達樂 (DG) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Robert, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Dollar General's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today is Thursday, August 31, 2023. (Operator Instructions) This call is being recorded. Instructions for listening to the replay of the call are available in the company's earnings press release issued this morning.

早上好。我叫羅伯特，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。現在，我歡迎大家參加 Dollar General 2023 年第二季度收益電話會議。今天是 2023 年 8 月 31 日，星期四。（操作員說明）此通話正在錄音。有關收聽電話會議重播的說明，請參閱該公司今天上午發布的收益新聞稿。

Now I'd like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Kevin Walker, Vice President of Investor Relations. Kevin, you may now begin your conference.

現在我想把會議交給東道主投資者關係副總裁凱文·沃克先生。凱文，你現在可以開始你的會議了。

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. On the call with me today are Jeff Owen, our CEO; and Kelly Dilts, our CFO. Our earnings release issued today can be found on our website at investor.dollargeneral.com under News & Events.

謝謝大家，大家早上好。今天與我通話的是我們的首席執行官 Jeff Owen；和我們的首席財務官凱利·迪爾茨 (Kelly Dilts)。我們今天發布的收益報告可以在我們的網站 Investor.dollargeneral.com 的“新聞與活動”下找到。

Let me caution you that today's comments include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, such as statements about our financial guidance, strategy, initiatives, plans, goals, priorities, opportunities, expectations or beliefs about future matters and other statements that are not limited to historical fact. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These factors include, but are not limited to, those identified in our earnings release issued this morning, under risk factors in our 2023 Form 10-K filed on March 24, 2023 and any later filed periodic report and in the comments that are made on this call.

請允許我提醒您，今天的評論包括1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》中定義的前瞻性陳述，例如有關我們的財務指導、戰略、舉措、計劃、目標、優先事項、機會、對未來事務的期望或信念的陳述以及其他不限於歷史事實的陳述。這些陳述存在風險和不確定性，可能導致實際結果與我們的預期和預測存在重大差異。這些因素包括但不限於我們今天早上發布的收益報告中確定的因素、我們於 2023 年 3 月 24 日提交的 2023 年 10-K 表格以及任何後來提交的定期報告中的風險因素以及這個電話。

You should not unduly rely on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today's date. Dollar General disclaims any obligation to update or revise any information discussed in this call unless required by law.

您不應過度依賴前瞻性陳述，這些陳述僅代表今天的情況。除非法律要求，否則 Dollar General 不承擔更新或修改本次電話會議中討論的任何信息的義務。

At the end of our remarks, we will open the call up for your questions. (Operator Instructions). Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Jeff.

在我們的發言結束時，我們將開始徵集您的問題。 （操作員說明）。現在我很高興將電話轉給傑夫。

Thank you, Kevin, and welcome to everyone joining our call. Before we discuss the quarter, I want to address the tragic event of last Saturday. On August 26, we lost 1 member of the DG family and 2 customers to a senseless and hate-filled active violence in our store in Jacksonville, Florida. We extend our deepest sympathies to their families and friends as well as to the greater Jacksonville community. It is in times of tragedy when community matters more than ever. Right now, we are focused on providing support, counseling and resources to our teams and their loved ones.

謝謝你，凱文，歡迎大家加入我們的通話。在我們討論本季度之前，我想談談上週六的悲慘事件。 8 月 26 日，我們位於佛羅里達州傑克遜維爾的商店發生了一場毫無意義且充滿仇恨的暴力活動，導致 1 名 DG 家族成員和 2 名顧客喪生。我們向他們的家人和朋友以及整個傑克遜維爾社區致以最深切的同情。在悲劇時期，社區比以往任何時候都更加重要。目前，我們專注於為我們的團隊及其親人提供支持、諮詢和資源。

We are evaluating how we can best support the local community during this difficult time, and we stand with our team in Jacksonville and across the organization who are leading with empathy and courage. We are appreciative of local law enforcement's quick response in Jacksonville, and their continued support in protecting our associates, customers and communities every day across this country.

我們正在評估如何在這個困難時期最好地支持當地社區，我們與傑克遜維爾的團隊以及整個組織站在一起，他們以同理心和勇氣領導著我們。我們感謝杰克遜維爾當地執法部門的快速反應，以及他們在全國范圍內每天為保護我們的員工、客戶和社區所提供的持續支持。

Thank you. And with that, we'll now begin today's call. We made significant progress in the second quarter, advancing several important goals. I'd like to give you an update on the actions we have taken to improve execution and better serve our customers. While we are pleased with our progress, we are not satisfied with our overall financial results. So I also would like to walk you through how we plan to do even more in pursuit of these goals in the coming months and how we plan to get there more quickly. We are continuing to improve execution in our distribution centers and stores, providing our customers with even lower prices and an improved shopping experience and working towards rightsizing our inventory levels.

謝謝。接下來，我們將開始今天的電話會議。我們在第二季度取得了重大進展，推進了幾個重要目標。我想向您介紹我們為提高執行力和更好地服務客戶而採取的行動的最新情況。雖然我們對我們的進展感到滿意，但我們對整體財務業績並不滿意。因此，我還想向您介紹我們計劃如何在未來幾個月內做更多的事情來實現這些目標，以及我們計劃如何更快地實現這一目標。我們正在繼續提高配送中心和商店的執行力，為客戶提供更低的價格和更好的購物體驗，並努力調整我們的庫存水平。

Within our supply chain, we are pleased to note that our service levels, in-stock levels and on-time delivery rates from our distribution centers have all returned to the levels we saw before our capacity challenges began last year. This improvement has benefited our overall supply chain cost and has also been an important factor in positioning our stores to better serve our customers. As a result of that progress, and as we had previously announced, we accelerated our investment in incremental retail labor during the second quarter. While the investment in labor hours was initially allocated across the store base, we also strategically deployed additional hours to a set of focused stores based on the areas of greatest need and opportunity and also through high-performing teams in each district that could assist in stores where they were needed the most.

在我們的供應鏈中，我們很高興地註意到，我們的服務水平、庫存水平和配送中心的準時交貨率都已恢復到去年產能挑戰開始之前的水平。這一改進有利於我們的整體供應鏈成本，也是我們定位商店以更好地服務客戶的重要因素。由於這一進展，正如我們之前宣布的那樣，我們在第二季度加快了對增量零售勞動力的投資。雖然對工時的投資最初是分配給整個商店的，但我們還根據最需要和機會最大的領域，戰略性地向一組重點商店部署了額外的工時，並通過每個地區的高績效團隊來協助商店最需要他們的地方。

While early, we are pleased with the impact of these labor investments, including the positive impact on overall customer satisfaction and store standards.

雖然還處於早期階段，但我們對這些勞動力投資的影響感到滿意，包括對整體客戶滿意度和商店標準的積極影響。

Finally, I also want to highlight the pricing actions we completed in the second quarter as we make targeted price reductions on key items that matter most to our customers to provide them with even more affordable solutions. We have been pleased with the customer response both in terms of basket size and composition when the basket includes one of these items. These actions have further solidified our strong pricing position relative to competitors and other classes of trade, and we feel great about our strong value proposition.

最後，我還想強調我們在第二季度完成的定價行動，因為我們對對客戶最重要的關鍵產品進行了有針對性的降價，以便為他們提供更實惠的解決方案。當購物籃包含其中一種商品時，我們對客戶在購物籃尺寸和成分方面的反應感到滿意。這些行動進一步鞏固了我們相對於競爭對手和其他貿易類別的強大定價地位，我們對我們強大的價值主張感到非常滿意。

With all that in mind, I want to recap some of our Q2 top line results. Net sales increased 3.9% to $9.8 billion compared to net sales of $9.4 billion in Q2 2022. Importantly, the quarter was highlighted by growth in market share of both highly consumable and nonconsumable product sales as well as accelerating unit share growth, all of which we believe is a testament to the improvements and actions I mentioned earlier. With that said, our core customers continue to tell us they feel financially constrained, which we believe contributed to a slight decrease of 0.1% in same-store sales in Q2. While customer traffic was negative during the quarter, it did improve sequentially each period. The decrease in traffic was essentially offset by an increase in average ticket, which was primarily driven by the impact of inflation.

考慮到所有這些，我想回顧一下我們第二季度的一些頂線結果。與2022 年第二季度的淨銷售額94 億美元相比，淨銷售額增長3.9%，達到98 億美元。重要的是，本季度的亮點是高消耗品和非消耗產品銷售的市場份額增長以及單位份額增長加速，所有這些我們相信是我之前提到的改進和行動的證明。儘管如此，我們的核心客戶繼續告訴我們，他們感到財務拮据，我們認為這導致第二季度同店銷售額小幅下降 0.1%。雖然本季度的客戶流量為負，但每個時期的客戶流量確實都在連續改善。客流量的下降基本上被平均票價的增加所抵消，而平均票價的增加主要是受通貨膨脹的影響。

From a monthly cadence perspective, same-store sales growth was strongest and positive in May before declining in June and July. We have seen this trend continue into August with negative comp sales through the first half of the month. This decline has been driven primarily by lower average ticket as we lap the more significant price increases from 2022. While we are not satisfied with the comp sales, we are encouraged by the improvements we saw in overall market share gains and customer traffic during the second quarter, which further support our belief that our actions are resonating with customers. However, we expect continued pressure in the sales line for the duration of this year, particularly in discretionary sales as our customer focuses more on buying for need.

從月度節奏來看，同店銷售增長在 5 月份最為強勁且正增長，然後在 6 月和 7 月出現下降。我們看到這種趨勢持續到八月，整個月上半月的銷售量為負。這種下降主要是由於平均票價較低，因為我們從2022 年開始經歷了更顯著的價格上漲。雖然我們對可比銷售不滿意，但我們對第二季度整體市場份額增長和客戶流量的改善感到鼓舞季度，這進一步支持了我們的信念，即我們的行動正在引起客戶的共鳴。然而，我們預計今年銷售線將繼續面臨壓力，特別是在可自由支配的銷售方面，因為我們的客戶更加關注按需購買。

With sales and shrink not where we want them to be, we have evolved how we are thinking about the rest of 2023. Our improved execution is driving increased customer satisfaction, and we want to accelerate this progress to serve our customers even better as we head into the holiday season as well into 2024 and beyond. As a result, we have made some important changes and have additional plans to more (inaudible) return to the position of strength from which we are accustomed to operating, which are collectively focused on driving sales and lowering our cost to serve.

由於銷量和收縮未達到我們希望的水平，我們已經改變了對2023 年剩餘時間的看法。我們改進的執行力正在推動客戶滿意度的提高，我們希望加快這一進程，以便在我們前進的道路上更好地為客戶服務進入假日季節以及 2024 年及以後。因此，我們做出了一些重要的改變，並製定了額外的計劃，以更多（聽不清）恢復我們習慣運營的優勢地位，這些計劃共同致力於推動銷售和降低我們的服務成本。

First, we are strategically accelerating the rightsizing of our inventory position by expanding promotional markdowns, primarily in our non-consumable products. While we expect this to result in an operating profit headwind of approximately $95 million in the back half of the year, we believe it will drive traffic and also more quickly reduce excess inventory. We believe this rightsizing supports our operating priority of enhancing our position as a low-cost operator and that it will accelerate improvement in a number of areas, including store and supply chain efficiencies as well as shrink, damages and cash flow.

首先，我們正在戰略性地通過擴大促銷降價（主要是非消費品）來加快調整庫存規模。雖然我們預計這將在今年下半年帶來約 9500 萬美元的營業利潤逆風，但我們相信這將增加客流量，並更快地減少過剩庫存。我們相信，此次規模調整支持我們的運營重點，即增強我們作為低成本運營商的地位，並將加速許多領域的改進，包括商店和供應鏈效率以及損耗、損壞和現金流。

Next, we are increasing our planned investment in incremental retail labor from approximately $100 million this year to approximately $150 million. We like the returns we have seen on this investment to date and believe that this additional investment will support acceleration of our progress and allow us to continue driving in-store improvements through the back half of the year and to begin next year in an even stronger position.

接下來，我們計劃將增量零售勞動力投資從今年的約 1 億美元增加到約 1.5 億美元。我們喜歡迄今為止在這項投資上看到的回報，並相信這項額外投資將支持我們加速進步，使我們能夠在今年下半年繼續推動店內改進，並在明年開始以更加強勁的勢頭開始。位置。

Finally, with our strong and growing store base of nearly 20,000 (inaudible), we also plan to invest up to $25 million in other areas such as an improved inventory demand forecasting tool to better support our stores and distribution centers while lowering our cost to serve. Collectively, we believe these investments and actions will further strengthen our position and more quickly restore the strong execution that allows us to deliver on our unique value and convenience proposition for our customers.

最後，憑藉我們強大且不斷增長的近20,000 家商店（聽不清），我們還計劃在其他領域投資高達2500 萬美元，例如改進庫存需求預測工具，以更好地支持我們的商店和配送中心，同時降低服務成本。總的來說，我們相信這些投資和行動將進一步鞏固我們的地位，並更快地恢復強大的執行力，使我們能夠為客戶提供獨特的價值和便利主張。

Importantly, all of these actions align with and support our DG Forward strategy. We are managing this business for the long term and our mission of serving others is unchanged. Our vision for the future is clear as we seek to be a force for opportunity for our customers, associates, communities and shareholders. And we will focus relentlessly on delivering the value and convenience our customers expect and returning to the position of operational excellence that we expect of ourselves. We operate in one of the most attractive sectors in retail and this model is resilient and strong. We have a multitude of strategic initiatives to drive future growth, which I will discuss in more detail shortly.

重要的是，所有這些行動都符合併支持我們的 DG Forward 戰略。我們正在長期管理這項業務，我們為他人服務的使命沒有改變。我們對未來的願景很明確，我們力求成為為客戶、員工、社區和股東創造機會的力量。我們將不懈地致力於提供客戶期望的價值和便利，並恢復我們對自己期望的卓越運營地位。我們在零售業最具吸引力的行業之一開展業務，這種模式具有彈性且強大。我們有許多戰略舉措來推動未來的增長，我將很快對此進行更詳細的討論。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Kelly.

現在我想把電話轉給凱利。

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I want to say again that all of us at Dollar General are heartbroken over the Jacksonville tragedy and our thoughts remain with all of those impacted.

謝謝你，傑夫，大家早上好。我想再次強調，Dollar General 的所有人都對傑克遜維爾的悲劇感到心碎，我們與所有受影響的人同在。

Now let me take you through some of the important financial details. Unless we specifically note otherwise, all comparisons are year-over-year, all references to EPS refer to diluted earnings per share and all years noted refer to the corresponding fiscal year. Jeff already discussed sales so I'll start with gross profit. For Q2, gross profit as a percentage of sales was 31.1%, a decrease of 126 basis points. This decrease was primarily attributable to lower markups as well as increases in shrink, markdowns and inventory damages and a greater proportion of sales coming from the consumables category. These were partially offset by a decreased LIFO provision and decreased transportation costs.

現在讓我向您介紹一些重要的財務細節。除非我們另有特別說明，否則所有比較均為同比，所有對每股收益的提及均指稀釋後的每股收益，所有提及的年份均指相應的財政年度。傑夫已經討論過銷售，所以我將從毛利潤開始。第二季度，毛利潤佔銷售額的百分比為31.1%，下降126個基點。這一下降主要歸因於加價降低以及損耗、降價和庫存損壞的增加以及來自消耗品類別的銷售比例增加。這些被後進先出規定減少和運輸成本減少部分抵消。

SG&A as a percentage of sales was 24%, an increase of 136 basis points. This increase was driven by retail labor, including approximately $40 million of our targeted labor investment as well as utilities, depreciation and amortization and rent. These were partially offset by a decrease in incentive compensation.

SG&A 佔銷售額的百分比為 24%，增加了 136 個基點。這一增長是由零售勞動力推動的，其中包括約 4000 萬美元的目標勞動力投資以及公用事業、折舊、攤銷和租金。這些被激勵薪酬的減少部分抵消。

Moving down the income statement. Operating profit for the second quarter decreased 24.2% to $692 million. As a percentage of sales, operating profit was 7.1%, a decrease of 262 basis points. Interest expense increased to $84 million in Q2 and that compares to $43 million in last year's second quarter, driven by higher average borrowings and higher interest rates. Our effective tax rate for the second quarter was 22.9% and compares to 22.1% in the second quarter last year. Finally, EPS for the quarter decreased 28.5% to $2.13.

將損益表向下移動。第二季度營業利潤下降 24.2% 至 6.92 億美元。營業利潤佔銷售額的百分比為 7.1%，下降 262 個基點。由於平均借款增加和利率上升，第二季度利息支出增加至 8400 萬美元，而去年第二季度為 4300 萬美元。我們第二季度的有效稅率為 22.9%，而去年第二季度的有效稅率為 22.1%。最後，本季度每股收益下降 28.5% 至 2.13 美元。

Turning now on to our balance sheet and cash flow. Merchandise inventories were $7.5 billion at the end of the quarter, an increase of 3.4% on a per store basis, which is notably lower than our increase of 14.7% on a per store basis in the first quarter. While inventory growth is still elevated, the pace has significantly moderated from its peak last year. As we discussed last quarter, we have sharpened our focus on inventory as we adjusted to evolving customer demand. We made progress towards our goal of reducing inventory growth rates by the end of the year.

現在轉向我們的資產負債表和現金流。截至本季度末，商品庫存為 75 億美元，每店庫存增長 3.4%，明顯低於第一季度每店 14.7% 的增幅。儘管庫存增長仍然較高，但增速較去年的峰值已顯著放緩。正如我們上季度所討論的，隨著我們適應不斷變化的客戶需求，我們加強了對庫存的關注。我們在年底前降低庫存增長率的目標方面取得了進展。

And with the strategic actions Jeff mentioned, we will be able to accelerate our progress by expanding promotional markdowns, primarily on nonconsumable products in the back half of the year. We expect these additional markdowns and associated costs will result in an incremental headwind of approximately $95 million to operating profit in the back half of the year. Although we continue to believe the quality of our inventory is in good shape, we also believe this is the right decision given the current environment to better support our customers, stores, distribution centers and growth plans.

通過傑夫提到的戰略行動，我們將能夠通過擴大促銷降價來加速我們的進展，主要是在今年下半年的非消耗性產品上。我們預計這些額外的降價和相關成本將導致今年下半年的營業利潤增加約 9500 萬美元。儘管我們仍然相信我們的庫存質量狀況良好，但我們也相信，鑑於當前的環境，這是正確的決定，可以更好地支持我們的客戶、商店、配送中心和增長計劃。

Year-to-date, through Q2, the business generated cash flows from operations of $727 million, a decrease of 23%. Total capital expenditures for the first half were $768 million and included the following: first, our planned investments in new stores, remodels and relocations; next, distribution and transportation projects; and finally, spending related to our strategic initiatives. During the quarter, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.59 per common share outstanding for a total payment of $129 million. As planned, we did not repurchase shares this quarter.

年初至今，截至第二季度，該業務產生的運營現金流為 7.27 億美元，下降了 23%。上半年資本支出總額為7.68億美元，包括以下內容：第一，我們計劃投資新店、改造和搬遷；其次是配送和運輸項目；最後，與我們的戰略舉措相關的支出。本季度，我們支付了每股已發行普通股 0.59 美元的季度股息，支付總額為 1.29 億美元。按照計劃，本季度我們沒有回購股票。

Our capital allocation priorities have served us well for many years and continue to guide us to today. Our first priority is investing in our business, including our existing store base as well as high return organic growth opportunities such as new store expansion and our strategic initiatives. Next, we remain committed to returning cash to shareholders through a quarterly dividend payment and, over time and when appropriate, share repurchases, all while targeting a leverage ratio of approximately 3x adjusted debt to EBITDAR in order to maintain our current investment-grade rating.

多年來，我們的資本配置優先事項一直為我們提供了良好的服務，並且直到今天仍繼續指導著我們。我們的首要任務是投資我們的業務，包括我們現有的商店基礎以及高回報的有機增長機會，例如新店擴張和我們的戰略舉措。接下來，我們仍然致力於通過季度股息支付以及在適當的時候回購股票的方式向股東返還現金，同時目標是調整後債務與EBITDAR 的槓桿比率約為3 倍，以維持我們當前的投資級別評級。

Moving to an update on our financial outlook for fiscal '23. We are updating our sales expectations for the year to reflect the softer sales trends we have seen to date as well as what we now anticipate for the back half of the year. In addition, the shrink environment has continued to worsen. We now expect approximately $100 million of additional shrink headwind since last quarter's call. While we expect this pressure to continue for the remainder of the year and recognize this is a challenge throughout retail, we are actively working to reduce these levels through multiple targeted action. These include reducing our inventory position, refreshing and refining our processes, leveraging additional tools and technology and improving execution in our stores.

接下來是我們 23 財年財務展望的最新情況。我們正在更新今年的銷售預期，以反映迄今為止我們所看到的疲軟的銷售趨勢以及我們現在對今年下半年的預期。此外，收縮環境持續惡化。我們現在預計自上季度電話會議以來將面臨約 1 億美元的額外收縮阻力。雖然我們預計這種壓力將在今年剩餘時間內持續存在，並認識到這是整個零售業面臨的挑戰，但我們正在積極努力通過多項有針對性的行動來降低這些水平。其中包括減少我們的庫存狀況、更新和完善我們的流程、利用額外的工具和技術以及提高我們商店的執行力。

As a result of these changes to sales and shrink and the actions and investments Jeff outlined earlier, we are updating our earnings per share guidance. We now expect the following for fiscal year 2023. Net sales growth in the range of 1.3% to 3.3% compared to our previous expectation of 3.5% to 5%. This net sales growth range continues to include an anticipated negative impact of approximately 2 percentage points due to lapping last year's 53rd week. Next, we expect same-store sales in the range of a decline of approximately negative 1% to growth of 1%. This compares to our previous expectation of approximately 1% to 2% growth. Finally, we expect EPS in the range of $7.10 to $8.30 or a decline of negative 34% to negative 22%. This compares to our previous expected range of an approximately 8% decline to flat year-over-year change. It also includes our actions and investments of up to $170 million or almost $0.60 of EPS.

由於銷售和收縮的這些變化以及傑夫之前概述的行動和投資，我們正在更新每股收益指導。我們現在對 2023 財年的預期如下：淨銷售額增長在 1.3% 至 3.3% 範圍內，而我們之前的預期為 3.5% 至 5%。由於去年已是第 53 週，這一淨銷售額增長幅度仍包含約 2 個百分點的預期負面影響。接下來，我們預計同店銷售額將在大約負 1% 的下降到增長 1% 的範圍內。相比之下，我們之前預計增長約 1% 至 2%。最後，我們預計每股收益將在 7.10 美元至 8.30 美元之間，即下降 34% 至 22%。相比之下，我們之前的預期範圍為同比下降約 8% 至持平。它還包括我們高達 1.7 億美元的行動和投資，即每股收益近 0.60 美元。

Additionally, our updated guidance includes the same negative impact as our previous guidance of lapping last year's 53rd week and incurring higher interest expense this year, both negatively impacting us by 4 percentage points for a total of 8 percentage points of headwind. Our EPS continues to assume an effective tax rate of approximately 22.5%. Finally, we continue to expect a capital spending range of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion and no share repurchase activity.

此外，我們更新後的指引包括與我們之前的指引相同的負面影響，即去年的第53 周和今年的利息支出增加，兩者都對我們產生了4 個百分點的負面影響，總共帶來了8個百分點的不利影響。我們的每股收益繼續採用約 22.5% 的有效稅率。最後，我們繼續預計資本支出範圍為 16 億美元至 17 億美元，並且不會進行股票回購活動。

Let me now provide some additional context as it relates to our outlook. While we are closely monitoring the impact of student loan repayments on our customers, our guidance does not contemplate any significant impact from the restart of these payments. With regards to our updated actions and investments that Jeff outlined, we expect the total incremental operating profit headwind of up to $170 million in the back half of the year due to the increased markdown activity, additional retail labor and investments in other areas to better support our customers, stores and distribution centers.

現在讓我提供一些與我們的前景相關的額外背景信息。雖然我們正在密切關注學生貸款償還對客戶的影響，但我們的指導意見並未考慮到重新啟動這些付款會產生任何重大影響。關於傑夫概述的我們最新的行動和投資，我們預計今年下半年的總增量營業利潤逆風將高達1.7 億美元，原因是降價活動增加、額外的零售勞動力和其他領域的投資，以更好地支持我們的客戶、商店和配送中心。

In terms of the back half of the year, we expect comp sales to be negative again in Q3 as we lap the significant price increases from 2022. And while we expect traffic trends to improve, we do not expect positive traffic until the fourth quarter. In addition, our guidance assumes that the benefit of our actions and investments will grow as we move throughout the remainder of the year, which, along with lapping the winter storm impacts from '22, should result in a greater overall sales benefit to the fourth quarter. As a result, we expect fourth quarter to be significantly better than the third quarter from both a comp sales and EPS perspective.

就今年下半年而言，隨著我們經歷了自2022 年以來的大幅價格上漲，我們預計第三季度的可比銷售額將再次出現負數。雖然我們預計流量趨勢將有所改善，但我們預計要到第四季度才會出現正流量。 In addition, our guidance assumes that the benefit of our actions and investments will grow as we move throughout the remainder of the year, which, along with lapping the winter storm impacts from '22, should result in a greater overall sales benefit to the fourth四分之一.因此，我們預計第四季度從公司銷售額和每股收益的角度來看都將明顯好於第三季度。

Turning to gross margin for 2023. In addition to the increased markdowns associated with our inventory reduction plan and additional pressure from shrink, we also anticipate pressure from sales mix and lower inventory markups in this year's back half compared to last year. Partially offsetting these challenges, we expect benefits from greater distribution center capacity and performance, lower carrier rates expansion of our private tractor fleet and other distribution and transportation efficiencies. We also expect to continue realizing benefits from our initiatives, including DG Fresh and DG Media Network.

談到2023 年的毛利率。除了與我們的庫存削減計劃相關的降價幅度加大以及收縮帶來的額外壓力之外，我們還預計今年下半年銷售組合的壓力以及與去年相比較低的庫存加價。為了部分抵消這些挑戰，我們預計配送中心容量和性能的提高、私人拖拉機車隊的承運率擴張以及其他配送和運輸效率的提高將帶來收益。我們還期望繼續從我們的舉措中獲益，包括 DG Fresh 和 DG Media Network。

Turning to SG&A. We expect continued investments in our strategic initiatives as we further their rollout, and we plan to make the remaining $80 million of the planned total incremental investment of approximately $150 million in our stores, primarily through additional labor hours. Overall, while our updated actions and plans for investments will pressure our financial results in 2023, we believe they will have a materially positive impact as we drive stronger in-store execution and a better customer experience. This positions us well to deliver growth in 2024 and beyond.

轉向SG&A。我們預計，隨著戰略舉措的進一步推廣，我們將繼續對戰略舉措進行投資，並且我們計劃將計劃總增量投資（約1.5 億美元）中的剩餘8,000 萬美元主要通過增加工時的方式用於我們的商店。總體而言，雖然我們更新的投資行動和計劃將對我們2023 年的財務業績構成壓力，但我們相信，隨著我們推動更強大的店內執行和更好的客戶體驗，它們將產生實質性的積極影響。這使我們能夠在 2024 年及以後實現增長。

In summary, we are laser-focused on maintaining our discipline in how we manage expenses and capital as a low-cost operator with the goal of delivering consistent, strong financial performance while strategically investing for the long term. And we are confident in our business model and our ongoing long-term financial priorities to drive profitable same-store sales growth, healthy new store returns, strong free cash flow and long-term shareholder value.

總之，我們專注於維持作為低成本運營商管理費用和資本的紀律，目標是提供一致、強勁的財務業績，同時進行長期戰略投資。我們對我們的業務模式和持續的長期財務重點充滿信心，以推動盈利的同店銷售增長、健康的新店回報、強勁的自由現金流和長期股東價值。

With that, I will turn the call back over to Jeff.

這樣，我會將電話轉回給傑夫。

Thank you, Kelly. Last quarter, we introduced our DG Forward strategy, which is how we will position Dollar General to be a force for opportunity for our customers, associates, communities and shareholders. DG Forward is an execution and innovation strategy, and we remain focused on driving execution through our operating priorities, including driving profitable sales growth, capturing growth opportunities, leveraging and reinforcing our position as a low-cost operator and investing in our diverse teams through development, empowerment and inclusion.

謝謝你，凱利。上個季度，我們推出了 DG Forward 戰略，這就是我們將 Dollar General 定位為為我們的客戶、員工、社區和股東創造機會的力量的方式。 DG Forward 是一項執行和創新戰略，我們仍然專注於通過我們的運營優先事項來推動執行，包括推動盈利銷售增長、抓住增長機會、利用和鞏固我們作為低成本運營商的地位以及通過發展投資於我們的多元化團隊、賦權和包容。

We will sharpen our strategic focus in 4 key ways. First, we are focused on winning in rural. Today, approximately 80% of our stores serve rural communities with fewer than 20,000 residents. Our high-return, low-risk real estate model continues to serve us well as a core strength of the business. In the second quarter, we completed 849 real estate projects, including 215 new stores, 614 remodels and 20 relocations.

我們將在四個關鍵方面強化我們的戰略重點。一是聚焦農村決勝。如今，我們大約 80% 的商店為居民人數不足 20,000 人的農村社區提供服務。我們的高回報、低風險的房地產模式繼續為我們提供良好的服務，成為我們業務的核心優勢。第二季度，我們完成849個房地產項目，其中新店215個、改造614個、搬遷20個。

For 2023, our plan remains to execute 3,110 real estate projects in total in the U.S., including 990 new stores, 2,000 remodels and 120 relocations. We now expect over 80% of our new stores in 2023 and nearly all of our relocations will be in one of our larger store formats, which continue to drive increased sales productivity per square foot as compared to our traditional store. With regard to remodels, approximately 80% will be in our DGTP format, which provides the opportunity for a significant increase in cooler count as well as the ability to add fresh produce to many stores.

2023 年，我們的計劃仍然是在美國總共執行 3,110 個房地產項目，其中包括 990 個新店、2,000 個改造和 120 個搬遷。現在，我們預計 2023 年超過 80% 的新店以及幾乎所有的搬遷都將採用我們較大的商店格式之一，與傳統商店相比，這將繼續提高每平方英尺的銷售效率。在改造方面，大約 80% 將採用我們的 DGTP 格式，這為顯著增加冷卻器數量以及為許多商店添加新鮮農產品的能力提供了機會。

One way we continue to serve these locations is through DG Fresh, where our current focus is increasing sales in frozen and refrigerated categories through enhanced product offerings and building on our multiyear track record of growth in cooler doors and associated sales. During Q2, we added more than 19,000 cooler doors across our store base, and we plan to install a total of more than 65,000 incremental cooler doors in 2023. And while produce is not currently serviced by our internal supply chain, we continue to believe that DG Fresh provides a potential path forward to expanding our produce offering to more than 10,000 stores over time. We know this offering is important to customers, especially in rural areas. And at the end of Q2, we offered fresh produce in more than 4,400 stores with plans to expand this offering to a total of more than 5,000 stores by the end of 2023.

我們繼續為這些地點提供服務的一種方式是通過 DG Fresh，我們目前的重點是通過增強產品供應以及建立我們多年來在冷櫃門和相關銷售方面的增長記錄來增加冷凍和冷藏類別的銷售。在第二季度，我們在商店基地增加了 19,000 多扇冷藏門，我們計劃在 2023 年安裝總共超過 65,000 扇增量冷藏門。雖然我們的內部供應鏈目前不為產品提供服務，但我們仍然相信隨著時間的推移，DG Fresh 為將我們的農產品供應範圍擴大到10,000 多家商店提供了一條潛在的途徑。我們知道這項服務對客戶很重要，尤其是農村地區的客戶。截至第二季度末，我們在 4,400 多家商店提供生鮮農產品，併計劃到 2023 年底將這一服務擴展到 5,000 多家商店。

Importantly, despite the meaningful improvements we've made and savings we have realized to date as a result of DG Fresh, we believe we still have an opportunity to drive significant additional returns with this initiative in the years ahead.

重要的是，儘管我們迄今為止通過 DG Fresh 取得了有意義的改進並實現了節省，但我們相信，我們仍然有機會在未來幾年通過這一舉措帶來顯著的額外回報。

Our second focus area as we move DG Forward is extending our reach. We are striving to expand the DG universe by attracting and serving new customers through new formats, while also reaching existing customers in unique and differentiated ways. Starting with our digital initiative, where we are investing to further extend our digital front porch to build even deeper connections and extend our reach beyond our substantial physical brick-and-mortar footprint. We are excited about the growth we're seeing across our digital properties, including an increase of more than 20% in monthly active users since this time last year.

我們推動總幹事前進的第二個重點領域是擴大我們的影響範圍。我們正在努力通過新的業態吸引和服務新客戶，同時以獨特和差異化的方式接觸現有客戶，從而擴大 DG 的業務範圍。從我們的數字計劃開始，我們正在投資進一步擴展我們的數字前廊，以建立更深層次的聯繫，並將我們的影響力擴展到我們大量的物理實體足蹟之外。我們對數字資產的增長感到非常興奮，包括自去年同期以來每月活躍用戶增長了 20% 以上。

Further, we are seeing tremendous success through our partnership with DoorDash, which is now available in more than 15,000 stores and continues to drive significant incremental transactions with customers. Our DG Media Network is also extending our reach with customers with a more personalized experience while delivering a higher return on ad spend for our partners and profitable growth for our business. Overall, our digital strategy consists of building an ecosystem specifically tailored to provide our customers with an even more convenient, frictionless and personalized shopping experience, and we are pleased with the growing engagement we are seeing across our digital properties.

此外，我們通過與 DoorDash 的合作取得了巨大成功，該產品現已在超過 15,000 家商店銷售，並繼續推動與客戶的大量增量交易。我們的 DG 媒體網絡還通過更加個性化的體驗擴大了我們與客戶的聯繫，同時為我們的合作夥伴帶來了更高的廣告支出回報並為我們的業務帶來了盈利增長。總體而言，我們的數字戰略包括建立一個專門定制的生態系統，為我們的客戶提供更方便、無摩擦和個性化的購物體驗，我們對數字資產的參與度不斷增長感到高興。

Next, we extended our reach beyond the borders for the first time earlier this year with the opening of our first Mi Súper Dollar General store in Monterrey, Mexico. We continue to be very encouraged by the customer response and the early results, which include sales results that are significantly exceeding our initial expectations. Looking ahead, our updated goal is to have up to 10 stores serving underserved communities in Northern Mexico by the end of 2023 as we look to leverage our brand awareness while extending our value and convenience proposition to a customer base that is similar to our core customer in the United States.

接下來，今年早些時候，我們在墨西哥蒙特雷開設了第一家 Mi Söper Dollar 雜貨店，首次將業務範圍擴展到國外。我們繼續對客戶的反應和早期結果感到非常鼓舞，其中包括顯著超出我們最初預期的銷售結果。展望未來，我們的最新目標是到2023 年底在墨西哥北部擁有多達10 家商店，為服務欠缺的社區提供服務，因為我們希望利用我們的品牌知名度，同時將我們的價值和便利主張擴展到與我們的核心客戶類似的客戶群在美國。

The third way we are extending our reach is through our pOpshelf format which is now nearly 3 years old. This format provides a stress-free, guilt-free shopping experience designed around nonconsumable shopping occasions. During the quarter, we opened 26 new pOpshelf locations, bringing the total number of stores to 190 at the end of Q2 located within 20 states. We are continuing to refine the ideal layout and assortment for these stores, and we have actively leveraged our learnings to develop our 3.0 version, which will begin rolling out next month.

我們擴大影響力的第三種方式是通過 pOpshelf 格式，該格式現已推出近 3 年。這種形式提供了圍繞非消費品購物場合設計的無壓力、無負罪感的購物體驗。本季度，我們開設了 26 家新的 pOpshelf 門店，到第二季度末，位於 20 個州的門店總數達到 190 家。我們正在繼續完善這些商店的理想佈局和品種，並積極利用我們的經驗來開發 3.0 版本，該版本將於下個月開始推出。

Looking ahead, we are taking a balanced approach to opening the right number of new pOpshelf stores in the right locations in this macroeconomic environment and expect to operate a total of approximately 230 stores by the end of 2023. Importantly, we still believe pOpshelf adds approximately 3,000 opportunities to our total addressable market over the long term, and we remain excited about the growth opportunity.

展望未來，我們將採取平衡的方法，在當前宏觀經濟環境下在適當的地點開設適當數量的新 pOpshelf 商店，預計到 2023 年底總共運營約 230 家商店。重要的是，我們仍然相信 pOpshelf 將增加約從長遠來看，我們的總目標市場有3,000 個機會，我們對這個增長機會仍然感到興奮。

Finally, we are extending our reach through our health initiative branded as DG Well Being. Our customer research continues to show that not only are our rural communities underserved with basic staple offerings, but they also have trouble accessing health care goods and services. In response, we continue to focus on rolling out an expanded health care product assortment, which was available in nearly 6,000 stores at the end of Q2, and we now plan to expand to a total of more than 7,000 stores by the end of 2023.

最後，我們通過名為 DG Well Being 的健康計劃擴大我們的影響力。我們的客戶研究繼續表明，我們的農村社區不僅缺乏基本的主食供應，而且在獲得醫療保健商品和服務方面也遇到困難。為此，我們繼續專注於推出擴大的保健產品品種，截至第二季度末，該產品已在近 6,000 家商店中銷售，現在我們計劃到 2023 年底將商店總數擴大到 7,000 多家。

Looking ahead, our plans include further expansion of our health offering and also of our partnership with a third-party payment platform to allow customers to use health plan supplemental benefits to purchase various health and wellness-related items in their local Dollar General stores. This health benefit option is now available in approximately 13,000 stores but the goal of being available chain-wide by the end of the year as we continue to focus on increasing access to basic health care products and ultimately services over time, particularly in rural America.

展望未來，我們的計劃包括進一步擴大我們的健康產品以及與第三方支付平台的合作夥伴關係，以允許客戶使用健康計劃補充福利在當地的 Dollar General 商店購買各種健康和保健相關的商品。這種健康福利選項目前在大約13,000 家商店提供，但我們的目標是在今年年底之前在整個連鎖店提供，因為我們將繼續專注於隨著時間的推移增加獲得基本醫療保健產品和最終服務的機會，特別是在美國農村地區。

Our third area of strategic focus is to fuel our growth. These efforts are comprised of strengthening and modernizing 3 critical components to improve execution: our supply chain, our operating model and our IT foundation. We plan to fuel our best-in-class growth by investing in high-return projects and resources to enable our team to execute at the highest levels to serve our customers. Within our supply chain, we have made significant progress adding capacity and increasing the productivity and efficiency of operations within our distribution centers. And with 3 additional facilities under construction in Colorado, Arkansas and Oregon, we are on pace to add significant incremental capacity in 2024.

我們的第三個戰略重點領域是推動我們的增長。這些努力包括加強和現代化三個關鍵組成部分以提高執行力：我們的供應鏈、我們的運營模式和我們的 IT 基礎。我們計劃通過投資高回報項目和資源來推動我們一流的增長，使我們的團隊能夠以最高水平執行服務我們的客戶。在我們的供應鏈中，我們在增加配送中心的產能、提高生產力和運營效率方面取得了重大進展。我們正在科羅拉多州、阿肯色州和俄勒岡州建設另外 3 個設施，預計到 2024 年將大幅增加產能。

Furthermore, we recently went live in South Carolina with our first distribution center to feature large-scale automation to replenish stores. Once fully ramped, this automation will be able to deliver half of the SKUs served from this facility to over 1,000 stores. Ultimately, this will allow the team to process thousands of additional SKUs while improving our storage per square foot inside the facility and lowering our cost to serve. We are excited about this opportunity to support our growth more effectively and efficiently and look forward to adding automated functionality to more facilities moving forward.

此外，我們最近在南卡羅來納州開設了第一個配送中心，該中心採用大規模自動化來補充商店。一旦全面啟動，這種自動化將能夠將該設施提供的一半 SKU 交付到 1,000 多家商店。最終，這將使團隊能夠處理數千個額外的 SKU，同時提高設施內每平方英尺的存儲空間並降低服務成本。我們很高興有這個機會更有效和高效地支持我們的發展，並期待著為更多的設施添加自動化功能。

We also continue to expand our private tractor fleet, which consisted of more than 1,800 tractors at the end of Q2 and accounted for nearly 50% of our outbound transportation needs. As a reminder, we save approximately 20% of associated costs every time we replace a third-party tractor with one from our private fleet. Looking ahead, we plan to have more than 2,000 tractors in our private fleet by the end of 2023. These efforts have been and will continue to be an important driver in lowering our overall transportation costs.

我們還繼續擴大私人拖拉機車隊，截至第二季度末，該車隊擁有 1,800 多輛拖拉機，占我們出境運輸需求的近 50%。謹此提醒，每次用我們的私人車隊更換第三方拖拉機時，我們都會節省大約 20% 的相關成本。展望未來，我們計劃到 2023 年底，我們的私人車隊擁有超過 2,000 輛拖拉機。這些努力已經並將繼續成為降低我們整體運輸成本的重要推動力。

Within our stores, we are intensely focused on reducing complexity to create a better in-store experience for customers and associates. We have simplified operations by optimizing our rolltainer delivery and rolling out self-checkout option, which was available in nearly 14,000 stores at the end of Q2.

在我們的商店中，我們高度重視降低複雜性，為顧客和員工創造更好的店內體驗。我們通過優化捲筒運輸和推出自助結賬選項來簡化運營，該選項於第二季度末在近 14,000 家商店中提供。

Finally, over the past year, we have been working to implement a full end-to-end transformation of our retail operating model, its first major overhaul in nearly 20 years. We recently launched the pilot of this model, and while it's still very early, we believe this will significantly enhance the in-store experience for our teams while also further enhancing our position as a low-cost operator. We will have more to share on this in the coming months, but we are excited about this opportunity as we leverage enhanced technology and innovation to further support and fuel our growth in the years ahead.

最後，在過去的一年裡，我們一直致力於對零售運營模式進行全面的端到端轉型，這是近 20 年來的首次重大改革。我們最近啟動了該模式的試點，雖然還為時過早，但我們相信這將顯著增強我們團隊的店內體驗，同時也進一步增強我們作為低成本運營商的地位。在接下來的幾個月裡，我們將就此分享更多信息，但我們對這個機會感到興奮，因為我們利用增強的技術和創新來進一步支持和推動我們未來幾年的增長。

The fourth area of focus with DG Forward is that it's all powered by our people. The strength of our people was on display recently as we hosted more than 1,500 leaders of our company in Nashville, for our annual leadership meeting. This is my favorite week of the year, and I was once again inspired and humbled by the commitment of our people to move DG Forward while fulfilling our mission of Serving Others every day. The people of Dollar General are our greatest strategic advantage. And to further enhance our position, we are investing in our people and creating opportunities for growth and development and amplifying our culture where our people can enjoy a meaningful career where the work they do every day makes a difference.

DG Forward 關注的第四個領域是，這一切都由我們的員工提供動力。最近，我們在納什維爾接待了 1,500 多名公司領導參加年度領導層會議，這充分展現了我們員工的力量。這是我一年中最喜歡的一周，我們的員工在履行我們每天為他人服務的使命的同時推動 DG 前進的承諾再次讓我感到鼓舞和謙卑。 Dollar General 的員工是我們最大的戰略優勢。為了進一步提升我們的地位，我們正在投資於我們的員工，創造成長和發展的機會，並擴大我們的文化，讓我們的員工能夠享受有意義的職業生涯，讓他們每天所做的工作發揮作用。

Our commitment to growth and development is as strong as ever. And with our robust footprint, ongoing growth and strong sense of purpose, we believe there's no better place to start and develop a career than with Dollar General. Our internal promotion pipeline remains robust, as evidenced by internal placement rates of more than 70% at or above the Lead Sales Associate position. Additionally, more than 10% of our growing private fleet team began their careers with us in either a store or distribution center. We continue to have great success hiring the talent we need and we are pleased with our staffing levels and applicant flow.

我們對增長和發展的承諾一如既往。憑藉我們強大的足跡、持續的增長和強烈的使命感，我們相信沒有比 Dollar General 更好的地方來開始和發展職業生涯了。我們的內部晉升渠道依然強勁，首席銷售助理職位的內部安置率超過 70% 就證明了這一點。此外，在我們不斷壯大的私人車隊團隊中，超過 10% 的人是在我們的商店或配送中心開始了他們的職業生涯。我們在招聘所需人才方面繼續取得巨大成功，我們對我們的人員配置水平和申請人流量感到滿意。

We often note that our customer experience at Dollar General will never exceed the experience of our associates, and we are committed to continuing to elevate the experience for our people as they power our DG Forward strategy.

我們經常指出，Dollar General 的客戶體驗永遠不會超過我們員工的體驗，我們致力於繼續提升我們員工的體驗，因為他們為我們的 DG Forward 戰略提供動力。

In closing, I want to thank our more than 185,000 employees for their commitment and hard work to serve our customers and the communities we call home. Dollar General is an essential part of small towns across America that form the backbone of our country, and we are focused on serving our customers with value and convenience they deserve every day. We are taking the actions and making the investments we believe are necessary to accelerate our progress and return even more quickly to executing with the operational excellence that has long been a hallmark of this company. The opportunities ahead of us are significant, and we are excited about the steps we're taking to drive sustainable long-term growth and shareholder value.

最後，我要感謝我們超過 185,000 名員工為服務我們的客戶和我們稱之為家的社區所做的承諾和辛勤工作。 Dollar General 是美國各地小鎮的重要組成部分，構成了我們國家的支柱，我們致力於為客戶提供他們每天應得的價值和便利。我們正在採取我們認為必要的行動和投資，以加速我們的進步，並更快地恢復執行卓越運營，這長期以來一直是該公司的標誌。我們面臨著巨大的機遇，我們對為推動可持續長期增長和股東價值而採取的措施感到興奮。

With that, operator, we would now like to open the lines for questions.

接線員，現在我們要開始提問了。

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

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 UBS 的 Michael Lasser。

So you've taken your labor investment for this year from $100 million to $150 million. The perception is that, that is not enough and it will take more than that to resume the type of performance that the market has been accustomed to from Dollar General. How -- what evidence would you provide to refute the skepticism that this $150 million is not the right amount, it's going to be much more than that? And as you think about these investments, how is this going to impact the long-term operating margin for Dollar General given that it's on pace this year to be much lower than it's been previously. And then I have one quick follow-up.

因此，您已將今年的勞動力投資從 1 億美元增加到 1.5 億美元。人們認為，這還不夠，還需要更多的努力才能恢復市場已經習慣的 Dollar General 的表現類型。您會提供什麼證據來反駁這一懷疑論：這 1.5 億美元不是正確的金額，而且會遠不止於此？當你考慮這些投資時，考慮到今年的投資速度將遠低於之前，這將如何影響 Dollar General 的長期營業利潤率。然後我會進行快速跟進。

Thank you, Michael. This is Jeff. On the labor front, I'll start with that. We feel really good about the labor investments that we've made. I think you got to keep in mind at Dollar General, we've invested in wages and have a strong foundation for quite some time. And really at store level, what's important is stability in the supply chain. And when you have stability in the supply chain, that leads to stability inside the store. And so now that we're seeing our supply chain which, quite frankly, we've had some significant challenges over the last couple of years stabilizing, we're seeing that show up in more stability inside the store.

謝謝你，邁克爾。這是傑夫。在勞工方面，我將從這一點開始。我們對我們所做的勞動力投資感到非常滿意。我想你必須記住，在 Dollar General，我們已經在工資方面進行了投資，並在相當長的一段時間內擁有了堅實的基礎。事實上，在商店層面，重要的是供應鏈的穩定性。當供應鏈穩定時，商店內部也會穩定。因此，現在我們看到我們的供應鏈，坦率地說，我們在過去幾年中遇到了一些重大挑戰，正在趨於穩定，我們看到這體現在商店內部更加穩定。

And then you combine that with the labor investment that we've made, plus in the second quarter, one of the things we deployed which is new for Dollar General is a smart team in every single district in our company. And what a smart team is, is dedicated teams that are at the disposal of a district manager to deploy where they need to be deployed most. And we've been very pleased with what we've seen there with that new tool in our toolbox. The stores that these teams have been able to touch, we've seeing the sales accelerate and continue and they haven't plateaued. So we feel real good about that. We see our store standards improving.

然後你將其與我們所做的勞動力投資結合起來，加上在第二季度，我們部署的對 Dollar General 來說是新的事情之一是我們公司每個地區的智能團隊。聰明的團隊是指由地區經理調遣的專門團隊，將其部署到最需要部署的地方。我們對工具箱中的新工具所看到的結果感到非常滿意。這些團隊已經能夠觸及的商店，我們看到銷售加速並持續，而且還沒有達到穩定水平。所以我們對此感覺非常好。我們看到我們的商店標準不斷提高。

And we believe now by making the smart team, which is now going to be permanent with this new investment, when you combine that with the other investments we just announced, which is reducing inventory certainly through the markdowns we discussed and also investing in technology to further pull more inventory out of the system, when we have optimized inventory, a stable supply chain, that equals stability inside the store. And so what we're beginning to see also is our store manager turnover has been benefited from these investments as well.

我們現在相信，通過打造智能團隊，這項新投資將成為永久性的，當你將其與我們剛剛宣布的其他投資結合起來時，這肯定會通過我們討論的降價來減少庫存，並投資於技術進一步從系統中拉出更多的庫存，當我們優化了庫存，穩定的供應鏈，就等於店內的穩定。因此，我們也開始看到，我們的商店經理的營業額也受益於這些投資。

So we're starting to see the theme of stability, I guess, is what I'm trying to share with you. So that's showing up inside the store, which gives us great confidence that the announcement today of the investments we're making, while we've seen some progress and we're not pleased with the results we've achieved, we believe these are the right amount to get us to excellence that we're accustomed to achieving much faster as we go through the back half of 2023 and, more importantly, in 2024.

因此，我想，我們開始看到穩定性的主題，這就是我想與大家分享的內容。因此，這齣現在商店內，這讓我們對今天宣布的我們正在進行的投資充滿信心，雖然我們已經看到了一些進展，但我們對所取得的結果並不滿意，但我們相信這些是適量的資金可以讓我們在2023 年下半年，更重要的是在2024 年實現卓越，我們習慣於更快地實現這一目標。

That's absolutely right, Jeff. And just to give you a little bit more color on the labor and what gets us comfortable there. We did pull forward a significant amount of our investment into Q2 so that we could do what we always do here at Dollar General, which is test and learn. And so as we went through that process, we really like, to Jeff's point, the smart teams and what that was paying off. But on the labor hours piece, we did a lot of work around just various store attributing, understanding what the optimal level was of the inventory -- of the labor hours associated with the stores. And so we feel like we did get to that optimal level of investment.

完全正確，傑夫。只是為了讓您對勞動有更多的了解，以及是什麼讓我們在那裡感到舒適。我們確實將大量投資提前到第二季度，以便我們可以做我們在 Dollar General 一直做的事情，即測試和學習。因此，當我們經歷這個過程時，就傑夫而言，我們真的很喜歡聰明的團隊以及所帶來的回報。但在工時方面，我們圍繞各種商店歸因做了很多工作，了解庫存的最佳水平是什麼——與商店相關的工時。所以我們覺得我們確實達到了最佳投資水平。

On the inventory side, I would say we've made some really good progress on the inventory piece already. And so if you look at Q2 versus Q1, we're down 8.5% on a year-over-year basis, much better than we were in Q1. But what I really want to highlight is our nonconsumable inventory was actually a decline of 4% on a year-over-year basis. So a lot of good work done there. We actually saw a 40% reduction in the inventory receipts for the second quarter as well. And so that's a lot of good work from our merchandising group, just buying around what the inventory we already had and getting that out to the store and certainly feel good about quality of that inventory.

在庫存方面，我想說我們已經在庫存方面取得了一些非常好的進展。因此，如果你對比第二季度和第一季度，我們同比下降了 8.5%，比第一季度好得多。但我真正想強調的是，我們的非消耗品庫存實際上同比下降了 4%。所以那裡做了很多很好的工作。事實上，我們第二季度的庫存收入也減少了 40%。因此，我們的銷售團隊做了很多出色的工作，只是購買我們已有的庫存並將其送到商店，當然對庫存的質量感覺良好。

But we are excited to be able to take this accelerated action as we move through that inventory, specifically nonconsumable inventory as we go through the year. And as Jeff noted, for many reasons, driving sales is probably the top of the list and then inventory reductions is certainly next on that. So we feel really good about the level of both of those investments.

但我們很高興能夠在處理庫存時採取這種加速行動，特別是在全年處理非消耗品庫存時。正如傑夫指出的那樣，出於多種原因，推動銷售可能是首要任務，其次當然是減少庫存。因此，我們對這兩項投資的水平感到非常滿意。

My follow-up question is, historically, Dollar General has targeted an algorithm of mid-single-digit unit expansion, 2% to 4% comp growth, stable to growing margins and then buying back 4% to 5% of the stock to get to double-digit EPS growth. So if you take all of the different pieces of that algorithm, especially store growth, is it realistic that Dollar General can get back to that algorithm by 2024 based on what you know now?

我的後續問題是，從歷史上看，Dollar General 的目標是實現中個位數單位擴張、2% 至4% 的公司增長率、穩定的利潤增長，然後回購4% 至5% 的股票以獲得每股收益兩位數增長。因此，如果您考慮該算法的所有不同部分，尤其是商店增長，根據您現在所知，Dollar General 在 2024 年之前恢復該算法是否現實？

Yes. I'd say, as usual, we won't give '24 guidance. But what I can say is everything that we're doing is focused on the long term and delivering results and delivering what we need to deliver for our customers. So we feel good about the investments that we're making, the ability for those to set us up for '24 and beyond. I'd say this model got, and you pointed it out, just an incredible history of delivering results. And so we feel good about getting back to driving profitable sales. And we're going to strengthen our foundation and continue to focus on being a low-cost operator. I think that the actions we're taking are really only going to strengthen that great business model.

是的。我想說，像往常一樣，我們不會提供 '24 指導。但我可以說的是，我們所做的一切都著眼於長期，交付成果，交付我們需要為客戶交付的東西。因此，我們對我們正在進行的投資以及這些投資為我們做好 24 小時及以後的準備的能力感到滿意。我想說，正如您所指出的，這個模型取得了令人難以置信的成果歷史。因此，我們對重新推動盈利銷售感到高興。我們將加強我們的基礎，並繼續專注於成為低成本運營商。我認為我們正在採取的行動實際上只會加強這一偉大的商業模式。

You know us well. So we've got a lot of existing initiatives as well as some of these new initiatives that will support that. So we've got significant number of new stores that we still have opportunities in to open in the U.S., and we're still seeing the same fantastic returns of 20% IRRs and cash paybacks of less than 2 years. We do think we can drive a 2% to 4% comp with our real estate investments and the impact of the actions and the initiatives. And then just when we think about the gross margin rate, even in the second quarter with all the pressures that we felt specifically around shrink, we were still 30 basis points ahead of where we were in 2019.

你很了解我們。因此，我們有很多現有的舉措以及一些支持這一點的新舉措。因此，我們仍然有機會在美國開設大量新店，而且我們仍然看到同樣出色的 20% IRR 回報和不到 2 年的現金回收期。我們確實認為，通過我們的房地產投資以及行動和計劃的影響，我們可以推動 2% 至 4% 的增長。然後，當我們考慮毛利率時，即使在第二季度我們感受到了特別是收縮方面的所有壓力，我們仍然比 2019 年領先 30 個基點。

And I think that's a testament to all work we've done. And we've still got DG Media network that's going to keep contributing, private fleet that Jeff talked about. We've got some private brand opportunities as well. We've got supply chain efficiencies. And as we lower that inventory, that's only going to benefit us even more. And we're still in the middle innings of Fresh. We've got the health initiative assortment that's still delivering well for us. And then you should see us resume back to lower shrink over time.

我認為這證明了我們所做的所有工作。我們仍然擁有 DG Media 網絡，它將繼續提供傑夫談到的私人車隊。我們也有一些自有品牌的機會。我們的供應鏈效率很高。隨著我們降低庫存，這只會讓我們受益更多。我們還處於Fresh的中局。我們的健康倡議品種仍然為我們提供良好的服務。然後你應該會看到我們隨著時間的推移恢復到較低的收縮率。

And then I'd say just on the SG&A side of things, we're going to continue to lower our cost to serve. We're ramping up that Save to Serve initiative, and we expect to see those benefits next year. And then we talked just a little bit about taking that end-to-end view of our operating model, and that's really around driving efficiencies and lower costs, but even more importantly, simplicity in our store operations. And so we're excited about all of that. I'd say in the near term, we do have some pressures. So we've got some pressure from interest expense and from share repurchases. But what we absolutely believe is that we will get back to historic levels of operating profit growth and that our long-term view of this business is excellent.

然後我想說的是，就SG&A 而言，我們將繼續降低服務成本。我們正在加強“節約服務”計劃，預計明年就能看到這些好處。然後我們簡單地討論了我們的運營模式的端到端觀點，這實際上是圍繞提高效率和降低成本，但更重要的是，我們商店運營的簡單性。所以我們對這一切感到興奮。我想說，短期內，我們確實面臨一些壓力。因此，我們面臨著來自利息支出和股票回購的一些壓力。但我們絕對相信，我們將恢復營業利潤增長的歷史水平，並且我們對這項業務的長期看法是非常好的。

Our next question is from Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett.

我們的下一個問題是查克·格羅姆和戈登·哈斯克特提出的。

Just to build off your last comment, new store productivity came in a little bit below 80%, which outside of the pandemic, was really the lowest in maybe 10 years. So bigger picture, how are you thinking about store growth given some of these issues over the past few quarters, on one hand, volume growth would allow you to fix things currently; but on the other hand, it would obviously impair the compound to a degree. So just any thoughts on store growth over the next few years.

補充一下你最後的評論，新店的生產率略低於 80%，除了大流行之外，這實際上是 10 年來的最低水平。因此，從更大的角度來看，考慮到過去幾個季度的一些問題，您如何考慮商店的增長，一方面，銷量增長將使您能夠解決目前的問題；另一方面，銷量的增長將使您能夠解決當前的問題。但另一方面，它顯然會在一定程度上損害化合物。那麼關於未來幾年商店增長的任何想法。

Yes. Thanks, Chuck. This is Jeff. Our real estate model continues to be the core strength of this business. And I am very, very pleased with the new store returns we're seeing, also the pipeline that we have. And our format innovation really is what's allowed us to really cater to communities. This larger store, we like the productivity we're seeing. And I'm going to tell you, the operational excellence that we're going to return to, especially with the investments we just announced, is only going to benefit not only the core, but it will benefit our new store opportunities as well.

是的。謝謝，查克。這是傑夫。我們的房地產模式仍然是該業務的核心優勢。我對我們看到的新店退貨以及我們現有的渠道感到非常非常滿意。我們的格式創新確實使我們能夠真正迎合社區。這家更大的商店，我們喜歡我們所看到的生產力。我要告訴你，我們將恢復卓越運營，特別是我們剛剛宣布的投資，不僅有利於核心業務，而且也有利於我們的新店機會。

So I feel great about the long-term prospects of our real estate model and feel even better that these investments we're talking about, when you think about the value proposition which we feel great about in our stores today since the pricing investments we've made, you think about the stability in the supply chain, we still have a ways to go, but I'm very pleased with what we're seeing. Optimizing our inventory levels, and then that will all lead to consistent and excellent execution at store level. And you combine all those 4 things together and that's how we achieve the operating profit, which will certainly allow us to continue to lean into our real estate model as we go forward.

因此，我對我們的房地產模式的長期前景感到非常滿意，並且當你想到我們今天在我們的商店中感覺良好的價值主張時，我對我們正在談論的這些投資感覺更好，因為我們的定價投資就供應鏈的穩定性而言，我們還有很長的路要走，但我對我們所看到的感到非常滿意。優化我們的庫存水平，然後這一切都將導致商店層面一致且出色的執行。將所有這四件事結合在一起，這就是我們實現營業利潤的方式，這肯定會讓我們在前進的過程中繼續依靠我們的房地產模式。

Okay. Great. And then for Kelly, just looking at the change in the guide, can you help us think about the shape of the back half in a little bit more detail and a little bit more context between the third and the fourth quarter? I guess, would you expect the third quarter comps to be outside of the band that you provided, the down 1 to up 1? And any help on how much compression we should expect to see in both the gross margin line and operating margin line in the third and fourth quarter just so we can true up our models.

好的。偉大的。然後對於凱利來說，只要看看指南中的變化，你能幫助我們更詳細地思考後半部分的形狀以及第三節和第四節之間的更多背景嗎？我想，您是否預計第三季度的業績會超出您提供的範圍（下降 1 到上升 1）？以及我們預計第三季度和第四季度的毛利率線和營業利潤率線會受到多大壓縮的任何幫助，以便我們能夠修正我們的模型。

Yes. No, absolutely, happy to help. So I'd say, first, obviously the actions that we're taking to drive sales and lower our costs will set us up for '24. And our revised guide is really a function of the slower transactions that we're seeing and higher expected shrink. We did give a pretty wide range of the negative 1% to 1%. Net sales range is really a function of how quickly our customer responds to our actions and really how they respond, honestly, to their own financial situation in the back half of the year. When you think about the EPS range, it's flow-through of the sales, obviously, the higher shrink in the investments. And we also have a little more pressure around damages and then around the markdowns associated with the lower sales. So it's probably going to take a couple of quarters just to get -- make sure that we're taking all the actions and we get back to that operational excellence.

是的。不，絕對，很樂意提供幫助。所以我想說，首先，顯然我們為推動銷售和降低成本而採取的行動將為我們的 24 世紀做好準備。我們修訂後的指南實際上是我們所看到的較慢的交易和較高的預期收縮的函數。我們確實給出了 1% 到 1% 相當廣泛的負面影響。淨銷售額範圍實際上取決於我們的客戶對我們的行動做出反應的速度，以及他們對下半年自己的財務狀況的真實反應。當你考慮每股收益範圍時，它是銷售的流通，顯然，投資的縮減幅度越大。我們在損害賠償以及與銷量下降相關的降價方面也面臨著更大的壓力。因此，可能需要幾個季度的時間才能確保我們採取所有行動並恢復卓越運營。

If I break down the quarters, to your point, starting with the third quarter, we should see comp sales lower than -- within our range. What we're seeing now is with Q2, comp decelerated sequentially by period. But we did see traffic trends improve. What we're getting pressure from, and we talked about this a little bit in the prepared remarks, is that we're starting to lap the more significant price increases in the back half of last year. This is going to pressure Q3 more than any other quarter in particular. And so to your point, we do expect comp sales to be negative in Q3, and we're running as expected to date. Just on the margin piece of Q3, that's also going to be more pressured than what we are seeing in Q4 with our inventory actions as well as shrink. And so right now, we're expecting Q3 gross margin to be below 30%. And obviously, that would put pressure on Q3 EPS.

如果我對季度進行細分，按照你的觀點，從第三季度開始，我們應該會看到公司銷售額低於——在我們的範圍內。我們現在看到的是第二季度，業績按週期連續減速。但我們確實看到流量趨勢有所改善。我們面臨的壓力是，我們在去年下半年開始經歷更大幅度的價格上漲，我們在準備好的發言中對此進行了一些討論。這對第三季度的壓力將比其他任何季度都要大。因此，就您的觀點而言，我們確實預計第三季度的複合銷售額將為負，並且迄今為止我們的運行情況符合預期。就第三季度的利潤而言，隨著我們的庫存行動和收縮，這也將比我們在第四季度看到的壓力更大。因此，目前我們預計第三季度毛利率將低於 30%。顯然，這會給第三季度每股收益帶來壓力。

On the Q4 side, we believe that we're going to start to see the benefit of our actions and our investments a little bit more. In Q4, we've also got a tailwind around lapping winter storm Elliott. So we'll see stronger Q4 comp than we would think for Q3 as well as EPS. And then just touching on the timing of the investments, especially the inventory actions that we're taking. We're going to give ourselves a little bit of wiggle room and make sure that we can react to the customer response, and we may choose to pull some of those investments forward into Q3, if it makes sense.

在第四季度，我們相信我們將開始更多地看到我們的行動和投資的好處。在第四季度，我們還迎來了冬季風暴埃利奧特的順風。因此，我們將看到第四季度的業績比我們對第三季度的預期以及每股收益的預期要強。然後談談投資的時機，尤其是我們正在採取的庫存行動。我們將給自己一點迴旋空間​​，並確保我們能夠對客戶的反應做出反應，如果有意義的話，我們可能會選擇將其中一些投資提前到第三季度。

Our next question is from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Matthew Boss。

So Jeff, maybe to break down the macro versus micro. I guess, first, how would you assess the low-end backdrop today notably tying in July and August relative to 3 months ago? Or any change in purchase intentions noted from the customer survey work that I know you guys do? And then on the macro, any change in the competitive landscape as you assess relative comp performance or market share by category?

所以傑夫，也許要分解宏觀與微觀。我想，首先，您如何評估今天的低端背景，尤其是 7 月和 8 月相對於 3 個月前的平局？或者我知道你們在客戶調查工作中註意到購買意圖有任何變化嗎？然後在宏觀上，當您評估相對比較表現或按類別劃分的市場份額時，競爭格局是否發生變化？

Thanks, Matt. On the customer, she still is challenged, and we talked about that in the first quarter and that continues. Our customer, what she's telling us is that certainly as gas prices are less than last year, but they're accelerating throughout 2023, and she's still feeling the headwinds of the SNAP reduction and also the lack of tax refunds. And her savings are gone. And so certainly, she is still living with the inflationary pressure. So certainly, the customers are challenged. But quite frankly, our customers is frequently challenged and we know that. And we've made actions, and I'm very pleased with the actions we took to help her in her time of need, which is exactly why we did it in the first quarter. So we feel good about our ability to offer value to her and also be there for her.

謝謝，馬特。在客戶方面，她仍然面臨挑戰，我們在第一季度討論過這一點，並且這種情況仍在繼續。我們的客戶，她告訴我們的是，汽油價格肯定比去年低，但整個 2023 年價格都會加速上漲，而且她仍然感受到 SNAP 削減和缺乏退稅的阻力。而她的積蓄也花光了。可以肯定的是，她仍然承受著通貨膨脹的壓力。當然，客戶也面臨著挑戰。但坦率地說，我們的客戶經常面臨挑戰，我們知道這一點。我們已經採取了行動，我對我們在她需要的時候為她採取的行動感到非常滿意，這正是我們在第一季度這樣做的原因。因此，我們對自己為她提供價值並為她提供幫助的能力感到滿意。

And when you think about the execution opportunity we have in front of us, where we've seen initial signs of our progress but also with the actions that we just announced to accelerate that progress, that's only going to allow us to further serve this customer. And she's going to lean on Dollar General even more, like she typically does in times of challenge like this. And we are going to be even better positioned to serve her. Certainly, as we improve our in-stock levels, our store standards and certainly, as I said earlier, love what we're seeing with the smart teams we've just deployed. So as we think about the competitive landscape, Dollar General has been able to compete quite well for quite some time. And this team knows exactly where we need to course correct, we know how to course correct, and we've announced today the actions that are going to of course correct.

當你想到我們面前的執行機會時，我們已經看到了進展的初步跡象，而且還採取了我們剛剛宣布的加速進展的行動，這只會讓我們能夠進一步為該客戶提供服務。她將更加依賴 Dollar General，就像她在面臨這樣的挑戰時通常所做的那樣。我們將更好地為她服務。當然，隨著我們提高庫存水平、商店標準，當然，正如我之前所說，我們喜歡我們剛剛部署的智能團隊所看到的一切。因此，當我們考慮競爭格局時，Dollar General 在相當長的一段時間內一直能夠很好地競爭。這個團隊確切地知道我們需要在哪裡糾正，我們知道如何糾正，並且我們今天宣布了當然要糾正的行動。

So we feel great about our ability to return to the excellence that we're accustomed to achieving even faster than we were before. And we don't take it lightly that our sales performance right now is not where we want it to be. But we're pleased with the actions that we're going to see show up and the early signs that we're seeing already. So looking forward to back half of this year and then certainly into 2024.

因此，我們對能夠以比以前更快的速度恢復習慣的卓越表現感到非常高興。我們不會掉以輕心，因為我們目前的銷售業績沒有達到我們想要的水平。但我們對將要看到的行動以及我們已經看到的早期跡象感到滿意。所以期待今年下半年，然後肯定會進入 2024 年。

Great. And then, Kelly, with EBIT margin this year forecasted roughly 200 basis points below pre-pandemic, how do the back half investments structurally impact the margin profile for next year or just your margin recapture ability next year? And then secondly, with the balance sheet leverage remaining above your targeted 3x, how does that impact the historical double-digit bottom line algorithm?

偉大的。然後，凱利，預計今年的息稅前利潤率比大流行前低約 200 個基點，後半投資對明年的利潤率狀況或明年的利潤率收回能力有何結構性影響？其次，由於資產負債表槓桿率仍高於目標 3 倍，這對歷史兩位數底線算法有何影響？

Yes. So I'll start with the structural piece first and break it down a little bit between gross margin and SG&A. And so we really think that the current headwinds are more transitory, specifically when we talk about shrink and damages and markdowns. We think we're well positioned on supply chain efficiencies with structural improvements on the horizon, as we talked about a little bit with the automation piece of that and certainly the private fleet continuation. DG Media Network should provide significant gross margin opportunity as well and, again, DG Fresh and NCI as we move forward and maybe mix into more nonconsumables over the next couple of years. We also continue to see some opportunities in private brands.

是的。因此，我將首先從結構部分開始，然後在毛利率和銷售管理費用之間進行一些細分。因此，我們確實認為當前的不利因素更為短暫，特別是當我們談論收縮、損壞和降價時。我們認為我們在供應鏈效率方面處於有利地位，即將進行結構性改進，正如我們談到的自動化部分以及當然還有私人車隊的延續。隨著我們的前進，DG Media Network 以及 DG Fresh 和 NCI 也應該提供顯著的毛利率機會，並可能在未來幾年內融入更多非消耗品。我們還繼續看到自有品牌的一些機會。

On the SG&A side, I'd say the labor investment is embedded now in our baseline. But as we go forward, we are really looking at an end-to-end operating model to make sure that we're driving efficiencies in the store and lowering our cost to serve. And as Jeff said, we're also looking at inventory management as well to lower our cost to serve over the next couple of years. I think that, that will help us take some cost out of the system. And then we're ramping up our save-to-serve initiative and expect to see benefit of that next year. So we feel like -- again, not specifically speaking to '24 but to the future, that we'll be able to get back to that operating profit growth. But we do -- we will have some near-term headwinds just on the financial strategy side of things around share repurchases in the near term.

在SG&A方面，我想說勞動力投資現在已納入我們的基線中。但隨著我們的前進，我們真正正在尋找一種端到端的運營模式，以確保我們提高商店的效率並降低服務成本。正如傑夫所說，我們也在考慮庫存管理，以降低未來幾年的服務成本。我認為這將幫助我們降低系統成本。然後，我們正在加強“節約服務”計劃，並期望明年看到這一舉措的好處。因此，我們再次感到，不是專門針對 24 世紀，而是針對未來，我們將能夠恢復營業利潤增長。但我們確實如此——短期內，我們將在圍繞股票回購的財務戰略方面遇到一些短期阻力。

On the -- remind me again on the balance sheet question?

關於——再次提醒我關於資產負債表的問題？

Just with the balance sheet leverage above your target at 3x, maybe what's the time line to get back there and how best to think about priorities for cash flow?

只是資產負債表槓桿率高於您的目標 3 倍，也許回到那裡的時間線是什麼以及如何最好地考慮現金流的優先事項？

Yes, absolutely. So I think just going through priorities, we still believe in the capital allocation priorities that we've laid out, making sure that we're investing in the business and high growth opportunities, as obviously our first priority. Next would be dividend payments and then, of course, any share repurchases with the remaining cash available for that. You're right on the leverage ratio. Right now, we're above our target. The good news here is that this model has a strong history of generating significant cash flow, and we continue to believe that, that strength will continue over time. We think this leverage ratio will probably be with us for a little while, but we are working to get back to our targeted leverage ratio in the near future.

是的，一點沒錯。因此，我認為，通過優先事項，我們仍然相信我們已經制定的資本配置優先事項，確保我們投資於業務和高增長機會，這顯然是我們的首要任務。接下來是股息支付，當然，還有可用剩餘現金回購股票。你說的槓桿率是對的。現在，我們已經超出了我們的目標。好消息是，這種模式有著產生大量現金流的悠久歷史，而且我們仍然相信，這種優勢將隨著時間的推移而持續下去。我們認為這個槓桿率可能會持續一段時間，但我們正在努力在不久的將來恢復到我們的目標槓桿率。

Our next question comes from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的西蒙·古特曼。

I wanted to first ask around the comps and where they're performing. If you could put it all together and summarize what you attribute to some of the underperformance, too. It does sound like traffic is underlyingly okay and it's just lapping some tickets. Curious how you diagnose or rank pricing, if it's merchandising, anything related to the stores. So how should we think about that?

我想首先詢問一下比賽情況以及他們的表現。如果您能將所有這些放在一起並總結一下您對某些表現不佳的歸因。聽起來交通狀況確實不錯，只是浪費了一些門票。好奇你如何診斷或排名定價，如果是商品推銷，或者與商店相關的任何東西。那麼我們應該如何思考呢？

Yes. Simeon, this is Jeff. What I would say is that when you look at our comps, our opportunities are in driving our in-stock levels inside the store. And that is certainly going to help and we are seeing improvements there. But as we've deployed more labor in the stores and as our supply chain gets more stable, we're going to be able to get much more consistent in the stores. And so I feel really good about the plan on driving continued performance. And I can't underestimate again the labor investment we've made, the signs that we're seeing and, more importantly, that dedicated team that helps a store that might fall off track, get back on track quicker because. That's one of the really exciting things about this model is that we're able to get stores back fast. So I'm pleased with that.

是的。西蒙，這是傑夫。我想說的是，當你看看我們的比較時，我們的機會在於提高店內的庫存水平。這肯定會有所幫助，我們正在看到這方面的改進。但隨著我們在商店中部署了更多的勞動力，並且我們的供應鏈變得更加穩定，我們將能夠在商店中獲得更加一致的服務。因此，我對推動持續績效的計劃感到非常滿意。我不能再低估我們所做的勞動力投資、我們看到的跡象，更重要的是，我們有專門的團隊幫助可能偏離正軌的商店更快地回到正軌，因為。這種模式真正令人興奮的事情之一是我們能夠快速恢復商店。所以我對此很滿意。

But as we think about it, in my experience, this is how the comp will show up. It starts with units. And so I was pleased with our unit share trends and, quite frankly, pleased with unit share gains. And then as units improve, and those generally improve through our in-stock levels and our store standards improving, which we're seeing and our customers saying -- she's seeing it as well, but we have more to do there. It will then -- word of mouth gets out and then traffic will come after that. And then once you see traffic, that's when you really start to see the comps show up. So as Kelly mentioned, we're lapping some significant price increases. But the underlying trends, it starts with units, and then traffic is the next opportunity that I believe the announcement we just announced today with the promotions, specifically around our NCI inventory, we really like what we saw when we've run those this year.

但當我們思考時，根據我的經驗，這就是比較的顯示方式。它從單位開始。因此，我對我們的單位份額趨勢感到滿意，坦率地說，我對單位份額的增長感到滿意。然後，隨著單位的改善，這些通常通過我們的庫存水平和商店標準的提高而改善，我們看到了這一點，我們的客戶也說——她也看到了這一點，但我們還有更多的事情要做。然後它就會——口碑傳播出去，然後交通就會隨之而來。一旦你看到流量，你就真正開始看到競爭出現了。正如凱利提到的，我們正在經歷一些大幅的價格上漲。但潛在的趨勢是從單位開始，然後流量是下一個機會，我相信我們今天剛剛宣布的促銷公告，特別是圍繞我們的 NCI 庫存，我們真的很喜歡今年運行這些產品時所看到的結果。

This isn't something new. This is stuff we've been testing. And so we'll have to wait and see. But as you think about the back half, our customer will be pressured. But as we move into the holiday, we're excited to offer her these values. And she's really shown up and responded very well to them earlier this year. So hopefully, as we look to the back half of this year and into next year, the stability in the store will help us drive continued traffic, and that's one of the metrics we're most focused on improving as we go forward.

這不是什麼新鮮事。這是我們一直在測試的東西。所以我們必須拭目以待。但當你想到後半部分時，我們的客戶就會受到壓力。但當我們進入假期時，我們很高興能為她提供這些價值觀。今年早些時候，她確實出現在了他們的面前，並對他們做出了很好的回應。因此，希望當我們展望今年下半年和明年時，商店的穩定性將幫助我們推動持續的客流量，這是我們未來最關注改進的指標之一。

Fair enough. And then as a follow-up, there's labor investments and you're going to clear some merchandise, it sounds like, in a couple of places. It sounds like the new stores are doing well and the prototypes are great. Just thinking about managing the business from a practicality standpoint. Is slowing stores even a consideration just temporarily so that the leverage is managed properly? Nothing to do about how the stores perform in the out years, but just thinking about balancing the SG&A to make the leverage point a little bit lower.

很公平。然後作為後續行動，有勞動力投資，你將在幾個地方清理一些商品。聽起來新店生意不錯，原型也很棒。只是從實用的角度考慮管理業務。放慢商店速度是否只是暫時的考慮因素，以便妥善管理槓桿？與商店未來幾年的表現無關，只是考慮平衡 SG&A，使槓桿點降低一點。

Simeon, that's a great question. I can tell you, first and foremost, we're focused on returning to operational excellence. And this model is tremendously successful when we're able to do that. And we have a great value proposition with a stable supply chain, with consistency at store level. That generates tremendous operating profit and allows us, quite frankly, the ability to invest back in the business at a rate we're very pleased with. And the new stores, I continue, we're very, very pleased. And we have an opportunity to be first mover and we want to take advantage of that.

西蒙，這是一個很好的問題。我可以告訴你，首先也是最重要的是，我們致力於恢復卓越運營。當我們能夠做到這一點時，這個模型就會取得巨大成功。我們擁有穩定的供應鍊和商店層面的一致性，具有巨大的價值主張。坦率地說，這產生了巨大的營業利潤，並使我們能夠以我們非常滿意的速度對業務進行投資。我繼續說，新店我們非常非常高興。我們有機會成為先行者，我們希望利用這一優勢。

And so we are always balancing, and we will and we'll continue to do that. Because we base everything on returns and return on capital, and that's very important to us. But the nice thing here at Dollar General is, is that we're confident we can return to the operational excellence level that we have accustomed to achieving, and you combine that with a tremendous pipeline for growth that we have, and that recipe is incredibly successful and something that I'm very excited to see as we progress through '23 and '24 and our ability to continue to perform at the levels we're accustomed to performing. So I feel great about the pipeline, and I also feel great about our return to operational excellence.

因此，我們始終在保持平衡，我們將會並且將繼續這樣做。因為我們一切都基於回報和資本回報，這對我們來說非常重要。但 Dollar General 的好處是，我們有信心能夠恢復到我們習慣於實現的卓越運營水平，並將其與我們擁有的巨大增長渠道結合起來，這個秘訣令人難以置信成功，我很高興看到我們在23 和24 年取得進展，並且我們有能力繼續以我們習慣的水平表現。因此，我對管道感覺很好，對我們恢復卓越運營也感覺很好。

Our next question comes from Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自魯佩什·帕里克和奧本海默。

So I wanted to go back to the commentary on the $170 million of investments. I was curious what you view as more onetime in nature versus permanent.

所以我想回到對 1.7 億美元投資的評論。我很好奇你認為本質上是一次性的還是永久的。

Yes, Rupesh, I'll start and Kelly -- but certainly, we've said this before, we believe these investments are going to accelerate our progress. I think as you look at the investments, when we look at reducing inventory, we've made progress on our inventory. It will make it even better. We're impressed with the, as I said before, the test we've run around this. So certainly on the inventory side, I don't think that you'll see us having to do that as we look forward. But certainly, the labor, as you think about the labor, that is certainly something that is going to be embedded and permanent in our model and we like the returns that we're seeing. I think that's the key point there.

是的，魯佩什，我和凱利開始 - 但當然，我們之前已經說過，我們相信這些投資將加速我們的進步。我認為，當你看看投資時，當我們考慮減少庫存時，我們在庫存方面取得了進展。這會讓事情變得更好。正如我之前所說，我們對此進行的測試給我們留下了深刻的印象。因此，當然在庫存方面，我認為您不會看到我們必須像我們期待的那樣這樣做。但當然，當你想到勞動力時，勞動力肯定會被嵌入並永久地嵌入我們的模型中，我們喜歡我們所看到的回報。我認為這是關鍵點。

And the other investments are investing in the ability to really be more efficient long term. Specifically, as you think about the demand forecasting tool that we're investing in, that, we believe, will have a tremendous opportunity to make our working capital even more efficient. And over the next, call it, 12 to 18 months, we believe we will be able to pull out meaningful inventory. I mean, ballpark $500 million or more. And we're very, very excited about how all that's going to play throughout the P&L.

其他投資是投資於真正提高長期效率的能力。具體來說，當你想到我們正在投資的需求預測工具時，我們相信，這將有巨大的機會使我們的營運資金更加高效。在接下來的 12 到 18 個月內，我們相信我們將能夠拿出有意義的庫存。我的意思是，大約 5 億美元或更多。我們對於這一切將如何在損益表中發揮作用感到非常非常興奮。

Great. And then maybe just one follow-up question. So the guidance range is much wider going forward for the annual guide. Just curious what's driving those and just your confidence in being able to deliver within this range.

偉大的。然後也許只是一個後續問題。因此，年度指南的指導範圍要廣泛得多。只是好奇是什麼推動了這些，以及您對能夠在這個範圍內交付的信心。

We have a high confidence level that we're going to deliver in this range. And really, the width is around the sales piece primarily, Rupesh. And just how quickly the customers are going to respond to the actions that we're taking. I mean, we feel good about getting back to operational excellence, that we're doing all the right actions and taking all the right actions that we need to take. And it will just be a function of her response to us. But we'll be ready, and we think after a couple of quarters we'll be back to it in 2024.

我們對在這個範圍內交付的產品充滿信心。事實上，寬度主要圍繞銷售件，Rupesh。以及客戶對我們正在採取的行動做出反應的速度有多快。我的意思是，我們對恢復卓越運營感到高興，我們正在採取所有正確的行動，並採取我們需要採取的所有正確行動。這只是她對我們的反應的函數。但我們會做好準備，我們認為幾個季度後我們將在 2024 年回到這個狀態。

Our final question comes from Paul Lejuez with Citi.

我們的最後一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Paul Lejuez。

Curious, what was the inflation impact in 2Q versus 1Q? And what are your expectations for inflation in 3Q and 4Q and the consumables business specifically? And just how has that changed versus how you were thinking 3 months ago? And then just one clarification. I'm sorry if I missed it, but are you expecting a positive comp in 4Q? And I'm just curious what your transaction versus ticket assumptions are around that.

好奇，第二季度與第一季度相比，通脹有何影響？您對三季度、四季度的通脹以及消費品業務有何預期？與您 3 個月前的想法相比，這有何變化？然後只有一項澄清。如果我錯過了，我很抱歉，但是您期待第四季度的積極表現嗎？我只是好奇你的交易與門票假設是圍繞這一點的。

Yes. So starting with inflation, certainly much less than we saw last year. So inflation over the front half of the year has been about 1.5%. Right now, we expect it to be pretty similar as we go into Q3 and Q4. On the comp piece of that in the sales for Q4, we're certainly expecting it to be better than Q3. It could be positive and we'll just see how this customer reacts to what we're doing.

是的。因此，從通貨膨脹開始，肯定比我們去年看到的要少得多。因此，今年上半年的通脹率約為1.5%。目前，我們預計第三季度和第四季度的情況將非常相似。從第四季度的銷售情況來看，我們當然預計它會比第三季度更好。這可能是積極的，我們將看看該客戶對我們正在做的事情有何反應。

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Jeff Owen for closing comments.

我們的問答環節已經結束。我現在想將電話轉給傑夫·歐文以徵求結束意見。

Thank you for all the questions, and thanks for your interest in Dollar General. If I could summarize our discussion today, I'd like to leave you with this. We've had our share of challenges in recent quarters and some of those have been self-inflicted, but the actions that we're taking in response are gaining traction and we're making good progress against our goals. We're taking key steps in making investments to accelerate our progress over the back half of the year as we look to drive sales and lower our cost to serve while solidifying the foundation for growth in 2024 and beyond. We have a tremendously strong foundation and an incredibly bright future and a strong track record of doing what we say we're going to do. And we believe we are well positioned to do so again.

感謝您提出所有問題，也感謝您對 Dollar General 的興趣。如果我可以總結一下我們今天的討論，我想就此結束。最近幾個季度我們遇到了一些挑戰，其中一些是我們自己造成的，但我們為應對而採取的行動正在獲得關注，並且我們在實現目標方面取得了良好進展。我們正在採取關鍵的投資措施，以加快下半年的進展，因為我們希望推動銷售並降低服務成本，同時鞏固 2024 年及以後的增長基礎。我們擁有極其堅實的基礎和令人難以置信的光明未來，並且在履行我們承諾的事情方面擁有良好的記錄。我們相信我們有能力再次這樣做。

Before we sign off, I want to again express that our hearts are with the victims, their families and the community of Jacksonville. We are proud of our Dollar General family, we're coming together to support each other and our customers during this difficult time.

在我們結束之前，我想再次表示，我們的心與受害者、他們的家人和傑克遜維爾社區同在。我們為 Dollar General 家族感到自豪，在這個困難時期，我們齊心協力互相支持，並支持我們的客戶。

Thank you again for joining us this morning.

再次感謝您今天早上加入我們。

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.

今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路，我們感謝您的參與。