14 美元和 14.50 美元，即入門級員工每小時工資增加 1 美元，所有其他倉庫小時工的工資將增加 0.25 美元到 0.50 美元不等。這些成長預計將影響美國約 13 萬多名員工，預計每年稅前成本為 1.1 億美元至 1.2 億美元，其中第四季稅前成本將略高於 2,500 萬美元。

We have been investing, second, next, we have been investing, and we'll continue to invest some of the savings to drive our business. And this will certainly include investing in price as well as other activities. Some of the tax savings will -- needless to say, some of the tax savings this way will fall to the bottom line indirectly by investing in driving value and sales. And then some of the tax savings will go straight to the bottom line.

其次，我們一直在投資，我們將繼續把部分儲蓄用於投資，以推動我們的業務發展。這當然包括對價格以及其他活動的投資。不言而喻，透過這種方式節省的部分稅收將間接轉化為利潤，用於投資提升價值和促進銷售。這樣一來，部分稅收節省將直接轉化為利潤。

A few other items of note. In terms of expansion, I mentioned we have 15 total openings scheduled for the upcoming 16-week fiscal fourth quarter, which include 2 relos, so we'll have 13 net openings. That would put us at 21 net new openings for the fiscal year, 25 total, less 4 relos. In Q1, we opened 7 locations, net of 5. In Q2, we opened 1. In Q3 as, I mentioned, we opened 2. And for all of fiscal '18 again, the 21 net new. Of those 21 net new, a little under 2/3 of them will be in the U.S. Additionally, for fiscal '18, we'll relocate the 4. All of those in the U.S., and those are relocated to better and larger facilities. As of Q3-end, total warehouse square footage stood at 108 million square feet.

還有一些其他值得注意的地方。在擴張方面，我提到我們在即將到來的 16 週的第四財季計劃開設 15 個新店，其中包括 2 個搬遷項目，因此我們將淨增 13 個新店。這將使我們本財年淨新增開業數量達到 21 個，總共達到 25 個，減去 4 個搬遷項目。第一季度，我們新開了 7 家分店，淨增加 5 家。第二季度，我們新開了 1 家。正如我之前提到的，第三季度，我們新開了 2 家。整個 2018 財年，淨增 21 家。在這 21 個新增淨項目中，略低於 2/3 將位於美國。此外，在 2018 財年，我們將搬遷 4 個專案。所有這些項目都位於美國，並且搬遷到更好、更大的設施。截至第三季末，倉庫總面積為 1.08 億平方英尺。

In terms of stock buybacks, in Q3, $55 million was expended. So Q3 year-to-date for the 36 weeks, we repurchased $233 million worth of stock or 1.337 million shares at an average price of $174.30 per share.

在股票回購方面，第三季支出為 5,500 萬美元。因此，截至今年第三季末的 36 週內，我們以每股 174.30 美元的平均價格回購了價值 2.33 億美元的股票，即 133.7 萬股。

In terms of our e-commerce activities. E-commerce, we currently operate e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Mexico, Korea and Taiwan. Total e-commerce sales for the third quarter were up 37% year-over-year. And again, that was Q3 of 36.8%; year-to-date, 36.1%. And for the 4 weeks of April, which we have previously reported, it was up 43.1%.

就我們的電子商務活動而言。電子商務方面，我們目前在美國、加拿大、英國、墨西哥、韓國和台灣經營電子商務網站。第三季電子商務總銷售額年增 37%。第三季為 36.8%；今年迄今為 36.1%。而我們之前報道過的4月份的4週，漲幅為43.1%。

We continue improving and slightly expanding our offerings. We've been helped, of course, by improved member service and better search and checkout and returns processes. But first and foremost, we're delivering greater value to members and more people are actually looking at it, opening their e-mails and transacting. This stuff works, and we'll continue to see -- we believe to see some good results there.

我們將繼續改進並略微擴展我們的產品和服務。當然，會員服務的改進以及搜尋、結帳和退貨流程的最佳化也對我們有所幫助。但最重要的是，我們正在為會員提供更大的價值，而且越來越多的人正在關注它、打開電子郵件並進行交易。這東西確實有效，我們會繼續觀察──我們相信會看到一些好的結果。

In the third quarter, our site traffic conversion rates and orders were continuing to improve year-over-year. And again, we would expect that to continue at least in the near term. Online grocery, both our dry grocery 2-day delivery and our same-day fresh delivery through Instacart, both of these were rolled out last October and continue to grow nicely. Still a small percentage of the total company but growing, and we're seeing good things from it both in existing markets plus, in some cases, in markets where an existing Costco might be a little further away. We continue to improve the online merchandise and services offerings with hot buys in Buyer's Picks with buy online and pick-up in the store; some limited big-ticket items like jewelry, tablets and laptops and, most recently, handbags. One other additional comment on that is we're seeing that plus or minus -- about half, a little under and a little over, of those people will come in and shop as well before they pick up the item.

第三季度，我們的網站流量轉換率和訂單量持續年增。我們預計這種情況至少在短期內還會持續。線上雜貨服務，包括我們的乾貨 2 天送達服務和透過 Instacart 提供的當日新鮮食品配送服務，這兩項服務均於去年 10 月推出，並且持續穩步成長。雖然目前僅占公司總業務的一小部分，但正在成長，而且我們在現有市場以及一些 Costco 門市可能距離較遠的市場都看到了良好的發展勢頭。我們不斷改進線上商品和服務，在「買家精選」中提供熱銷商品，支援線上購買和店內取貨；一些限量發售的大件商品，如珠寶、平板電腦和筆記型電腦，以及最近推出的手提包。關於這一點，還有一點需要補充說明：我們發現，大約有一半（略少於一半或多於一半）的人會在取貨前進店購物。

Another example of how we're seeing some of the stuff benefit us, as I've given you examples in the past, the most recent probably good example is household furniture. Historically, this was -- it was only in the warehouse and, generally, for 8 or so weeks per year. Now it's online all 52 weeks, and we're seeing good increases in sales there, incremental sales similar to our success in selling appliances that I've discussed in the past. Overall, all these efforts are positively impacting our business, both online and in warehouse, and are helping our sales momentum and increasing member awareness of our digital presence at the same time. We're seeing good traffic increases and, hopefully, we can continue these types of activities.

另一個例子可以說明，有些東西是如何讓我們受益的，就像我過去舉過的例子一樣，最近可能是一個很好的例子就是家用家具。從歷史上看，這種情況僅限於倉庫內，而且通常每年持續 8 週左右。現在它全年 52 週都在網上銷售，我們看到銷售額有了顯著增長，銷售額的增長與我們過去在銷售家電方面取得的成功類似，我之前也談到過這一點。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，同時也有助於提升我們的銷售勢頭，並提高會員對我們數位化業務的認知度。我們看到客流量顯著成長，希望能夠持續進行這類活動。

Overall, omnichannel is certainly working to enhance and increase our business. One last example, we now have in 220 of our roughly 520 U.S. locations what I'll call e-commerce product showcases and online ordering capabilities. All U.S. locations will have something in -- in fact, in place by this year's upcoming fall holiday season.

總體而言，全通路行銷無疑正在促進和提升我們的業務。最後一個例子，我們在美國大約 520 個地點中的 220 個地點現在擁有我稱之為電子商務產品展示和線上訂購功能。美國所有地區都會有相關產品推出——事實上，到今年秋季假期到來之前都會到位。

In terms of upcoming releases, we will announce our May sales results for the 4 weeks ending June 3 next year on June 6, and our fiscal '18 fourth quarter scheduled earnings release date for the 16-week fourth quarter ending September 2. This will be after the market closes on Thursday, October 4, with the earnings call that afternoon at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time. I do want to point out that last year, fiscal fourth quarter was 17 weeks. This year, it's 16 weeks. So keep that in mind as you plan your numbers. As a reminder, last year's fourth quarter was 17 weeks, as I mentioned.

關於即將發布的業績，我們將於明年6月6日公佈截至6月3日的4週的5月份銷售業績，並於10月4日星期四股市收盤後公佈截至9月2日的16週的2018財年第四季度財報。財報電話會議將於當天下午2點舉行。太平洋時間。我想指出的是，去年的第四財季有 17 週。今年是16週。所以在規劃數字時要記住這一點。提醒一下，正如我之前提到的，去年的第四季有 17 週。

With that, I'll open it up for Q&A. And Josh, I'll turn it back over to you for that.

接下來，我將開放問答環節。喬希，這件事就交給你了。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的西蒙古特曼。

My first question is on the gross margin. The core-on-core has been roughly flattish to down a little bit low single digits. I think you said down 4. I know you don't guide to it, but I wanted to ask if that's roughly the ballpark that we should think about. Or is that a consequence of just how the margins of the business and the sales play out?

我的第一個問題是關於毛利率的。核心股之間的漲跌幅大致持平，或略有下降（個位數百分比）。我想你說過會落後 4 分。我知道你沒有給出具體數字，但我還是想問，這是否是我們應該考慮的大致範圍。或者，這只是企業利潤率和銷售運作方式的必然結果？

Starting with -- the first part of that question was I know you don't want to comment on it. Look, at the end of the day, there's lots of moving parts to it. All I can tell you is we've been fortunate to have a few different buckets of monies to be able to do a lot of things starting with the credit card transition, continuing with membership fee increase, continuing with the income tax and even add a little to that some of the Sam's closings, all these things we're able to do. We feel very good about what we're doing. And the other thing is, as you've all heard over the years, when things are -- when costs are going up, we want to be the last to go up. And when prices are going down, the costs are going down, we want to be the first to go down. When you look at some of the things that have happened, whether it's inflationary freight cost, those things generally are now in there, but we pride ourselves on holding off on some of those things. So I can't really tell you where we'll go with this other than we feel good about what we're doing. Keep in mind also that some of this has to do with not just core-on-core but some of the penetration, sales penetration of things like low margin gas. We feel really good about where we are pricing-wise and where -- what we're doing with it in driving our business.

首先——這個問題的第一部分是我知道你不想對此發表評論。說到底，這其中涉及很多環節。我只能告訴你，我們很幸運地擁有幾筆不同的資金，可以做很多事情，從信用卡過渡開始，繼續提高會員費，繼續繳納所得稅，甚至還可以加上一些山姆會員店的關閉，所有這些事情我們都能做到。我們對自己所做的事情感到非常滿意。還有一點，正如你們這些年來都聽到的那樣，當成本上漲時，我們希望成為最後一個上漲的。當價格下降、成本下降時，我們希望成為第一個降低成本的企業。當你審視已經發生的一些事情，例如通貨膨脹的貨運成本，這些事情現在通常都會發生，但我們引以為傲的是，我們能夠避免其中一些事情的發生。所以，除了我們對目前所做的事情感到滿意之外，我真的無法告訴你我們將如何發展。還要記住，這其中一部分不僅與核心業務有關，還與低利潤汽油等產品的滲透率和銷售滲透率有關。我們對目前的定價策略以及我們利用定價策略推動業務發展的方式感到非常滿意。

And the $110 million to $120 million of pretax wage investments, do you think about investment in price any differently or the 2 are unrelated in the way you manage the business?

對於1.1億至1.2億美元的稅前薪資投資，您是否以不同的方式看待價格投資，或者這兩者在您的企業管理方式中是否無關？

Well, the 2 -- and keep in mind, given that the income tax changes were unique and don't happen every day, we certainly felt the right thing to do was to allow it certainly to help our employees as well as drive our business and improve it, the member value. I look at how we've done it. We feel pretty good about what we've done and where we're going with it. And we don't -- but we don't look at it, let's take 1/3, 1/3 and 1/3, it's just how we're doing it. And we want to -- we recognize that there's a lot of things to be able to do with it. And if you go back years ago, when I look at my comment on some are going to fall to the bottom line, we view that as part of the process here, too.

嗯，第 2 點——請記住，鑑於所得稅的變化是獨一無二的，並非每天都會發生，我們當然認為正確的做法是允許它，這肯定有助於我們的員工，推動我們的業務發展並提高會員價值。我回顧了我們是如何做到的。我們對自己所做的工作以及未來的發展方向都感到非常滿意。我們不——但我們不去考慮它，就取 1/3、1/3 和 1/3，我們就是這麼做的。我們想——我們意識到它有很多用途。如果你回顧幾年前，當我看到我對某些事情最終會走向失敗的評論時，我們也認為這是這個過程的一部分。

Your next question comes from Michael Lasser with UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的麥可·拉塞爾。

So when you look at the e-comm transactions, how are those impacting your profitability, both just the e-commerce transaction itself and then those that are being picked up in store? Could you say that half of those include shops and visits to the warehouse as well?

那麼，當你審視電子商務交易時，這些交易對你的獲利能力有何影響？包括電子商務交易本身以及在實體店取貨的交易。您能否說其中一半行程包括商店購物和倉庫參觀？

Well, first of all, the buy online and shop in stores is some limited high-ticket, small-sized items where, in many cases, we find members who would love to buy it but didn't want to -- couldn't have it delivered to where they work and didn't want to leave it on their doorstep. And what we found is, which we were a little surprised by, is when they do come in, a lot of them come in and shop first and then pick it up and shopped quite a bit, frankly. It's a small piece of the business. We're not looking to have people come and have to refrigerate stuff while -- order online, and then we got to have refrigerators and freezers filled waiting for them to come. These are limited areas where we think we can do -- drive business and provide that member service.

首先，網路購買、實體店面購買的商品種類有限，價格較高，尺寸較小。在很多情況下，我們發現有些會員很想買這些商品，但不想買——因為商品無法送到他們的工作地點，也不想把商品放在家門口。我們發現，令我們有點驚訝的是，當他們進來的時候，很多人會先逛逛，然後再去取貨，坦白說，他們買的東西還真不少。這只是公司業務的一小部分。我們不希望顧客來取貨後，我們還得把東西放進冰箱冷藏——他們在網上訂購，然後我們還要把冰箱和冰櫃塞滿，等著他們來取。我們認為我們可以在這些有限的領域內開展業務並提供會員服務。

And is it having an impact in your margin structure at this point?

目前這是否對你的利潤率結構產生了影響？

No, not really. I mean keep in mind, Mike, a lot of companies out there were doing a lot of things. If you think about what we're doing with the 2 delivery things. There's some inefficiencies of starting it up, ramping it up and buying equipment for box-making, whatever else. And we are not really talking about all these little things but there are things there. But know, when we're doing some of the things, hot buys, some of that is our vendors and some of that is some of the monies that we have to be able to use. As I've mentioned before, I think that for every dollar that we have to use, we feel we get kind of a bigger bang for that buck than others simply because of limited targeted items.

不，其實不是。我的意思是，麥克，你要記住，當時很多公司都在做很多事。想想我們用這兩個配送方式做了些什麼。從啟動、擴大規模到購買製盒設備等等，都存在一些效率低下的問題。我們其實不是在討論所有這些小事，但其中確實包含著一些事情。但要知道，當我們進行一些採購活動時，有些是我們的供應商，有些是我們必須使用的資金。正如我之前提到的，我認為我們花的每一美元，都能比其他人獲得更大的收益，這僅僅是因為我們提供的商品種類有限且具有針對性。

And my follow-up question is this year's third quarter ended a week later into May and began a week later in February, so you probably got a higher volume week and gave up a lower volume week. Does that calendar shift effect have any impact in your sales and profitability in the third quarter?

我的後續問題是，今年的第三季結束於五月份晚了一周，開始於二月份晚了一周，所以你可能得到了成交量較高的一周，而放棄了成交量較低的一周。日曆年的變化是否會對貴公司第三季的銷售額和獲利能力產生影響？

Not for the quarter, no.

本季不是。

Your next question comes from Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett.

下一個問題來自 Chuck Grom 和 Gordon Haskett。

On the digital front, any learnings so far from CostcoGrocery? In particular, are you seeing a new shopper or an existing shop that's making incremental purchase? And then, separately, can you remind us of the SKU count online today and where you see it going forward?

在數位化方面，CostcoGrocery 目前有哪些經驗教訓？具體來說，您看到的是新顧客還是現有顧客的增購？另外，您能否單獨介紹一下目前線上銷售的 SKU 數量，以及您認為未來的發展趨勢？

On the last question, the SKU count, I think it's approaching 10,000. We don't see it getting a heck of a lot bigger. But keep in mind, over the last couple of years, we've added lots of, what I'll call, velocity items, food and sundries items, health and beauty aid items, some apparel items, which is getting people to open their e-mails, if you will, and think about coming back more often to take a look without us having to remind them. And so all those things, I think, we'll continue to see. And I'm sorry, the first part of the question?

關於最後一個問題，SKU 數量，我認為已經接近 10,000 了。我們認為它不會再有太大的擴張了。但請記住，在過去的幾年裡，我們增加了許多我稱之為「快節奏商品」的商品，例如食品和雜貨、保健和美容用品、一些服裝，這些商品能夠吸引人們打開電子郵件，並讓他們更頻繁地回來查看，而無需我們提醒他們。所以，我認為，所有這些事情我們都會繼續看到。抱歉，問題的第一部分？

Just on the central shoppers?

僅限中央購物者？

And so what we're seeing -- I do -- it's really still too early to tell. We clearly are getting some customers -- in the case of the 2-day, which is dry and covers the entire Continental United States, we are picking up some members that we never had before because we were 50 miles and 100 miles away from the nearest physical Costco. And we're really just -- I talked, the last time, in the last quarter, about there's really been very limited marketing of this as we're just getting it up and running and rolling it out. We -- and it's too early to tell what impact, if any, it has in terms of same-day grocery. Historically, we saw, in some early cases, back in like the Bay Area, which didn't offer fresh, by the way, you saw perhaps somebody, an existing member, shop a few less times that year or shop several times online, in some cases, as fill-ins, and they're still coming in. And the sum of the 2 is still better, a little better, than it was before. I think we'll have to see. As you might expect, we're going to figure out how to do it so it's not -- it benefits us in some ways that -- I think we're fortunate that some traditional retailers don't have that same benefit.

所以，我們現在看到的——我的確認為——現在下結論還為時過早。我們顯然正在吸引一些顧客——以為期兩天的促銷活動為例，該活動覆蓋整個美國大陸，天氣晴朗，我們吸引了一些以前從未有過的會員，因為我們距離最近的實體 Costco 有 50 英里甚至 100 英里遠。我們實際上只是——我上次在上個季度談到過，由於我們才剛開始啟動和推廣，所以對它的營銷非常有限。我們－現在判斷它對當日雜貨配送的影響（如果有的話）還為時過早。從歷史上看，在一些早期案例中，例如在舊金山灣區（順便說一句，那裡沒有新鮮食材），我們看到一些現有會員那一年購物次數減少了幾次，或者在線購物了幾次，在某些情況下，是為了補充庫存，而且他們仍然會繼續購物。兩者加起來還是比以前好。我想我們得拭目以待。正如你所料，我們會想辦法解決這個問題，這樣就不會——在某些方面對我們有利——我認為我們很幸運，因為一些傳統零售商沒有同樣的優勢。

Okay. And then just on -- it's been a while since you've updated us on your long-term club goals, just curious where you see saturation. Where do you think you could see the club base looking out maybe 5 to 10 years?

好的。還有一點——您已經很久沒有向我們更新您的長期俱樂部目標了，只是好奇您認為哪些方面已經飽和。你認為未來5到10年，俱樂部的發展基礎會是什麼樣子？

Well, again, we'll have to see. I mean 21 this year is probably a few less than what we had thought we're going to be able to get done. Some of that is a couple of delays, some of it's international which takes a little longer. Some of it is (inaudible), particularly in some of the newer countries. We want to grow people there. And as you know, if you look back at Japan, I think we got to 6 over in the first 5 years. And fast forward several years, we're in the mid- to high 20s. We got to 3 over 2.5 years or 3 years, 2.5-plus years in Australia. So I think you'll see those numbers go up. If I had to guess and it's an honest educated guess, somewhere in the mid-20s over the next 5 years, probably a couple of years in business centers, 2 to 3, who knows? And in terms of U.S., on a base of [5.20], today in the U.S., it's somewhere in the 15-ish range for the next few years. And logic would say maybe it comes down a little bit, maybe it's helped a little by business centers, we'll have to see. We still -- we keep finding and surprising ourselves as it relates to the ability to put another unit in. And even getting somebody to cut their drive time, if you will, to the nearest Costco from 30 to 15 minutes can be very meaningful as we've seen in places like San Jose and Redmond and other places, so we'll see.

嗯，我們拭目以待。我的意思是，今年完成21項可能比我們原先預想的要少一些。其中一些是由於幾次延誤，另一些是由於國際運輸，這需要更長的時間。有些地方（聽不清楚），尤其是在一些較新的國家。我們希望在那裡培養人才。如你所知，回顧日本，我認為我們在前 5 年就取得了 6 場以上的成績。幾年過去了，我們現在處於25到20歲之間。在澳大利亞，我們花了兩年半或三年時間，也就是兩年半以上，才達到 3 歲。所以我認為你會看到這些數字上升。如果讓我猜測，而且這是我誠實且有根據的猜測，未來 5 年內大概會在 20 多歲，可能在商業中心待個兩三年，誰知道呢？就美國而言，以 [5.20] 為基數，未來幾年美國的數字將在 15 左右。從邏輯上講，價格可能會略微下降一些，商業中心或許能起到一些幫助作用，我們拭目以待。我們仍然——我們不斷地發現並驚訝於自己有能力再安裝一個單元。即使只是讓人們把去最近的 Costco 的車程從 30 分鐘縮短到 15 分鐘，也意義非凡，正如我們在聖何塞、雷德蒙德和其他地方看到的那樣，所以我們拭目以待。

Great. Then my last question just on the grosses. You said the core-on-core, down 4. Anything unusual in the quarter? Was there any mix pressure or any inventory issues given some of the weather? And it sounds like most of the price investments have been proactive. Just wondering if you guys have done a deeper dive look into elasticity on some of those price investments.

偉大的。那麼，我最後一個問題就關於總銷售額。你提到核心股年減了4%。本季有什麼異常狀況嗎？考慮到當時的天氣狀況，是否有任何混合壓力或庫存問題？聽起來大部分價格調整都是主動出擊。想問各位有沒有對某些價格投資的彈性進行更深入的研究？

Elasticity is not a word we will ever use or think about. We -- we're merchants, and we're constantly driving value. I think you've heard us say before, this is all about us -- who's our toughest competitor? It's us. And I think there's a little sales penetration detriment in the number that was part of that. But again, there's lots of moving parts and pieces not just the core-on-core but other ancillary businesses. And we -- again, I got to tell you, we feel pretty good about our pricing ability and our ability to drive the bottom line through good sales and the like.

「彈性」這個詞我們可能永遠不會用到，也不會想到。我們——我們是商家，我們不斷創造價值。我想你們以前也聽我們說過，這一切都跟我們有關──誰是我們最強大的競爭對手？是我們。我認為，這其中一部分因素對銷售滲透率造成了一定的負面影響。但話說回來，這裡面有很多環節和組成部分，不僅是核心業務，還有其他輔助業務。而且，我還要再次告訴你們，我們對自己定價能力以及透過良好的銷售等方式提高利潤的能力感到非常滿意。

Your next question comes from 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, a couple of things, maybe along the lines of convenience. When you think about bulk that's inside the box, there's been much thought about doing more items and maybe bulkier items that take up space, kind of get them out of the cart, pick them up on your way out. And if so, would that -- do you guys think that would lead to more items per shopping trip if people were kind of buying paper and beverage not in the box but on the way out or in the lot?

所以理查德，有幾件事，可能與方便性有關。當你想到盒子裡的大件商品時，人們一直在思考如何增加商品數量，以及一些體積較大、佔用空間較多的商品，讓顧客把它們從購物車裡拿出來，在離開時順便買走。如果是這樣，你們覺得如果人們不是在盒子裡購買紙製品和飲料，而是在離開時或在停車場購買，這是否會導致每次購物購買的商品數量增加？

The short answer is no. I mean, will there be some other things added to the buy online and pick up in store? I'm sure there'll be a few other things, but it's not like we're saying, hey, what else can we do there. We're doing a little of that because the few things that we've done have worked. But also, it takes something as simple as bulk paper goods and bulk water. It's kind of like where is that located in the warehouse? It's in the back corner. What does it make you do? It makes you go through the whole warehouse. It's not unlike having the fresh foods at a supermarket in the back, as we do as well. So I think there's lots of different ways you can skin that cat, and I don't see us doing a lot of that. I'm sure it will change and increase somewhat over time.

簡而言之，答案是否定的。我的意思是，除了網路購買、店內取貨之外，還會增加其他商品嗎？我相信還會有一些其他的事情，但這並不是說，嘿，我們還能做些什麼。我們正在嘗試做一些這樣的事情，因為我們之前做的幾件事都取得了成效。但同時，也需要像散裝紙製品和散裝水這樣簡單的東西。這就像是在問，它在倉庫裡的哪個位置？它在後面的角落。它讓你做了什麼？它讓你把整個倉庫逛一遍。這和我們在超市後倉存放新鮮食品的做法很相似。所以我覺得解決這個問題有很多不同的方法，但我並不認為我們會採取很多方法。我相信隨著時間的推移，情況會有所改變，並且會有所增長。

Okay. And then, secondly, you think about -- I think, in the past, maybe the topic of smaller box size comes up, but you've always liked the economics of the large club. So if you think about maybe a box that's half as big, more convenient, playing in the what's for dinner tonight space to a greater degree, does it ever become an attractive option for you or not just because the economics don't match the big box?

好的。其次，你會想到——我想，過去可能會有人討論較小的盒子尺寸，但你一直很喜歡大俱樂部的經濟效益。所以，如果你考慮一下，一個只有一半大小、更方便、更能滿足「今晚吃什麼」需求的盒子，它會不會因為你的經濟效益不如大盒子而成為一個有吸引力的選擇呢？

Well, never say never, but it's not on the plate right now. I mean it's not even on the second page of the plate. So we feel we've got plenty going on in terms of regular-sized boxes and big-sized boxes, in terms of business centers, in terms of some vertical things that we're doing like in the fresh and the protein area, some more things going on in the private label and with delivery. I mean we've got a lot of good -- in our view, good things going on and pretty happy that there's plenty of regular-sized box opportunities.

雖然凡事皆有可能，但目前還沒有這個打算。我的意思是，它甚至不在盤子的第二頁上。因此，我們覺得我們在普通尺寸的包裝盒和大尺寸包裝盒方面有很多事情要做，在商務中心方面也有很多事情要做，在生鮮和蛋白質領域也有一些垂直領域的工作，在自有品牌和配送方面也有一些事情正在進行。我的意思是，我們有很多好事——在我們看來，都是好事——正在發生，而且我們很高興有很多常規尺寸的盒子機會。

Your next question comes from the line of Karen Short with Barclays.

你的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Karen Short。

A couple of questions. I just want to clarify, I guess, in terms of the tax dollars, you did say dollars would go to investing in price. So I guess, the first question I have is, and asking about the gross margin a little differently, was that something that maybe did tick up a little bit this quarter because you did mention fresh margins were down this quarter, and I think they were up in the prior quarter? Or should we kind of expect to see a little bit more pressure on the core gross margin going forward as you do take those tax dollars and invest?

幾個問題。我想澄清一下，關於稅款，您確實說過這些錢會用於投資提高房價。所以我想問的第一個問題是，關於毛利率，換個角度問一下，這個季度的毛利率是否有上升？因為您提到本季的毛利率下降了，而我記得上個季度的毛利率有所上升。或者，隨著政府利用稅收資金進行投資，我們是否應該預期未來核心毛利率會面臨更大的壓力？

Look, listen, I can't tell you where it'll go in the future. What I can tell you is that it's not just the tax dollars, it's the credit card, it's the fee increase. It's -- there's a lot of things going on out there. And have we been able, as freight costs have skyrocketed in the last year for everybody, to hold that a little bit? Absolutely. Ultimately, we've got to catch up on that. And we feel comfortable holding it and catching it up at some point, as we have. And so I think we feel -- all I can tell you is we feel quite comfortable as to what we're doing and how we're doing it, and that we feel very comfortable that we are our own toughest competitor and we control those valves a little bit at this point. We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I don't think that's changing very quickly as we come up with new things to do.

聽著，我無法告訴你它未來會走向何方。我可以告訴你的是，這不僅是稅金的問題，還有信用卡費用上漲的問題。外面發生了很多事。鑑於過去一年來所有人的貨運成本都大幅上漲，我們是否能夠稍微控制住局面呢？絕對地。歸根結底，我們必須在這方面迎頭趕上。我們覺得可以安心地持有它，並在某個時候把它追上去，就像我們一直以來所做的那樣。所以我覺得——我只能告訴你，我們對我們正在做的事情以及我們做事的方式感到非常滿意，而且我們非常有信心，我們最大的競爭對手就是我們自己，目前我們對這些方面有一定的控制權。我們不知道未來會發生什麼，但我認為隨著我們不斷推出新的舉措，這種情況不會很快改變。

Okay. And so I guess, I was also wondering, I mean, obviously, you've had unbelievably strong sales now, going on almost a year. But more recently, I guess, what I'm wondering is do you think that the strength in sales is just a function of stronger -- not that you weren't executing before but stronger execution and price points? Or do you think there is some benefit that you're seeing from a consumer perspective from tax dollars or tax reform dollars in their pockets? Do you have any color on that?

好的。所以，我也在想，很明顯，你們的銷售額已經非常強勁了，而且已經持續了將近一年。但最近，我想問的是，您是否認為銷售業績的強勁增長只是因為執行力更強——並不是說您以前做得不好，而是執行力和價格策略更強？或者，您認為從消費者的角度來看，稅收或稅收改革帶來的資金是否為他們的口袋帶來了某些好處？有顏色嗎？

The only color we can give as it relates to tax reform dollars is what we keep -- what you and I and others hear and read in the paper and hear from some economists. Certainly, we've heard from some of our business partners, whether it's the credit card issuers and networks or other types of third parties, and it seems like there's a little there, but it's hard to really dictate that. We know that pricing -- investing in price works, and we know that it tends to work generally very well, such that even in working with suppliers, in some cases, we'll partner with them to get to that lower price point and, as it drives more volume, not have to take on any of that ourselves. So there's lots of different ways to do this. But I think that one of the things that we've commented on, of course, is also some of the low-hanging fruit and benefits that we have because of things we hadn't done historically. You look at the examples of appliances and look at the examples of furniture, it used to be if you wanted to buy a household furniture item, if you don't have a truck, you'll get one or call your friend because we don't deliver. That's changed anyway. But even so, we're still doing very well in store for those 8 or 10 weeks of this example but, all of a sudden, we've got 40-plus more weeks where we're doing truly incremental business in the hundreds and millions of dollars and growing. Those are the things that I think that make us additionally -- it's not just price. Price is in our -- price is at the top of our list. But beyond that, there's other things that I think are benefiting us, certainly, fresh foods and what we've done there in terms of the quality and the consistency and coming up with new items.

關於稅改資金，我們唯一能給出的顏色就是我們實際保留下來的——也就是你我以及其他人從報紙上看到和讀到的，以及從一些經濟學家那裡聽到的。當然，我們從一些商業夥伴那裡聽到了一些消息，無論是信用卡發行商和網路還是其他類型的第三方，似乎確實存在一些問題，但很難真正確定。我們知道定價——投資價格——是有效的，而且我們知道它通常效果非常好，以至於即使在與供應商合作時，在某些情況下，我們也會與他們合作以達到更低的價格點，並且隨著銷量的增加，我們自己就不必承擔任何成本。所以有很多不同的方法可以做到這一點。但我認為，我們討論過的其中一點，當然也是因為我們過去沒有做過的事情，我們現在擁有了一些唾手可得的成果和好處。你看看家用電器的例子，再看看家具的例子，以前如果你想買一件家用家具，如果你沒有卡車，你就得自己找一輛或打電話給你的朋友，因為我們不送貨。反正情況已經改變了。但即便如此，在這個例子中，接下來的 8 到 10 週我們仍然會取得非常好的成績，但突然之間，我們又有了 40 多周的時間，在這 40 多周裡，我們的業務真正實現了數億美元甚至數百萬美元的增長。我認為這些因素使我們更具優勢——不僅僅是價格。價格是我們考慮的首要因素。但除此之外，我認為還有其他一些事情對我們有益，當然，例如新鮮食品，以及我們在品質、穩定性和推出新產品方面所做的工作。

Great, okay. And then last question from me, just inflation at core and at retail this quarter.

好的。最後一個問題，請問本季核心通膨率和零售通膨率是多少？

I think on the food and sundries side, it's picked up a little bit. And again -- and talking to the buyers, a big chunk of that has to do with freight. And I think one of the analyst reports out there, and the title was called, ["Freightening Changes to Cost."] But at the end of the day, it rains on all of us. And I think on the food and sundries side, it was up in the 2% to 3% range and probably 2/3 of ex -- it was more related to freight-related costs.

我認為食品和日用品方面，情況有所改善。再次強調－與買家交談後發現，很大一部分原因都與運費有關。我認為有一份分析報告，標題是《貨運成本的變化》，但歸根結底，最終我們所有人都會受到影響。我認為食品和雜貨方面的漲幅在 2% 到 3% 之間，其中可能佔 2/3——這更多地與運費相關成本有關。

And that's at cost or at retail or both?

是按成本價還是零售價，還是兩者都是？

That's at cost. Needless to say, if there's 40 -- 35%, 40% of your business, 200 or more cost basis and core-on-core is down 4, ultimately, you got to pass that on. And ultimately, we have some additional monies to be able to use towards that to be more competitive, so...

這是成本價。不言而喻，如果 40% 的業務佔 35%，40% 的成本基礎為 200 或更多，而核心業務下降了 4%，最終，你必須把這些成本轉嫁出去。最後，我們還有一些額外的資金可以用來提高競爭力，所以…

Your next question comes from Peter Benedict with Baird.

下一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 Peter Benedict。

The move on wages, is that -- does that effectively pull forward what you might have done or was likely to happen, I guess, next spring when I think you guys are due for your next employment agreement?

關於薪資方面的舉措，是說——這是否有效地將你們可能已經做或可能發生的事情提前了？我猜，大概是在明年春天，那時你們應該會簽訂下一份僱傭合約？

If you look back over many, many years, we have a 3-year employee agreement. The last one was March of '16. So -- and the one important thing in there, of course, is where do our top of scale hourly employees move each March of '17, '18 and '19 that's prescribed in that March '16 new employee agreement. And so -- and that's prescribed. And historically, we've always done something at top of scale. I don't see that changing. We have, once or twice, moved the bottom of the scale up. We'll see where tomorrow brings. This probably won't be the last time particularly, and so we'll have to see. But we -- I don't -- we really looked at it independently of that. Ultimately, if you're going to do something and you're doing something now, it doesn't mean you're not going to do something like on top of that next time. And again, I'm not trying to be coy. Expect whatever most people are going to do, we're going to do a little more around employee wages.

回顧過去很多年，我們簽訂的是三年期員工協議。上一次是在2016年3月。所以——當然，其中最重要的一點是，根據 2016 年 3 月的新員工協議規定，我們最高層的計時員工在 2017 年、2018 年和 2019 年 3 月會調到哪裡。所以——這是規定好的。從歷史上看，我們一直在做規模最大的事。我認為這種情況不會改變。我們曾經一兩次將天平的底部向上移動。我們拭目以待明天會發生什麼事。這可能不會是最後一次，所以我們拭目以待。但是我們──我沒有──我們確實是獨立於那件事之外來看待它的。歸根結底，如果你要做某件事，而且你現在正在做這件事，這並不意味著你下次就不會在此基礎上再做類似的事情。我再次聲明，我不是故作神秘。預計大多數人會採取的措施，我們將在員工薪資方面採取更多措施。

No, that makes sense. A quick question on the competitive tone in the market. I mean, you just got done saying earlier that you're always your toughest competitor. But maybe can you comment on what you're seeing as you guys are looking at some of your competitors or the big club or non-club? With all these tax dollars moving around, are you noticing them being sharper in any areas?

沒錯，這很有道理。關於市場競爭氛圍，請問一個簡單的問題。我的意思是，你剛才還說你永遠是你自己最大的競爭對手。但你們在觀察一些競爭對手、大型俱樂部或非俱樂部時，能否談談你們的觀察結果？隨著這麼多稅款的流動，你有沒有註意到它們在某些領域變得更有效？

I honestly believe while there's been some -- I think all companies, not just in retail, I'm sure many companies feel that, one, there's a desire to use some of this to help employees, to share that wealth, if you will, to drive their business. I don't think it's been life-changing for any company in the sense that -- one of the questions we were asked right after the announcement that we said that on an annualized basis next year, if you do simple math, roughly 7 percentage points of our effective rate from the 35-ish to the 28-ish on -- you take the pretax dollars, it's some low $300 million-ish aftertax benefit. And somebody asked the question, well, does that mean you might do a special dividend. Well, our special dividends, the 3 we've ever done are the $2 billion to $3 billion cost range. So this really doesn't change anything there. We're already generating cash flow to do other things, and maybe we're in the higher quartile than we've been able to position financially. But I think overall, I think because my gut and from what I've read, does it help the consumer? Sure, it helps the consumer. Some of the consumers as employees are benefiting from it, and all that's good. Certainly, competition in general is benefiting consumers in terms of pricing. We feel fortunate that, that pricing moat continues to widen to our benefit.

我真心相信，雖然有一些公司——我認為所有公司，不僅僅是零售業，我相信很多公司都覺得，一方面，他們希望利用這些資金來幫助員工，分享財富，從而推動業務發展。我不認為這對任何公司來說都是翻天覆地的變化，因為——在我們宣布之後，有人問我們，如果按年計算，明年我們的實際利率將從 35% 左右降至 28% 左右，大約下降 7 個百分點——如果你計算稅前收入，稅後收益大約為 3 億美元。有人問，那是不是代表你們可能會派發特別股息？嗯，我們之前發放的三次特別股息，每次的成本都在 20 億到 30 億美元之間。所以這其實不會改變任何事。我們已經產生了現金流來做其他事情，而且我們的財務狀況可能比我們之前所能達到的要好得多。但總的來說，我認為，根據我的直覺和我讀到的內容，這樣做對消費者有幫助嗎？當然，這對消費者有利。部分消費者作為員工從中受益，當然是好事。當然，從價格角度來看，競爭總體上對消費者是有利的。我們感到幸運的是，這種價格護城河不斷擴大，這對我們有利。

My last question is just around the Executive Membership numbers. Those were growing, call it, high single digits in the past, even last year. This year, they're starting to grow more like mid-single, some deceleration there. Can you just talk about maybe the opportunity to continue to grow Executive Membership here in the U.S.? And then thoughts on maybe when you could be adding that to some newer markets internationally?

我的最後一個問題是關於執行委員會成員人數的。過去，甚至去年，這些數字都在以接近兩位數的速度成長。今年，它們的生長速度開始更接近單季中期，放緩。您能否談談在美國繼續發展高級會員的機會？那麼，您有沒有考慮過何時將這項服務推廣到一些國際上的新興市場？

Sure. Well, in terms of total membership, we feel again, pretty good about -- it slightly depends on when you're opening and where you're opening. In the last couple of quarters, we have -- we've opened 3 units, I think, in the last 2 quarters. We got a bunch coming. It also depends where your opening. As you know, and I've given the examples of where we've done an infill in a very strong market like San Jose area or Redmond, Washington area, near Seattle. We might average in 3 existing locations, 60,000 or 65,000 members per building, add only 3,000 to 5,000 new members in that new building but add, net of cannibalization, $100 million to $120 million in annual sales in the first new year, first 12 months of that new opening. And so that is all about being close to your customer and driving more business. I don't -- what was the first part of the question again?

當然。就會員總數而言，我們感覺相當不錯——這在一定程度上取決於你何時開業以及在哪裡開業。在過去的兩個季度裡，我們——我想，在過去的兩個季度裡，我們開了3家分店。我們還有一大批貨要到。這也取決於你的開口位置。如你所知，我也舉例說明過，我們在像聖荷西地區或華盛頓州雷德蒙地區（靠近西雅圖）這樣非常強勁的市場進行過填充式開發。我們現有 3 個地點的平均會員人數可能為每棟樓 6 萬或 6.5 萬，在新樓只增加 3000 到 5000 名新會員，但扣除蠶食效應後，在新樓開業後的第一個新年（前 12 個月）內，年銷售額可增加 1 億至 1.2 億美元。所以，這一切都是為了貼近客戶，進而促進業務成長。我不知道──問題的第一部分是什麼來著？

Well, just on thinking how much new opportunity and then internationally.

想想看，這會帶來多少新的機遇，尤其是在國際上。

I'm sorry. The other thing is, as we've said and you're aware of, in international, we tend to do outsized number of sign-ups. Again, there hasn't been as many right now. Lastly, I mean, we've done, I think, in the past 3 or 4 many social or Groupon type activities. And they worked quite well, so well that we don't want everybody to get used to it, so we don't do it that often. We actually just started one yesterday for a 2-week period. And so that will help a little bit this quarter as will opening 13 or whatever number of new units, as will opening a couple more international ones. And so all those things, we -- when I -- when we look at -- one of the questions we've been asked over the last couple of quarters was membership, new membership growth has slowed a little bit. When you look at existing warehouses net of cannibalization and take out all the cannibalizing -- the units that were new and the ones that those new ones cannibalize in those markets, we're still seeing a number in terms of member growth per warehouse in the high 3s, mid- to high 3s, I believe, 3.7, 3.8. I think, it was 4 6 months ago. So that certainly gives us comfort, and we feel it should give you. In terms of Executive, I think on a weekly basis, forever it seemed like it was like 20,000 a week, 22,000 a week. I think there are a couple of quarters where it was in the mid-teens or maybe in the low double digits. So it's come back from that to 19,000. In terms of -- some of that is, ultimately, you do saturate it a little bit. But part of it also in terms of new countries, we currently offer in U.S., Canada, U.K. and Mexico. And I think if you just looked at simply how many units we have in each of those markets, certainly, Mexico and U.S. is a nonissue. We're in the low to mid-30s in the U.K. and in the low to mid-30s in Mexico. And part of that is a unique kind of a critical base because of the services that you offer that also it's not just the 2% Reward, it's the services you offer for it. I would guess that you'll see it in other countries that will help a little bit in terms of driving that. But probably more of it will come from us driving the Executive -- the value of it. We've seen some improvement when people realize that, hey, if I sign up for the Executive Member card and I sign up for the co-brand Citi Visa card, that's not only the 2% from Costco but the 2% from -- on the average of whatever it is from Citi Visa. And if I buy a TV that way, it's a 4-year warranty, not a 2-year warranty. So all those things get people to card business. I mean, last year, we represented over 0.5 million new car sales. And if you are an Executive Member, in some of those marketing items, you got a cash card that was a few hundred dollars more than if you were a Gold Star member. You can rest assure that there were people that converted for that reason and once they did, they start to look at the other benefits of it. So all those things help. We do a better job when you sign up and getting you to sign up as an Executive as best we can.

對不起。還有一點，正如我們所說，你也知道，在國際上，我們的註冊用戶數量往往非常龐大。目前這類事件並不多。最後，我的意思是，我認為在過去的3、4年裡，我們做了很多社交活動或團購類型的活動。而且效果非常好，好到我們不希望大家習以為常，所以我們不常這樣做。我們昨天剛啟動了一個為期兩週的計畫。因此，本季開設 13 家或其他數量的新門市，以及再開設幾家國際門市，都會有所幫助。因此，所有這些事情，當我們——當我——當我們審視——過去幾季我們被問到的問題之一是會員人數，新會員成長速度有所放緩。當你查看現有倉庫，扣除蠶食效應並剔除所有蠶食效應——包括新倉庫以及這些新倉庫在這些市場中蠶食的倉庫——我們仍然看到每個倉庫的會員增長率在 3% 到 3% 之間，我認為是 3.7 到 3.8。我想，應該是4到6個月前的事了。這當然讓我們感到欣慰，我們也覺得這應該讓您感到欣慰。就高階主管而言，我覺得每週的收入似乎一直都是每週 2 萬到 2.2 萬美元。我認為有幾個季度，這個數字在十幾個百分點，或者可能在兩位數的低點。所以現在已經回升到 19,000 了。就某些方面而言——最終，你的確會讓它有點飽和。但其中一部分也體現在新國家方面，我們目前在美國、加拿大、英國和墨西哥提供服務。我認為，如果僅僅從我們在每個市場擁有的銷售來看，墨西哥和美國當然不成問題。英國的氣溫在30度出頭到35度之間，墨西哥的氣溫也在30度出頭到35度之間。其中一部分原因是因為你提供的服務而形成了一種獨特的關鍵基礎，而且不僅僅是 2% 的獎勵，而是你為此提供的服務。我猜你在其他國家也會看到這種情況，這對推動經濟發展會有一些幫助。但或許更多的是來自我們對高階主管的推動——它的價值。我們看到情況有所改善，因為人們意識到，嘿，如果我申請了行政會員卡，又申請了聯名花旗Visa卡，那麼不僅可以獲得Costco的2%返利，還可以獲得花旗Visa卡的2%返利——平均而言，返利金額是多少。如果我這樣買一台電視，保固期是 4 年，而不是 2 年。所以所有這些都能促使人們使用信用卡進行業務。我的意思是，去年我們實現了超過 50 萬輛新車的銷售量。如果你是高級會員，在某些行銷資料中，你會得到一張比金星會員多幾百美元的現金卡。您可以放心，確實有人因為這個原因而改變信仰，一旦他們改變了信仰，他們就會開始考慮其他好處。所以這些都有幫助。我們會在您註冊時做得更好，並盡我們所能引導您註冊成為高級會員。

Your next question comes from Kate McShane with Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的凱特·麥克沙恩。

I know this has been asked a couple of times, but I just want to ask it maybe in a little bit different way. But with the level of cash that is coming from the membership increases and in the tax reform, do you think your price investment is going to result in greater gap historically given the amount that you've been able to invest?

我知道這個問題已經被問過好幾次了，但我還是想換個方式問一下。但是，考慮到會員人數增加和稅改帶來的資金規模，你認為你的價格投資能否在歷史上造成更大的差距？

I think they have. I mean, on a general picture, if you look at just the traditional grocery industry, there's more competition generally out there. And have others come down in certain pricing? I think a little. Have we come down more? Yes. This is an old statistic, but I remember looking at traditional grocery markups, and recognizing there's been some product additions that are higher-margin items, specialty items, in the supermarket industry over time. But over 20 years, this goes back a few years ago, so 5 years ago and 25 years ago or whatever, it seemed like, generally speaking, the grocery industry was going from markups that had been in the very high teens or low 20s to the mid- and high 20s or -- and the big home improvement companies had gone from the high 20s to the mid-30s. And what has our gross margin and our markup has done? It's gone up from 10 to 12. And in fact, it's gone up from 10 to 12 despite the fact that -- and some of that is -- not despite the fact -- some of that is some higher-margin businesses like travel, which has very little cost of sales or some of the ancillary businesses like pharmacy and optical that have very little cost of sales, so relatively speaking. And higher cost of sales but higher markup, higher markup to cover the cost of pharmacists and optometrists and what have you. So I think, when all's said and done, in our view, just looking at the pricing gap, we've gotten stronger. And I think we get a little more kick out of a dollar used in certain ways than perhaps others that we're fortunate in that regard.

我認為他們有。我的意思是，從整體來看，如果你只看傳統的食品雜貨業，你會發現那裡的競爭通常更加激烈。其他品牌的價格也有下調嗎？我稍微思考了一下。我們下降得更多了嗎？是的。這是一個老統計數據，但我記得我查看了傳統雜貨店的加價情況，並意識到隨著時間的推移，超市行業增加了一些利潤率更高的商品和特色商品。但過去 20 多年，確切地說是幾年前，也就是 5 年前、25 年前等等，總的來說，食品雜貨業的加價似乎從十幾或二十幾美元漲到了二十幾美元，而大型家居裝修公司的加價則從二十幾美元漲到了三十幾美元。那麼，我們的毛利率和加價幅度又帶來了什麼變化呢？已經從10上升到12了。事實上，儘管——或者說，儘管——其中一些是——不是儘管——其中一些是利潤率較高的業務，例如旅遊業，其銷售成本非常低；或者一些輔助業務，例如藥店和眼鏡店，其銷售成本非常低，但相對而言，它還是從 10 上升到了 12。銷售成本更高，但利潤率也更高，更高的利潤率是為了支付藥劑師、驗光師等人員的費用。所以我覺得，總而言之，從價格差距來看，我們已經變得更強大了。而且我認為，在某些方面，我們從每一美元的使用中獲得的滿足感可能比其他人更多，在這方面我們可能很幸運。

Okay, great. And my second question was just on the international business. I'm wondering if you could remind us of the time line or your expectation for profitability for France, the newer stores in France and Spain to be profitable?

好的，太好了。我的第二個問題是關於國際業務的。我想請您提醒一下，您對法國、法國和西班牙新店的獲利時間表或預期何時能夠實現盈利？

Yes. But I think the store level in Spain were there -- were pretty much there or very close. And mind you, we charge -- we own many of these locations around the world. We own around 80% of our locations. We charge it a higher than current market rent factor internally just to have everything and look at all warehouses on the same schedule. And I'm talking about after that imputed rent factor as well. But on a store contribution level, yes. France is brand new. Iceland is a unique -- brand new in the last couple of years. Iceland is unique because it's just been a great market for us, so it's done better than planned. The others are pretty much have been planned. We -- if I go back again a number of years ago, our original budget in Japan just 20 years ago was to open 5 units in 5 years and be breakeven or start profitability towards the end of year 5 or early 6. We ended up opening 6, and I think we were profitable near the end of -- right before the end of year 4. These are rough numbers. But at the end of the day, that includes the cost of a central operation that's not going to grow -- as you grow from 2 units to 10 units, the market is going to grow a lot less than fivefold and the preopening cost of a new unit and then the fact that you're also building your business. When you start with a slow-volume building as expected in some new countries, not all new countries, you're pricing your fresh foods as if you're doing a lot more business and you know you're going to have, in some cases, very low or negative gross margins sometimes on those. So I think the time line, we're patient. We're also not going into any market, trying to get 10 or 20 openings in 1 year or 2 years. And so I think we've done a decent job of balancing that process.

是的。但我認為西班牙的門市水平已經達到——非常接近或已經達到。請注意，我們收取費用——我們在世界各地擁有許多這樣的場所。我們擁有約 80% 的門市。我們內部收取高於當前市場租金的租金，只是為了確保所有倉庫都按照相同的時間表進行管理。而且我指的是計入隱含租金因素之後的情況。但從門市貢獻層面來看，是的。法國是一個全新的國家。冰島是一個獨特的地方——在過去幾年裡煥然一新。冰島很特別，因為它一直是我們的重要市場，所以它的表現比預期還要好。其他的基本上都已經計劃好了。如果我回顧幾年前的情況，我們20年前在日本的最初預算是5年內開設5家分店，並在第5年末或第6年初實現收支平衡或開始盈利。最後我們開了6家分店，而且我認為我們在第4年末——或者說接近第4年末的時候就開始盈利了。這些只是大概數字。但歸根結底，這包括不會成長的中央營運成本——當你從 2 個單位成長到 10 個單位時，市場成長遠不到五倍，還有新單位的開業前成本，以及你同時也在建立你的業務。在一些新國家（並非所有新國家）開始時，銷售量成長緩慢，這是意料之中的。在這種情況下，你給新鮮食品定價時，就好像你的業務量很大一樣，但你知道，在某些情況下，這些食品的毛利率會非常低，甚至可能為負。所以我覺得時間安排上，我們比較有耐心。我們也沒有進入任何市場，試圖在一兩年內獲得 10 到 20 個職缺。所以我認為我們在平衡這個過程中做得相當不錯。

Your next question comes from Dan Binder with Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞集團的丹賓德。

I have a couple of questions. First was on -- can you hear me?

我有幾個問題。首先是──你聽得到我說話嗎？

Yes, I can hear you.

是的，我聽得到你說話。

Your next question comes from Chuck Cerankosky from Northcoast Research.

你的下一個問題來自北海岸研究公司的 Chuck Cerankosky。

Josh? Can you hear me, Josh? Josh?

喬希？喬希，你聽得到我說話嗎？喬希？

Richard, I can hear you. This is Chuck Cerankosky.

理查德，我聽得到你說話。這位是查克·塞蘭科斯基。

Okay.

好的。

Your next question comes from Laura Champine from Loop Capital.

下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Laura Champine。

Somebody call him. Hold on, we're having a problem with the third-party here.

誰去給他打個電話。稍等，我們這邊第三方出了點問題。

(technical difficulty)

（技術難題）

Sir, I can hear you now.

先生，我現在可以聽到您說話了。

Josh, why don't we go back. There are a few people that had -- Chuck Cerankosky and Dan. I think Dan Binder was the first one that did not -- Dan Binder is the first one that you couldn't hear but we could hear. So can we go back?

喬希，我們為什麼不回去呢？有幾個人有過這種經驗——查克·塞蘭科斯基和丹。我認為丹賓德是第一個沒有做到這一點的人——丹賓德是第一個你聽不到但我們能聽到的人。那我們能回去嗎？

Sir, we just have to get them to requeue up, and I'll promote them again.

先生，我們只需要讓他們重新排隊，我就會再次提拔他們。

Okay, thank you. So go ahead.

好的，謝謝。那你繼續吧。

I'm sorry, this is Kelly Bania from BMO Capital.

抱歉，我是來自BMO Capital的Kelly Bania。

Just wanted to first ask on -- quickly on gas. Did you clarify the impact from just the mix of higher gas prices versus the actual gas margins?

首先想問一下－加滿油。您是否闡明了單純的汽油價格上漲和實際汽油利潤率上漲各自帶來的影響？

We didn't. Margins -- in terms of dollars, margins were down, and we made it up in volume. And so profitability was pretty even year-over-year.

我們沒有。利潤率——以美元計算，利潤率下降了，但我們透過銷售彌補了這一點。因此，獲利能力與上年基本持平。

Got it, okay. And then just also wanted to go back to the comments on the food and sundries inflation. The cost inflation, I guess, that's freight-driven. Are you seeing any acceleration in that? Are you not quite passing all of that along? Do you see your competitors passing along? Do you see that kind of accelerating as more of these vendors that maybe are feeling it are starting to push that through?

明白了，好的。然後我還想再談談關於食品和日用品通膨的評論。我想，成本上漲主要是貨運量增加所造成的。你看到這方面有任何加速嗎？你是不是沒有把所有訊息都傳達出去？你看到你的競爭對手也在轉型嗎？您是否認為隨著更多感受到這種趨勢的供應商開始推動相關舉措，這種趨勢會加速發展？

Well, I think a general comment would be is whenever input cost, input item is inflationary, we're going to hold off longer than others. But ultimately, you've got to do it. And we, like any other retailer, will push back with a vendor and try to figure out smarter ways to do things. And -- but overall, it's a small delay. Don't -- we're noble, but we're not crazy.

嗯，我認為一個普遍的看法是，當投入成本或投入品出現通貨膨脹時，我們會比其他人等待更長時間。但最終，你必須去做。和其他零售商一樣，我們也會和供應商據理力爭，努力尋找更明智的做事方法。但總的來說，這只是一個很小的延遲。別這樣——我們高尚，但我們並不瘋狂。

I guess, do you think -- I mean do you think this could result in just some broader food inflation over the next several quarters? That was -- just we haven't seen in a long time.

我想，你認為——我的意思是，你認為這是否會導致未來幾季出現更廣泛的食品通膨？那是——我們很久沒見過的。

I think you'll see that generally. I mean, if costs are up 2% to 3%, input cost on the food and sundries side, a big chunk of that is freight-related. Ultimately, that's going to compel. Now some of that will also compel to private label, in some cases. In our case, we generally see this as a positive because we can be a little tougher on pricing in terms of being -- and being more competitive.

我想你通常會看到這種情況。我的意思是，如果成本上漲 2% 到 3%，那麼食品和雜貨方面的投入成本中很大一部分都與運費有關。最終，這將起到強製作用。現在，在某些情況下，其中一些企業也會被迫貼上自有品牌標籤。就我們而言，我們通常認為這是一個積極的信號，因為我們可以在定價方面更加嚴格一些，從而更具競爭力。

Got it. And then just one more on the online grocery, the nonperishables offering.

知道了。最後再補充一點關於網路雜貨店，特別是不易腐爛的食品。

Hold on. Can I really interrupt you for one second. Josh? We had a couple of calls externally here, people in our office, that are -- they cannot hear the call all of a sudden. So while we continue here, can you check and see what's going on there?

堅持，稍等。我可以打斷您一下嗎？喬希？我們這裡有幾個外部來電，我們辦公室的人突然就聽不到電話了。在我們繼續這邊工作的同時，你能去看看那邊發生了什麼事嗎？

Certainly. Not a problem, I'll look into that for you.

當然。沒問題，我幫你查一下。

Okay, thank you. Go ahead, I'm sorry.

好的，謝謝。請便，對不起。

Okay. I'll ask one more maybe while others are getting back in queue. Just on the nonperishables offering, how do you feel about the process of fulfilling those and scaling that over time? Do you think you need any more -- any sort of automation technology to fulfill those orders and make that profitable longer term? Or are you happy with the way that, that process is working?

好的。趁其他人重新排隊的時候，我再問一個吧。僅就不易腐爛商品的供應而言，您對滿足這些商品需求以及隨著時間的推移擴大供應規模的過程有何看法？您認為是否還需要任何自動化技術來完成這些訂單，並從長遠來看獲利？還是你對目前的流程運作方式感到滿意？

Well, first of all, the stuff is profitable. It's small, it's growing nicely. But it's -- we have capacity within our business centers, which are already set up to do buy online and actually deliver. This way, it's just you had to buy some box-making machinery. And the good news for us is that we feel that, a, that yes, ultimately, God willing, we'll have to build new facilities or additional facilities for this. Just like when we started, we had one e-commerce fulfillment facility in Mira Loma that covered the whole country years ago, and so there's a tradeoff. But I think that, a, we feel very good about how we're doing it that we can be profitable almost from the start, other than things that we're doing to invest and driving the business, marketing it and things. And it will be fine. Again, I think we're fortunate in that regard with so few items, it's a lot easier to do these things.

首先，這東西有利可圖。它個頭雖小，但長得很好。但是－我們的業務中心具備相應的能力，已經設定好可以進行線上購買和實際配送。這樣一來，你只需要購買一些製盒機器就行了。對我們來說的好消息是，我們覺得，是的，最終，如果上帝保佑，我們將不得不為此建造新的設施或額外的設施。就像我們剛起步時一樣，幾年前我們在米拉洛馬只有一個電子商務物流中心，服務範圍涵蓋了整個國家，所以這其中存在著權衡取捨。但我認為，首先，我們對目前的做法非常滿意，除了投資、推動業務發展、行銷等之外，我們幾乎從一開始就能獲利。一切都會好起來的。再次強調，我認為在這方面我們很幸運，因為物品很少，做這些事情就容易得多。

Your next question comes from Dan Binder with Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞集團的丹賓德。

It's Dan Binder. I had 2 questions. First was on the benefit that you're seeing in the clubs where you've had competitor closings. Obviously, there were a lot. So I'm just curious what you're seeing in terms of the comps benefit and the membership benefit. And then my second question was around price investment, a little bit different angle. Just trying to understand a more about couponing versus everyday low price. I think it was probably a year or so, maybe a little over a year ago where you had backed off, I think, on the vendor item a little bit and that hurt the comps and then you kind of brought it back. I'm just curious, as you think about price investment going forward, will it be more through the vendor mailer or more through EDLP?

他是丹·賓德。我有兩個問題。首先，你會看到一些俱樂部因為競爭對手的倒閉而受益。顯然，數量很多。所以我很好奇，您認為贈品和會員福利有哪些優勢。我的第二個問題是關於價格投資的，角度略有不同。我只是想多了解優惠券和天天低價的差異。我想大概是一年多以前，或者說一年多以前，你稍微減少了供應商商品的投入，這影響了同類商品的銷售，然後你又重新增加了投入。我只是好奇，當您考慮未來的價格投資時，您會更多地透過供應商郵件還是更多地透過EDLP（天天低價）進行投資？

Well, first of all, if we go back -- just to clarify one thing, if we go back to -- it was Q2 of last year when it was a little disappointing, and a lot of it had to do with the stuff that we did to change the MVM and take some items and test with vendors everyday low pricing or in some greater values but still be at the table in the MVM, maybe a few hot picks as well. More of the offsets of that, that we didn't anticipate from a negative standpoint was fewer MVM days. So if you went down, I think it was the 4-week reporting month of February of '17, 28 days, we had 8 less MVM days. The MVM items themselves did as expected, more lift more value to the member and less gross margin per item but more gross margins dollars to us. So that worked nice. But by having some of those significantly fewer days of having something that is a promotional thing that gets members in the door, and we changed that. It took us too much to change that. And since then, it's been fine. And of course, it's gotten better than that since then. I don't think there's any magic. If there were an exact formula that we knew, we wouldn't tell anybody. But at the end of the day, we keep trying different things with different vendors and see what works and doesn't. I think we have kind of settled on a mix that includes all of the above, and we'll keep then trying to figure out how to drive that in different ways. So again, I don't see there's a big shift. The shift was over a couple of years, perhaps leading up to February of '18 or in the late calendar '16, it was -- over 20 years, some of the stuff gets -- some of the sales lifts of an item gets less, people are waiting for that regular thing every -- twice a year for 3 weeks, waiting and so, a, the values have to be greater to drive more lift and, b, you got to shake it up a little bit. And I think it's -- the good news is work with vendors, we're not just forcing vendors to try something, try one thing versus another. We're working with our vendors. Hopefully, that do well for both of us and to even partner with them when there's a little indigestion on how much additional savings until we can show them the type of unit lift that will generate. And sometimes, that works, and sometimes, it doesn't.

首先，讓我們回顧一下——澄清一點，回顧一下——去年第二季度的情況有點令人失望，這很大程度上與我們改變 MVM 所做的一些事情有關，我們挑選了一些產品，並與供應商一起測試日常低價或更高價值的產品，但仍然將其納入 MVM 的範疇，也許還有一些熱門之選。更出乎我們意料的負面影響是，MVM 天數減少了。所以如果你往下看，我想那是 2017 年 2 月的 4 週報告月，28 天，我們少了 8 天的 MVM 工作日。MVM 產品本身的表現符合預期，為會員帶來了更多價值，雖然每件產品的毛利率較低，但我們獲得的毛利率卻更高。效果不錯。但是，我們減少了一些促銷活動的日子，這些活動原本是為了吸引會員進店，我們改變了這種狀況。我們費了太多力氣才改變這一點。從那以後，一切都很好。當然，從那時起情況已經比那時好多了。我不認為有什麼魔法。如果我們知道確切的公式，我們也不會告訴任何人。但歸根究底，我們會不斷嘗試與不同的供應商合作，看看哪些有效，哪些無效。我認為我們已經基本確定了一種包含以上所有因素的組合，我們將繼續嘗試以不同的方式推動它。所以，我還是覺得不會有太大的改變。這種轉變持續了幾年時間，可能是在 2018 年 2 月之前，也可能是在 2016 年末。在過去的 20 多年裡，有些東西的銷售成長速度有所下降，人們每年兩次，每次持續 3 週，都在等待這種常規活動，所以，首先，商品的價值必須更高才能帶來更大的成長，其次，你必須做出一些改變。我認為好消息是——我們與供應商合作，我們不會強迫供應商嘗試某些東西，也不會強迫他們嘗試一件事而不是另一件事。我們正在與供應商合作。希望這對我們雙方都有好處，甚至可以在他們不太理解能節省多少額外費用時與他們合作，直到我們向他們展示這種類型的升降機能帶來多少收益。有時候這樣做有效，有時候則無效。

And then as regard to the benefit you're seeing in membership in comps for neighboring clubs where there was a competitor closing?

那麼，對於鄰近俱樂部因競爭對手倒閉而獲得的會員資格優惠，您是否也看到了這種好處呢？

A little bit. I think -- our estimate was -- and when people ask, with the Sam's Club closing, how that impacted us. First of all, some of those closings were a couple or 3 Sam's closing in the existing Sam's market. So they were just adding a lot of those sales to other units they already had. Our view was we'd get 10% to 20% of it, and we have of what we guess their sales would be. Some of it is not our member, some of it's -- we're too far away from that member, maybe that was on the other -- 10 miles from the other side of the existing Sam's Club, and we're 10 miles the other way, so now it's 20 miles, it's just too far. And in some cases, the business went to another existing Sam's in the market. We definitely saw some benefit in membership, the number of members. Again, not huge, but certainly helps and...

一點點。我認為——我們的估計是——當人們問起山姆會員店關閉對我們造成的影響時。首先，其中一些成交案例是現有山姆會員店市場中兩到三家山姆會員店的成交。所以他們只是把很多這樣的銷售額加到他們已有的其他單位中。我們當時的想法是能拿到他們銷售額的 10% 到 20%，而我們目前掌握的銷售額是我們估計的。其中一些不是我們的會員，有些是——我們離那位會員太遠了，也許他在另一個地方——距離現有的山姆​​會員店另一邊有 10 英里，而我們在另一個方向也有 10 英里，所以現在是 20 英里，太遠了。在某些情況下，這部分業務被市場上另一家現有的山姆​​會員店收購了。會員人數的成長確實帶來了一些好處。雖然作用不大，但肯定有幫助…

Your next question comes from Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.

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

Just want a little update on the food manufacturing projects you have underway, the construction where is that at, and then I want to ask another question about the online.

我想了解你們正在進行的食品製造項目的最新進展，建設地點在哪裡？然後我還想問一個關於線上方面的問題。

I'm sorry. Can you ask that first question again?

對不起。您能再問一次第一個問題嗎？

Sure. What -- you've got a couple of food plants under construction. Where are we at on those and the expected opening dates?

當然。什麼？你們正在建造幾個食品加工廠。目前這些進展如何？預計開放日期又在哪裡？

Well, the bakery commissary in Canada is open and running. Needless to say, it will take a year-plus to get it to increase capacity and everything. But that's going as planned. Our chicken plant in Nebraska is 1.5 years away, a year-plus, it's under construction. But it's -- and it's on plan is a relative term. We know it's going to take 1 year-plus to get there, but it's doing fine. Anything else, guys? We opened outside of Chicago in Morris, Illinois, a second meat plant, basically, a sister plant, if you will, of the one in Tracy, California that we've had forever. And the good news there is the Tracy one, along with the added capacity at the hot dog plant at the same property location, we're at capacity basically, and we've been able to push that over.

加拿大的麵包烘焙食品中央供應中心已經開放並開始營運。毋庸置疑，要提高產能等等，至少需要一年以上的時間。但一切都在按計劃進行。我們在內布拉斯加州的雞肉加工廠還需要一年半的時間才能完工，目前還在興建中。但是——而且「按計劃進行」是一個相對概念。我們知道這需要一年多的時間才能實現，但目前進展順利。還有什麼要補充的嗎？我們在伊利諾州莫里斯市（芝加哥郊外）開設了第二家肉類加工廠，基本上可以看作是我們在加州特雷西市那家老店的姊妹廠。好消息是，特雷西工廠加上同一地點熱狗工廠新增的產能，我們基本上已經達到產能極限，而且我們已經能夠突破這個極限。

Okay. And you mentioned before you got 10,000 SKUs online. Is that the count all the time? And then when you look at how you remerchandise the online assortment over the course of the year, how often are you changing that? It seems like the e-mail and promotional activities picked up. But what is the cadence to refresh the mix and assortment that you have?

好的。你之前提到過你們的線上商品有 10,000 個 SKU。一直都是這個計數嗎？那麼，當你檢視一年中如何重新調整線上商品組合時，你多久會進行一次調整呢？看來電子郵件和促銷活動增加。但是，你們多久會更新一次現有的產品組合和種類呢？

Well, look, I think it's -- a, it's not unlike in warehouse. The exception is, of course, online, we want to be a little resistant, just climbing because virtual and it's easy because it still adds cost. We've added velocity items. We've added sundries and some shelf-stable items to the delivery. That's another avenue as well. I think it'll ebb and flow. Don't expect any great change to what you're seeing now other than a constant evolution of that. The other thing is, in some cases, there's products and vendors that will sell us online that weren't prepared to sell us certain things in store. And sometimes, you'll have to be a member to get to the price online at Costco, which is fine. Our member understands that, and they're going to go see it. I'm going to take 2 more questions.

嗯，你看，我覺得它——嗯，它和倉庫很像。當然，網路攀岩是個例外，我們希望保持一定的韌性，僅僅因為是虛擬的就攀岩很容易，因為它仍然會增加成本。我們新增了速度項。我們在配送物品中增加了一些雜項和一些常溫保存的商品。這也是另一種途徑。我認為它會時而高漲時而低落。除了不斷演變之外，不要指望現在所看到的景象會有任何重大的改變。還有一點是，在某些情況下，有些產品和供應商願意在線上向我們銷售，但他們不願意在實體店裡向我們銷售某些商品。有時候，你必須成為 Costco 會員才能在網站上享受會員價，這也沒關係。我們的會員明白這一點，他們會去看的。我再回答兩個問題。

Our next question comes from Laura Champine from Loop Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Laura Champine。

It's on the private label business. I mean, obviously, a lot of clubs have been streamlining the number of brands they offer. Kirkland is used almost throughout Costco, but there are some other brands like the Charisma and some of the textiles. Why not go for Kirkland across the board? And do you have goals on how much of your sales you'd like to drive through that private label brand?

它從事自有品牌業務。我的意思是，很顯然，很多俱樂部都在精簡他們提供的品牌數量。Costco 幾乎全場都使用 Kirkland 品牌，但也有一些其他品牌，例如 Charisma 和一些紡織品。為什麼不全面採用柯克蘭的方案呢？你們對自有品牌銷售的佔比設定了目標嗎？

Unfortunately, our head merchant is traveling to an opening today in California -- or is that an opening today in California? I'm not sure -- in my mind, Kirkland Signature is it. To the extent there's a bland called Charisma -- but it's not our brand -- I don't -- in a way it's not our brand. Maybe, it's a brand that's not as well noticed as others, but that's not our brand. Kirkland Signature is the only brand you're going to see at Costco. As it relates to how much, gas is under the Kirkland Signature label, but excluding that, which is 10-plus percent of our sales, it's about 25% -- 24-plus percent of our sales. Where we want it to go, I don't know where we want it to go. Will it increase? Yes. Years ago, I said, well, you'll never see it on this, and then now it's on that. But at the end of the day, we still want brands, and we still covet it, and our members certainly value brand as well and, in our view, it enhances our brand value. But yes, there's the 24%, keep increasing to the 25% and 26% and 27%, I'm sure it will, but I can't tell you how long it will take.

不幸的是，我們的首席採購員今天要去加州參加一個開幕典禮——或者說，今天在加州有一個開幕典禮？我不太確定——在我看來，Kirkland Signature 就是最佳選擇。如果說有一種平淡無奇的風格叫做魅力——但這不是我們的品牌——我不認同——從某種意義上說，這不是我們的品牌。也許它不像其他品牌那麼廣為人知，但這不是我們的品牌。在 Costco，你只會看到 Kirkland Signature 這個品牌。至於銷售額，汽油屬於 Kirkland Signature 品牌，但如果排除汽油（占我們銷售額的 10% 以上），則汽油銷售額約占我們銷售額的 25% 至 24% 以上。我不知道它最終會去哪裡。會增長嗎？是的。幾年前，我說過，你永遠不會在這個平台上看到它，但現在它出現在那個平台上了。但歸根究底，我們仍然想要品牌，我們仍然渴望品牌，我們的會員當然也重視品牌，而且在我們看來，品牌提升了我們的品牌價值。是的，先是24%，然後不斷增加到25%、26%、27%，我相信肯定會達到，但我無法告訴你需要多長時間。

Your last question comes from Brian Nagel with Oppenheimer.

最後一個問題來自奧本海默公司的布萊恩·納格爾。

Richard, it's David Bellinger on. Just a couple of quick questions. Can you talk about regional performance in the quarter? Any weather impact on traffic that you can call out specifically? And was there any improvement towards the end of the quarter?

理查德，我是大衛貝林格。幾個簡單的問題。能否談談本季各地區的業績表現？天氣對交通造成了哪些具體影響？季度末情況是否有改善？

There weren't a lot of weather-related comments or the budget being -- hold on, we're just looking real quick. It really wasn't that impactful to us.

沒有太多關於天氣或預算的評論——等等，我們只是快速看一下。這對我們來說其實並沒有那麼大的影響。

And I'll just follow up on margins as well. It seems that the major drag came from the higher gas prices this quarter. But can you help us frame what percentage of sales gas represented this quarter? I know you just mentioned it was, on an annual basis, it's like above 10%. But if you don't want to get too specific, can you just give us some indication on how that's changed over the past few quarters and how that impacted here in Q3?

我也會跟進利潤率的情況。本季，天然氣價格上漲似乎是主要的拖累因素。您能否幫我們估算一下本季汽油銷售額佔總銷售額的百分比？我知道你剛才提到過，按年計算，這個數字超過 10%。但如果您不想說得太具體，能否簡要說明過去幾季發生了哪些變化，以及這些變化對第三季產生了哪些影響？

Yes. We really don't go into that level of detail. Generally speaking, when gas prices go up, we make a little less margin. When they go down, we make more margin. Happy that they went down yesterday a little bit. But at the end of the day, it's been a good business for us in its own right as well as driving business into our warehouses. It's about -- by the way, it's about 10% to 12% of our business. And the thing that we like to see is when you have total U.S. gallon gas consumption as a country, everywhere would be up in the very, very low single digits, our gallon increases are in the very, very high single digits or very, very low double digits. And so that's meaningful. It means that more people are coming into our place. And when about half of them come in to shop, you don't need more than 1 or 2 of those 50 out of every 100 to be somewhat of an incremental shop to be meaningful to our company on an ongoing basis, aside from the business itself having a little -- strong [somewhat gliding] based on the volatility sometime day-to-day and week-to-week but -- for profitability. But overall, it's been a good business in its own right.

是的。我們真的不會深入到那個細節程度。一般來說，汽油價格上漲時，我們的利潤會稍微減少。當它們下跌時，我們的利潤空間就更大。很高興他們昨天的跌幅有所下降。但歸根結底，這本身對我們來說就是一項不錯的生意，同時也為我們的倉庫帶來了業務。順便說一下，這大約占我們業務的 10% 到 12%。我們樂於看到的是，當以美國全國汽油總消耗量來衡量時，各地汽油消耗量的增長幅度都會非常非常低，只有個位數；而我們國家的汽油消耗量增長幅度則非常非常高，只有個位數，或者說兩位數非常低。所以這很有意義。這意味著有更多的人來到我們這裡。當大約一半的顧客進店購物時，你只需要這 50% 中的 1 或 2 家就能成為對我們公司持續發展有意義的增量店鋪，而業務本身也會因為每天和每週的波動而略微強勁（或略微下滑），但盈利能力卻很有限。但總的來說，它本身就是一門不錯的生意。

Thank you. We'll all around, guys. And feel free to call with any additional questions, and we'll be here tomorrow as well. Thank you.

謝謝。我們都會好的，夥計們。如有任何其他疑問，歡迎隨時致電，我們明天也在這裡。謝謝。

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

今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線了。