快扣 (FAST) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Greetings and welcome to the Fastenal Company 2021 Second Quarter Earnings Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Taylor Ranta of the Fastenal Company. Thank you. Please go ahead.

各位來賓，歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2021 年第二季財報業績電話會議。（操作說明）提醒各位，本次會議正在錄音。現在我很高興為大家介紹主持人，來自 Fastenal 公司的 Taylor Ranta。謝謝。請繼續。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2021 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. This call will be hosted by Dan Florness, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Holden Lewis, our Chief Financial Officer. The call will last for up to 1 hour, and we'll start with a general overview of our quarterly results and operations with the remainder of the time being open for questions and answers. Today's conference call is a proprietary Fastenal presentation and is being recorded by Fastenal. No recording, reproduction, transmission or distribution of today's call is permitted without Fastenal's consent. This call is being audio simulcast on the Internet via the Fastenal Investor Relations homepage, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until September 1, 2021, at midnight Central Time.

歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2021 年第二季財報電話會議。本次電話會議將由我們的總裁兼執行長丹·弗洛內斯和我們的財務長霍爾頓·劉易斯主持。本次電話會議時長最多為 1 小時，我們將首先概述季度業績和營運情況，剩餘時間將用於問答環節。今天的電話會議是 Fastenal 的專有演示，並由 Fastenal 進行錄音。未經 Fastenal 同意，不得對今天的通話進行任何錄音、複製、傳輸或分發。本次電話會議將透過 Fastenal 投資者關係主頁 investor.fastenal.com 在網路上進行音訊同步直播。網路直播的回放將在網站上提供，直至2021年9月1日中部時間午夜。

As a reminder, today's conference call may include statements regarding the company's futures -- future plans and prospects. These statements are based on our current expectations, and we undertake no duty to update them. It is important to note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from anticipated results are contained in the company's latest earnings release and periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and we encourage you to review those factors carefully.

提醒各位，今天的電話會議可能涉及公司未來的計劃和前景等相關聲明。這些聲明是基於我們目前的預期，我們不承擔更新這些聲明的義務。值得注意的是，公司的實際業績可能與預期業績有重大差異。可能導致實際結果與預期結果不同的因素已包含在公司最新的收益報告和定期向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中，我們建議您仔細閱讀這些因素。

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Dan Florness.

現在我將把電話交給丹‧弗洛內斯先生。

Thanks, Taylor, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining our second quarter earnings call.

謝謝泰勒，大家早安，感謝各位參加我們第二季財報電話會議。

Similar to the last 5 quarters, we're just going to start with a few stats on our COVID experience. So to date, we've had 1,950 cases of COVID-19 among our employee base. So about 9.5% of our employees have contracted the virus over the last 5 quarters. Looking at it from a pattern standpoint and as we've discussed in previous quarters, our worst quarter was the fourth quarter of 2020 -- November of 2020 was our worst month. But in the fourth quarter, we averaged about 60 cases per week. In the first quarter of 2021, that dropped to 44. In the second quarter, that dropped to 20 cases per week, and I'm pleased to say, in the month of June, we averaged 8 cases per week. They had about 30 cases throughout the company. So very good patterns. Not unlike what we're seeing, generally speaking, in society, especially in the countries in which the bulk of our employees are located.

與過去五個季度類似，我們將首先介紹一些關於我們應對新冠疫情的統計數據。截至目前，我們員工中已有 1950 例新冠肺炎病例。因此，在過去的五個季度中，我們約有 9.5% 的員工感染了病毒。從模式的角度來看，正如我們在前幾個季度討論的那樣，我們最糟糕的季度是 2020 年第四季——2020 年 11 月是我們最糟糕的月份。但第四季度，我們平均每週約有 60 例。2021年第一季度，這一數字下降到44。第二季度，這一數字下降到每週 20 例，我很高興地說，6 月份，我們平均每週新增 8 例。公司裡大約有 30 例這樣的案例。非常好的圖案。總的來說，這與我們目前在社會上，尤其是在我們大部分員工所在的國家所看到的情況非常相似。

If I -- one of the things that should jump out at a reader of our earnings release or in some of the commentary, one of the struggles that we are seeing that is not unique to Fastenal, I suspect most companies will cite this, is a difficulty in the hiring on the addition of people as we're reemerging from the shutdown economy of 2020 and the first part of 2021. And there's, I think, 3 distinct subsets that drive it, at least in our case.

如果我——讀者在閱讀我們的收益報告或一些評論時應該會注意到的一件事，也是我們看到的一個難題（這並非 Fastenal 獨有，我懷疑大多數公司都會提到這一點），就是在我們逐漸從 2020 年和 2021 年上半年的經濟停擺中復蘇之際，招聘和增加員工方面遇到了困難。我認為，至少在我們這裡，有三個不同的子集在驅動它。

As you all know, historically, we are a promote-from-within culture, and we believe in starting early on a person's career on that promote-from-within culture. And we hire a lot of part-time employees. And those part-time employees, a very high percentage of those employees are full-time students. And we think of it as -- in most cases, in a perfect world, you're not hiring a part-time employee, you're hiring a future full-time employee.

眾所周知，我們歷來奉行內部晉升的文化，我們相信應該在員工職涯的早期就培養這種內部晉升的文化。我們僱用了很多兼職員工。而且這些兼職員工中，有很大一部分是全職學生。我們認為，在大多數情況下，在理想情況下，你僱用的不是兼職員工，而是未來的全職員工。

And we provide a tremendous amount of flexibility to folks earlier in their career. We focus very acutely on 4-year state colleges, and 2-year technical colleges. And so in a period where schools are closed and people are studying remotely, a big chunk of our recruiting base has vaporized from the areas that we traditionally approach, and that has created some challenges for us. I'm pleased to say those challenges have lessened over time, but they're still pretty acute.

我們為處於職業生涯早期的人員提供了極大的靈活性。我們專注於四年制州立大學和兩年制技術學院。因此，在學校關閉、人們遠距學習的這段時間裡，我們傳統上接觸的地區很大一部分招募對像都消失了，這給我們帶來了一些挑戰。我很高興地說，隨著時間的推移，這些挑戰有所減輕，但它們仍然相當嚴峻。

A fair number of our part-time employees, especially in our distribution centers, a lot of them, we represent a second job. I heard an example the other day of individuals that had pulled back their hours with us because they hold a second job because they have a child and college. It's a great way to earn extra money. We're incredibly flexible with employees on scheduling. But their employer has gone to mandatory overtime and so they just don't have the hours to work for us. So that's creating some challenges.

我們相當一部分兼職員工，尤其是在我們的配送中心，對他們來說，這相當於一份第二份工作。前幾天我聽到一個例子，有些人因為要照顧孩子和供孩子上大學，所以不得不兼職第二份工作，從而減少了在我們這裡的工作時間。這是賺取額外收入的好方法。我們在員工排班方面非常靈活。但是他們的雇主實施強制加班，所以他們沒有足夠的工時為我們工作。所以這就帶來了一些挑戰。

The third -- and this is more across when I think of generally speaking, our branch and Onsite network. We are seeing some geographic biases in the numbers as far as country by country and state by state in the United States, depending on how open or close the society is, what impediments there are to hiring from the standpoint of public policy. We are seeing some patterns there. We are seeing no meaningful pattern from a racial perspective of hiring. The progress we've made over the last decade, we continue to see that throughout the business.

第三點－從整體來看，這一點更適用於我們的分公司和現場網路。我們看到，就國家和美國各州而言，這些數字存在一些地域性偏差，這取決於社會的開放程度或封閉程度，以及從公共政策的角度來看，招募有哪些障礙。我們發現了一些規律。從種族角度來看，我們並沒有發現招募方面有任何有意義的模式。過去十年我們所取得的進步，在整個業務領域都持續體現。

Where we have seen a stark weakness, and I talked about this in our April Annual Meeting is on the gender side. We've seen the application side of the business during 2020, and this has continued in 2021, our female applications are down about 1/3 from what we've seen in recent years. And we've seen worse than historical patterns as far as turnover. In an environment where society is shut down and a lot of schools and daycares closed, we've seen a dramatic impact, and that's fallen largely on the female portion of our employee base and our potential employee base, and we're making efforts to improve that, but they're difficult. And -- but with that, I'll switch over to the flipbook.

我們發現一個明顯的弱點，我在四月的年度會議上也談到了這一點，那就是性別方面。2020 年我們已經看到了業務申請方面的情況，這種情況在 2021 年仍在繼續，我們的女性申請人數比近年來的申請人數下降了約三分之一。就人員流動而言，我們看到的情況比歷史平均還要糟糕。在社會停擺、許多學校和托兒所關閉的環境下，我們看到了巨大的影響，這主要影響到我們的員工群體和潛在員工群體中的女性，我們正在努力改善這種情況，但這很困難。那麼——接下來，我要切換到翻頁書了。

Sales to manufacturing and construction customers grew 21.5% in the second quarter. There was, as expected, a fall off in the pandemic-related sales, frankly a good thing and -- which resulted in an overall flat sales performance from a year-over-year basis. I believe we continue to manage costs really well. I'm so impressed with the team throughout Fastenal and our ability to manage expenses well. We did have some resets and Holden talks to that in the earnings release. Branch and Onsite, our incentive comp, there's a reset going on there because a year ago, a lot of customers were idled or shut down. And a lot of our surge business was direct container shipments or -- not container ship, excuse me, direct pallet and truckload shipments. And so it was a different cost structure. So I'm pleased to say our branch and Onsite business is coming back in a resounding fashion, and we're paying people for that.

第二季度，面向製造業和建築業客戶的銷售額成長了 21.5%。正如預期的那樣，與疫情相關的銷售額有所下降，坦白說，這是一件好事，而且——這使得整體銷售業績與去年同期持平。我認為我們繼續很好地控制了成本。我對 Fastenal 的整個團隊以及我們良好的費用控制能力印象深刻。我們確實進行了一些調整，霍頓在財報發表會上也談到了這一點。分行和現場的激勵薪酬方案正在進行調整，因為一年前，許多客戶都處於停滯或關閉狀態。我們許多激增的業務都是直接貨櫃運輸，或者——抱歉，不是貨櫃船，而是直接托盤和整車運輸。因此，其成本結構有所不同。所以我很高興地告訴大家，我們的分行和現場業務正在強勁復甦，我們也為此支付了員工薪資。

We're also seeing an incredible reset in the health care. I believe health care expenses were up about 25% this quarter. And that's really a function of -- we're self-insured when it comes to health care. People weren't using it a year ago. They're using it now. So we're seeing a reset there. Where we're seeing some partial resets on things like travel. In the -- our airfare was up about tenfold from second quarter 2020 to second quarter 2021. Now before you read anything into that, that that's meaningful, we're still 82% below where we were in 2019. We don't know ultimately where that number settles on. The number I've challenged our team with is with some of the technology tools we have in our -- and some cultural changes as far as working from a distance and communicating from a distance, I do believe that 30% to 40% reduction is an achievable number. And time will tell if that -- if I'm correct or I'm full of it. But I believe it's something that will be achievable. Right now, we're about 80% down.

我們也看到醫療保健領域正在發生巨大的變化。我認為本季醫療保健支出增加了約 25%。這其實是因為我們在醫療保健方面實行的是自保制度。一年前人們還不使用它。他們現在正在使用它。所以我們看到那裡正在經歷一次重置。我們看到旅行等領域出現了一些部分調整。——我們的機票價格從 2020 年第二季到 2021 年第二季上漲了大約十倍。在你對此做出任何解讀之前，不要以為這有什麼意義，我們仍然比 2019 年的水平低 82%。我們最終無法確定這個數字會是多少。我向團隊提出的挑戰是，憑藉我們現有的一些技術工具，以及在遠距辦公和遠端溝通方面做出的一些文化改變，我相信減少 30% 到 40% 是一個可以實現的數字。時間會證明一切——我是對的還是在胡說八道。但我相信這是可以實現的。目前，我們的虧損約為 80%。

Price actions to date have largely matched cost increases. There's a ton of inflation going on. There's inflation because of disruption and shipping, i.e., the cost of moving a container and this is pretty public information, so I don't need to cite figures, but it's gotten really expensive to move a container across the ocean. And it takes a longer time than it did 12 and 18 and 24 months ago because of all the congestion at the ports. And so massive inflation going on. We've been largely able to move with that. The higher gross margin we experienced is really about product mix. The fact that the organization is moving more product and more stuff going through our manufacturing. There's a utilization of the corporate overhead organizational leverage going on. And within the safety product category, there's a meaningful shift in customer mix. And when you're shipping truckloads of product versus pieces of product, the gross margin profile is different, and we're seeing that play through in the numbers.

迄今為止，價格走勢基本上與成本上漲保持一致。現在通貨膨脹非常嚴重。由於運輸中斷和運輸成本上漲，導致通貨膨脹，也就是貨櫃運輸成本上漲，這已經是公開資訊了，所以我不需要引用具體數字，但是跨洋運輸貨櫃的成本確實變得非常高。由於港口擁堵，現在所需時間比 12 個月、18 個月和 24 個月前要長。因此，大規模通貨膨脹正在發生。我們基本上能夠適應這種情況。我們所獲得的較高毛利率其實是產品組合的優點。事實是，公司正在銷售更多產品，而且有更多產品需要經過我們的生產線。這裡正在利用企業管理資源的組織槓桿作用。在安全產品類別中，客戶組成也發生了顯著變化。當你運送的是整車產品而不是零散產品時，毛利率情況就不同了，我們已經從數據中看到了這一點。

The final point talks -- and I see the team put it in here a few times, the conversation, I think it's on both pages, about our digital footprint. I guess they want to make sure Dan don't screw up and miss it. But if you think about the digital footprint we're talking about, so about 42% of our sales are part of what we call our digital footprint. It starts with FMI. And in FMI, there's a device component and there's a mobility component. The device component is our vending machines that we've talked about for the last decade. It also includes in growing importance over the last 12 to 15 months, our digitally enhanced, our technology-enhanced bins where the bins tell us when they're hungry, just like the vending machine tells us when its hungry and needs to be fed. And so about 21% or so -- 22% of our business is going through one of those devices.

最後一點是關於我們的數位足蹟的討論——我看到團隊在這裡多次提到這一點，我認為在兩頁上都有提及。我想他們是想確保丹不會搞砸，錯過機會。但如果你想想我們正在談論的數位足跡，那麼我們大約 42% 的銷售額都屬於我們所謂的數位足跡。一切都始於FMI。在FMI中，既有設備組件，也有移動組件。設備組件就是我們過去十年一直在討論的自動販賣機。在過去的 12 到 15 個月裡，我們數位化增強型、技術增強型垃圾桶的重要性也日益凸顯，這些垃圾桶會告訴我們它們什麼時候“餓了”，就像自動售貨機告訴我們它什麼時候“餓了”需要“餵食”一樣。因此，我們大約 21% 到 22% 的業務都是透過這些設備進行的。

Another about 10% is going through what we call FAST Stock, and that's where -- the mobility that we've deployed, we're out there scanning bins. And that's really about a productivity play in the short term, but I believe an ability to grow faster in the long term. And on Page 7 -- excuse me, Page 4 in the earnings release, Holden has a great table in there that lays out the FMI pieces, the devices as well as the FAST Stock.

還有大約 10% 的商品正在經歷我們所謂的 FAST Stock 流程，也就是我們部署的行動技術，我們會到現場掃描貨架。短期內這確實是為了提高生產力，但我相信從長遠來看，這有利於更快地成長。在收益報告的第 7 頁（抱歉，應該是第 4 頁）上，霍爾頓有一張很棒的表格，列出了 FMI 的各個組成部分、設備以及 FAST 股票。

The third piece is looking at e-com, and that's growing quite dramatically, and I'll touch on more of that in a second. But about 10% of that is outside the FMI world. So you add those 3 pieces together, about 42% of our sales is now digitally connected. And the vast majority of that is where it's FMI and the importance of FMI, the goal shouldn't be an easier way to order. The goal should be if it's recurring business, why the heck are you ordering it? And why don't you have a partner that supplies it when you need it? And that's what we endeavor to be, a great supply chain partner for our customers.

第三部分著重於電子商務，它發展迅猛，我稍後會詳細介紹。但其中約有 10% 位於 FMI 領域之外。把這三部分加起來，我們目前約有 42% 的銷售額是透過數位化管道實現的。而絕大多數情況下，這都與FMI（食品資訊管理）以及FMI的重要性有關，目標不應該是讓訂購變得更容易。如果是重複性業務，那麼你到底為什麼要訂購它？為什麼你們沒有合作夥伴在需要時提供這種產品呢？而這正是我們努力的目標：成為客戶優秀的供應鏈夥伴。

Flipping to Page 4 of the book, pleased to say our Onsite signings ticked up again in the second quarter of '21. We had 87 signings. That's our best quarter since COVID started. And of equal importance, it's about participation, how many of our district business units are signing in Onsite. We had 30% of our district business units sign an Onsite. We haven't been north of 30% since the first quarter of in 2020. So not only are the numbers strong, it's broadly dispersed across our business, so there's great participation. We ended the quarter with 1,323 active sites, just over 9% increase from second quarter last year. And our daily sales in the Onsite business grew just over 25%. So very, very strong performance there, and it's improving. And that builds upon our ability to engage with our customers and grow the business long term.

翻到本書第 4 頁，令人欣慰的是，我們的現場簽約量在 2021 年第二季再次上升。我們一共簽了87名球員。這是新冠疫情爆發以來我們業績最好的一個季度。同樣重要的是參與度，我們地區有多少業務部門註冊了 Onsite 服務。我們地區 30% 的業務部門簽署了現場服務協議。自 2020 年第一季以來，我們的成長率就從未超過 30%。因此，不僅數字強勁，而且分佈在我們業務的各個方面，參與度很高。本季末，我們共有 1323 個活躍站點，比去年第二季成長了 9% 以上。我們的現場業務日銷售額成長了 25% 以上。所以，那方面表現非常非常出色，而且還在持續進步中。這有助於我們與客戶建立聯繫，並實現業務的長期成長。

FMI, I touched on that yesterday -- or excuse me, on the last slide, and I did touch on it yesterday with the board. That's a different matter. There's 5,843 devices. That's a weighted number signed in the second quarter. That's 91 per day. Similar to Onsite, a nice improving strong performance. Our ending installed base was up just over 9% from June of last year. And if you look at it, and I'm going to flip to some points on that table on Page 4 of the earnings release. So sales through the devices are up 40.4%. Sales through FAST Stock is up 148%. And you combine the 2 together, FMI grew 61.4%. Really excited about what we have going there as far as momentum. E-commerce, 53% increase. Large customer-oriented EDI was up 51%. That's about the economy. That's about strengthening of our existing customer base, and we're seeing it happen play out right there.

FMI，我昨天提到過這一點——或者更準確地說，是在最後一張幻燈片上，而且我昨天也和董事會討論過這個問題。那是另一回事。共有 5,843 台設備。這是第二季簽署的加權數字。那就是每天91個。與 Onsite 類似，效能提升顯著。截至6月底，我們的裝機量比去年6月成長了9%多一點。如果你看一下，我接下來要翻到收益報告第 4 頁的表格中，看看其中的一些要點。因此，透過這些設備實現的銷售額成長了 40.4%。透過 FAST Stock 實現的銷售額成長了 148%。兩者結合起來，FMI 成長了 61.4%。就目前的發展勢頭而言，我真的非常興奮。電子商務成長53%。大型客戶導向 EDI 成長了 51%。那是關於經濟的。這關乎鞏固我們現有的客戶基礎，而我們正親眼見證這一幕的發生。

When I look at web sales being up 61%, that's about habits changing. That's about how our customers are engaging with us. So 2 dynamics going on, both very positive from the standpoint of how our customer is engaging with us and how is our underlying customer doing starts business.

看到網路銷售額成長了 61%，我認為這說明人們的習慣發生了改變。這就是我們的客戶如何與我們互動的問題。所以目前有兩種動態，從客戶與我們互動的方式以及我們現有客戶的業務發展來看，這兩種動態都非常積極。

I'm going to skip the digital footprint since I covered that pretty thoroughly already. And flipping to Page 5, this is a new table. I believe Holden plans to have it in here in this quarter. I suspect next quarter, maybe fourth quarter, but -- it's really doing a quick snapshot of understanding if we ignore the noise of COVID-19 for a second and just say, what did our business do in the second quarter of 2019, what did it do in the second quarter of 2021, some things that stand out. Our margin is down about 40 basis points in that period. And that's about the shift that we've talked about in prior quarters of our business to more of an Onsite. A higher proportion of our business being Onsite, where it's a larger customer, larger transaction, better expense leverage. And you see that expense leverage play out in the operating administrative expenses being down 140 basis points in that same time period. So our operating income is up 100 basis points.

我已經非常詳盡地介紹過數位足跡，所以這裡就不贅述了。翻到第 5 頁，這是一張新表格。我相信霍頓計劃在本季將其引入市場。我懷疑會在下個季度，也許是第四個季度，但是——如果我們暫時忽略 COVID-19 的噪音，快速了解一下我們的業務在 2019 年第二季度做了什麼，在 2021 年第二季度做了什麼，有哪些突出的事情，這實際上就是在做一個快速的概覽。在此期間，我們的利潤率下降了約 40 個基點。這就是我們在前幾個季度討論過的，業務向更多現場服務模式轉變的趨勢。我們業務中現場服務的比例越來越高，客戶規模更大，交易額更大，費用控制也更有利。可以看到，在同一時期，營運管理費用下降了 140 個基點，這反映了費用槓桿效應。因此，我們的營業收入成長了100個基點。

Pleased to say we had great incremental margin of about 31% in that time frame. And with that -- and we generated good cash.

令人欣慰的是，我們在這段期間實現了約 31% 的顯著增量利潤。就這樣，我們賺了不少錢。

With that, I'll turn it over to Holden.

這樣，我就把麥克風交給霍爾頓了。

Great. Thanks, Dan. So turning to Slide 6. As indicated, our sales were basically flat in the second quarter of 2021. I think everybody understands the dynamics at play here, about $350 million to $360 million in surge business from last year did not repeat, and that was offset by a significant rebound in demand from our traditional manufacturing construction customers and to a lesser degree, new sales to customers that had never bought from Fastenal prior to the pandemic. Our fastener products grew 28.4% and best represent the strength of our underlying business conditions. If we were to adjust out the impact of surge sales, we believe that safety and other products would have grown at a level that's comparable to our fastener growth.

偉大的。謝謝你，丹。接下來請看第 6 張投影片。如圖所示，我們在 2021 年第二季的銷售額基本上持平。我認為大家都明白這裡的情況，去年約 3.5 億至 3.6 億美元的激增業務沒有重現，但這被我們傳統製造建築客戶需求的顯著反彈所抵消，而且在較小程度上，疫情之前從未從 Fastenal 購買過產品的新客戶也帶來了新的銷售額。我們的緊固件產品成長了 28.4%，最能反映我們穩健的業務狀況。如果剔除銷售激增的影響，我們相信安全產品和其他產品的成長水準將與緊固件的成長水準相當。

Manufacturing and particularly heavy manufacturing, is exhibiting broad strength. And in the case of both manufacturing and nonresidential construction, sequential quarterly growth in the period exceeded historical norms. Combined with access to customers that is approaching pre-pandemic levels, as evidenced by our improved Onsite and FMI signings in the second quarter of 2021, our outlook remains positive.

製造業，特別是重工業，展現出強勁的成長動能。無論是製造業還是非住宅建築業，該時期的季度環比增長率均超過了歷史平均水平。結合我們客戶數量的成長（從 2021 年第二季現場服務和 FMI 簽約量的改善可以看出），我們的客戶數量正在接近疫情前的水平，因此我們的前景依然樂觀。

It's also worth highlighting that while government sales were down 63% in the second quarter of 2021, they were up 37% versus the second quarter of 2019. We had similar dynamics play out with certain large customers. We continue to believe that we gained market share during the pandemic.

值得一提的是，雖然 2021 年第二季政府銷售額下降了 63%，但與 2019 年第二季相比成長了 37%。我們與某些大客戶也遇到類似的情況。我們仍然相信，在疫情期間我們獲得了市場份額。

Now to Slide 7. Operating margin in the second quarter of 2021 was 21.1%, up 20 basis points. Gross margin was 46.5% in the second quarter of 2021, up 200 basis points versus the second quarter of 2020. Our safety product margin improved on a combination of mix as lower-margin COVID affected PPE mix retreated to pre-pandemic levels and a recovery in pricing as the market has normalized. We leveraged overhead costs on an improvement in volumes and favorable rebates, which is a combination of lower rebates to certain customers that were heavy surge buyers in 2020 and our own purchasing of key products improving versus 2020. Product mix, specifically growth of fasteners versus non-fasteners, was also a significant contributor to the growth and was a significant factor in gross margin outperforming our expectations for the period.

現在來看第 7 張投影片。 2021 年第二季的營業利益率為 21.1%，成長了 20 個基點。2021 年第二季毛利率為 46.5%，較 2020 年第二季成長 200 個基點。由於利潤率較低的受新冠疫情影響的個人防護裝備產品組合回落到疫情前水平，以及市場正常化後價格回升，我們的安全產品利潤率有所提高。我們利用銷售成長和有利的回扣降低了管理費用，這得益於 2020 年大量採購的某些客戶的回扣減少，以及我們自身對關鍵產品的採購量較 2020 年有所改善。產品組合，特別是緊固件相對於非緊固件的成長，也是成長的重要貢獻因素，也是毛利率超出我們預期的重要因素。

Our pricing actions largely match inflation we are seeing in the marketplace and price cost did not meaningfully affect gross margin in the second quarter of 2021. The increase in gross margin was partly offset by operating expenses growing faster than sales. In the second quarter of 2020, in response to the onset of the pandemic, we took certain proactive steps to reduce costs. Certain costs naturally declined in result of the weak business and a large portion of our surge sales went direct as opposed to through our branches, which is a very low labor intensity source of revenue.

我們的定價策略與市場上的通貨膨脹基本一致，價格成本在 2021 年第二季並未對毛利率產生實質影響。毛利率的成長部分被營運費用成長速度超過銷售額成長速度所抵銷。2020 年第二季度，為因應疫情的爆發，我們採取了一些積極主動的措施來降低成本。由於業務疲軟，某些成本自然下降，而且我們激增的銷售額很大一部分是直接銷售，而不是透過我們的分支機構銷售，而分支機構是勞動密集度非常低的收入來源。

In response to improving conditions in the second quarter of 2021, these situations reversed. Our headcount remains under control but is appropriately ticking up as demand recovers at our branches. Further, incentive compensation was up almost 20% and health care costs were up 25%. Travel expenses are growing strongly off very easy comparisons as the economy fully opens. Fuel costs are rising sharply. As we indicated last quarter, deleveraging operating expenses in the second quarter of 2021 is a function of anniversary-ing the first periods of pandemic-related cost savings measures, combined with a strongly recovering marketplace. Setting aside these optics, however, we believe the organization continues to manage costs well. If you put it all together, we reported second quarter 2021 earnings per share of $0.42, which is flat versus $0.42 in the first quarter -- I'm sorry, the second quarter of 2020.

隨著 2021 年第二季情況的改善，這些情況發生了逆轉。我們的員工人數仍維持在可控範圍內，但隨著各分行需求的恢復，員工人數也適當地增加。此外，激勵性薪酬上漲了近 20%，醫療保健成本上漲了 25%。隨著經濟全面開放，旅遊支出在相對較低的基數基礎上強勁成長。燃油成本正在大幅上漲。正如我們上個季度所指出的，2021 年第二季度營運支出的下降，是由於與疫情相關的成本節約措施的第一個時期即將結束，再加上市場強勁復甦。撇開這些表面現像不談，我們認為組織在成本控制方面仍然做得很好。綜合來看，我們公佈的 2021 年第二季每股收益為 0.42 美元，與第一季（抱歉，是 2020 年第二季）的 0.42 美元持平。

Now turning to Slide 8. Operating cash flow was $172 million in the second quarter of 2021. This is down 32% annually and was 71.5% of net income. Now recall that in the second quarter of 2020, pandemic-related legislation allowed us to defer 2 tax payments into the third quarter of 2020. That deferral was not available to us in the second quarter of 2021, and we made those 2 payments as we historically have. The better way to think about cash generation is by considering that in the 5 years from 2015 to 2019, our second quarter cash conversion averaged 63.5%. Against this, we were pleased with our cash generation in the second quarter.

現在來看第 8 張投影片。 2021 年第二季的經營現金流為 1.72 億美元。這比上年下降了 32%，佔淨收入的 71.5%。請記住，在 2020 年第二季度，與疫情相關的立法允許我們將 2 筆稅款延期至 2020 年第三季繳納。2021 年第二季度，我們無法獲得延期付款，因此我們像往常一樣支付了這兩筆款項。思考現金流的更好方法是考慮到，在 2015 年至 2019 年的 5 年裡，我們第二季的現金轉換率平均為 63.5%。相比之下，我們對第二季的現金流狀況感到滿意。

Year-over-year, accounts receivable was up 3.1%. Though sales were flattish, the shift away from PPE surge buyers last year and toward traditional buyers this year blended up our days outstanding. Inventory was down 5.3%, and there's a lot of moving pieces here. A part of this is due to the difficulty in getting sufficient imported products, although our hub inventory deficit has not widened meaningfully versus where it was in the first quarter of 2021 as we are finding domestic sources of product. However, the decrease also reflects deliberate efforts to clean out slow-moving hub and branch inventory, branch closures and the shift in our stocking focus in the field. We believe these represent improvements in our working capital that will be sustained.

與上年同期相比，應收帳款成長了3.1%。儘管銷售額基本上持平，但去年個人防護裝備激增的買家轉向今年的傳統買家，導致我們的銷售表現下滑。庫存下降了 5.3%，而且這裡面有很多變數。部分原因是進口產品供應不足，儘管由於我們正在尋找國內產品來源，我們的樞紐庫存缺口與 2021 年第一季相比並沒有顯著擴大。然而，這一下降也反映了我們為清理滯銷的樞紐和分支機構庫存、關閉分支機構以及我們在現場庫存重點的轉變而做出的刻意努力。我們相信這些改善將使我們的營運資金狀況得以維持。

Net capital spending in the second quarter of 2021 was $32 million, down from $38 million in the first quarter of 2020. This was largely from lower FMI hardware spend, which is a product of lower signings over the past 12 months and greater refurbishment of FMI equipment. Our 2021 net capital spending range is unchanged at $170 million to $200 million, and we're tracking in the lower half of this range at this time.

2021 年第二季淨資本支出為 3,200 萬美元，低於 2020 年第一季的 3,800 萬美元。這主要是由於 FMI 硬體支出減少，而這又是過去 12 個月簽約量減少和 FMI 設備翻新量增加的結果。我們 2021 年的淨資本支出範圍保持不變，為 1.7 億美元至 2 億美元，目前我們正朝著該範圍的下半部分推進。

We returned cash to shareholders in the quarter in the form of $161 million in dividend. And from a liquidity standpoint, we finished the second quarter with net debt at 2.5% of total capital, down from 6.4% in the year ago period and 5.1% versus the fourth quarter of 2020. Essentially, all of our revolver remains available for use.

本季我們以股息的形式向股東返還了 1.61 億美元。從流動性角度來看，第二季末淨負債佔總資本的 2.5%，低於去年同期的 6.4%，也低於 2020 年第四季的 5.1%。基本上，我們所有的左輪手槍仍然可以正常使用。

Now before moving to Q&A, I wanted to update a few subjects of current interest. First, we continue to experience significant cost inflation, particularly for steel, fuel and transportation. In the second quarter of 2021, price contributed 80 to 110 basis points to growth. This largely tracked our increase in costs and the impact of price cost on margin was immaterial. Cost pressures remain high, however, which will require us to institute further material price actions in the period. The marketplace is still receptive to price actions and the tools and processes we have developed have been effective. Even so, given the rate of inflation, maintaining price/cost parity will be a bigger challenge in the third quarter of 2020.

在進入問答環節之前，我想先更新一些大家目前感興趣的話題。首先，我們持續面臨嚴重的成本上漲，特別是鋼鐵、燃料和運輸成本。2021年第二季度，價格對成長貢獻了80至110個基點。這與我們成本的成長基本一致，價格成本對利潤率的影響微乎其微。然而，成本壓力依然很高，這將需要我們在這段時期採取進一步的實質價格措施。市場仍然對價格變動敏感，我們開發的工具和流程也發揮了作用。即便如此，考慮到通貨膨脹率，在 2020 年第三季保持價格/成本持平將是一個更大的挑戰。

Global supply chains remain tight. We have managed this well domestically, which has allowed our customer service levels to remain high as a result of spot buys, which do tend to carry a lower margin and inventory in certain areas to build to meet projected future needs. Internationally, there continues to be a shortage of capacity, which has made moving products, particularly fasteners, increasingly costly and sustained long lead times. We believe this dynamic could persist at its current level of intensity through 2021.

全球供應鏈依然緊張。我們在國內管理得很好，透過現貨採購，我們的客戶服務水準得以維持高水準。現貨採購的利潤率往往較低，並且在某些地區需要儲備庫存以滿足預計的未來需求。國際上，產能持續短缺，導致產品運輸（尤其是緊固件運輸）成本不斷上升，交貨週期也越來越長。我們認為這種趨勢可能會以目前的強度持續到 2021 年。

Now Dan commented earlier on the labor shortages in most of our business. We have largely managed this to this point. However, we are beginning to see those pressures be reflected in our labor costs and the increase in Onsite signings and implementations could introduce some additional strains there. However, recognize a few things. First, this is all partly a by-product of strong demand and happens to some degree with every cycle. Strong growth will allow leverage of other costs that will help us to mitigate these pressures.

丹之前評論過我們大多數行業都面臨勞動力短缺的問題。到目前為止，我們基本上已經成功地做到了這一點。然而，我們開始看到這些壓力反映在我們的勞動成本上，現場簽約和實施的增加可能會對勞動成本造成一些額外的壓力。但是，有幾點要注意。首先，這在某種程度上是強勁需求的副產品，並且在每個週期中都會發生。強勁的成長將使我們能夠利用其他成本來緩解這些壓力。

Second, much of what we're doing with our digital footprint and the change in our branch model will address many of these matters. Third, none of these pressures are unique to Fastenal, but we believe that our culture and our structure is uniquely geared to navigate them. We've seen -- we have seen no moderation in these pressures over the past 3 months, but we continue to believe that we'll gain share through them.

其次，我們在數位化佈局和分支機構模式變革方面所做的許多工作都將解決這些問題。第三，這些壓力並非 Fastenal 獨有，但我們相信，我們的文化和結構能夠獨特地應對這些壓力。過去三個月來，我們看到這些壓力絲毫沒有減弱，但我們仍然相信，我們將透過這些壓力獲得市場份額。

That is all for our formal presentation. So with that, operator, we'll take questions.

我們的正式報告就到此為止。那麼，操作員，我們開始接受提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from David Manthey of Baird.

（操作說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 David Manthey。

Dan, in the past, you've noted that at $10 billion in revenues, you should have about 46% gross margin and 20%-plus op margin, which is exactly how the business looks today at $6 billion in revenues. Is there any change to that formula based on how you see the complexion of the business playing out over the next $4 billion?

丹，你過去曾指出，當收入達到 100 億美元時，毛利率應該在 46% 左右，營業利潤率應該在 20% 以上，而目前公司的收入為 60 億美元，情況正是如此。根據您對未來 40 億美元業務發展前景的判斷，這個公式會有任何變化嗎？

I wouldn't be surprised, as far as the residual number, which is ultimately the number that matters, that 20% plus, I see no change there. Maybe a bias for increasing it, but time will tell on that one. I wouldn't be surprised, given what we saw in the last year and some of the things we're doing as we get deeper and deeper with some of the larger customers and are looking at different types of business and options there. I wouldn't be surprised to see the 46% -- us drop below the 46%. But in those discussions, I oftentimes cited the 46%, 24%, 22% was a number that we aspired to. I think ultimately, when you have a branch network where the average branch is north of $200,000 a month versus $130,000 to $150,000, I think it is today, and an Onsite network that's a bigger percentage of the business, I feel comfortable saying that any gross margin that the mix pulls us below that 46% threshold also pulls us below the 24% threshold. And so that plus 20% thought process of when we're a $10 billion organization, I feel as good about that today as any time in the last 5 years.

至於殘差率，也就是最終重要的數字，我不會感到驚訝，因為殘差率應該會超過 20%，我認為不會有任何變化。或許有增加該數值的傾向，但時間會證明一切。考慮到過去一年我們所看到的，以及我們與一些大客戶合作越來越深入，並正在探索不同類型的業務和選擇，我不會感到驚訝。如果 46% 這個數字下降到 46% 以下，我不會感到驚訝。但在這些討論中，我經常提到 46%、24%、22% 是我們渴望達到的數字。我認為最終，當你的分行網路平均每月營業額超過 20 萬美元，而目前的分行平均營業額為 13 萬至 15 萬美元時，並且現場服務網路在業務中所佔比例更大，那麼我可以肯定地說，任何導致毛利率低於 46% 門檻的情況，也會使我們低於 24% 門檻。因此，考慮到我們是一家市值 100 億美元的公司，再加上 20% 的思考過程，我今天對此的感受和過去 5 年中的任何時候一樣好。

The focus internally, Dave, is that everybody who is involved in selling make sure that on every individual relationship, every individual transaction that they get the value that they deserve based on the value that we bring to the relationship. As long as we do that, whatever the mix does because of our growth, the mix does. But as Dan indicated, there's been no change in our expectation that we're going to be at a 20% to 22% operating margin business and a 25%-plus return on capital business. There's no change in that.

戴夫，公司內部的重點是，所有參與銷售的人員都要確保在每段客戶關係、每一筆交易中，他們都能根據我們為這段關係帶來的價值，獲得應有的價值。只要我們這樣做，無論我們的增長導致混合物發生什麼變化，混合物都會如此。但正如丹所指出的，我們對實現 20% 至 22% 的營業利潤率和 25% 以上的資本回報率的預期並沒有改變。這一點沒有改變。

Yes. Sounds good. And second, how does the branch configuration relate to the LIFT program? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Are CFCs the new LIFT? And do you expect to see some benefits in 2022 as you free up that selling energy that was formerly consumed by filling vending machines at the store level?

是的。聽起來不錯。其次，分支配置與 LIFT 程式有何關係？或許是我理解錯了。CFC 是新的 LIFT 嗎？您是否預期在 2022 年看到一些收益，因為您釋放了以前用於在商店層級補充自動販賣機的銷售能量？

Yes. Some things to keep in mind there, the LIFT is still touching a relatively small piece of our vending revenue, which is a piece of our overall revenue. I think right now, we're at about 8%. I think that's where we ended the quarter. About 8% of our vending revenue is being touched by LIFT. And if vending is a little over 20% of our revenue, you can see it's a relatively small piece it's touching. So I don't want to overbuild what LIFT is in the short term.

是的。需要注意的是，LIFT 目前在我們自動販賣機收入中所佔比例仍然相對較小，而自動販賣機收入又是我們總收入的一部分。我認為目前我們大概在 8% 左右。我想這就是我們本季的最終結果。我們自動販賣機收入的約 8% 都受到了 LIFT 的影響。如果自動販賣機收入僅占我們總收入的 20% 多一點，那麼可以看出它所影響的份額相對較小。所以我不想過度誇大 LIFT 在短期內的作用。

We're really excited about it in the longer term. And so that's one element. So the CFC, so the fulfillment center type branch, so we have 2 branch types. And I'm generally speaking, talking about our U.S. business in this commentary. When we go outside the U.S., there's some nuance to it, but I don't want to muddy the conversation with that. In the U.S., in the metro areas, about 70% of our branches now are a fulfillment center. And all that means is we're not -- we might have limited hours that were -- that the front door is open. And part of this sprang out of COVID.

從長遠來看，我們對此感到非常興奮。這是其中一個要素。所以，CFC，也就是物流中心類型的分支機構，所以我們有兩種分支機構類型。總的來說，我在這篇評論中談論的是我們在美國的業務。當我們去美國以外的地方時，情況會有一些細微差別，但我不想讓這些細微差別擾亂討論。在美國的大都會區，我們約 70% 的分公司現在都是物流中心。這意味著我們——我們的營業時間可能有限——但前門是敞開的。而這其中一部分源自於新冠疫情。

We found that, that wasn't horribly disruptive to our customer because every customer has a cell phone. Every customer has Internet access. So saying to our customer, "Hey, call us when you come in," or "Order electronically, and we'll have them ready for you, and the door is going to be locked but when you get here, we'll let you in," because most of our business is recurring customers, business-to-business relationships. And that's just the way the branch operates.

我們發現，這並沒有對我們的客戶造成太大干擾，因為每個客戶都有一部手機。每個客戶都能上網。所以，我們會對顧客說：“嘿，您來了之後給我們打電話”，或者“在線下單，我們會為您準備好，門會鎖著，但您到了之後我們會給您開門”，因為我們的大部分業務都是回頭客，是企業對企業的關係。這就是該分行的運作方式。

We -- the front showroom has been contracted down. I guess, that's redundant, contracted. And so it's a small footprint you walk into if the front door is open or you pick it up at a locker if the front door is closed or you call and we let you in. That's just a branch.

我們——前面的展廳已經縮減了規模。我想，這應該是多餘的，縮寫了。所以，如果前門開著，你走進去的時候佔地面積很小；如果前門關著，你就可以在儲物櫃裡拿東西；或者你打電話，我們會讓你進來。那隻是一根樹枝。

Separate to that branch setup, and then the other 30% in metro areas would be the traditional service branch that you've visited over the years. The only thing that changes when you get out to the metros, the mix is a little bit different. It's about 60-40. But separate from the branch facility is this LIFT. Now the LIFT might be adjacent to a distribution center. It might be completely independent of the distribution center. And that's just a very focused distribution center that's picking not a pallet of product for a branch delivery. It's picking a total product for a customer vending machine delivery and it's removing that labor that's relatively inefficient at the branch and putting it into a LIFT where it's much more efficient. We can bring some automation to it. We bring scale to it. And over time, that will become a bigger and bigger piece of our vending business. And the real question is, can we do some of those same things for our FAST Stock? Because highly repetitive transactions, you can bring scale to those transactions for the branch network and be more efficient. Does that help?

除了上述分公司設置之外，大都會地區的另外 30% 將是您多年來一直光顧的傳統服務分公司。到了大城市，唯一的改變就是食物種類略有不同。大概是60比40。但與分行設施不同的是這座電梯。現在，LIFT 可能就位於配送中心旁邊。它可能完全獨立於配送中心。那隻是一個非常專注的配送中心，它揀選的不是一盤產品，而是要送到分店。它負責挑選顧客自動販賣機配送所需的全部商品，並將門市中效率相對較低的人工轉移到效率較高的升降機中進行配送。我們可以引入一些自動化功能。我們讓它規模化。隨著時間的推移，這將成為我們自動販賣機業務中越來越大的一部分。真正的問題是，我們能否對我們的快速股票採取同樣的措施？由於交易具有高度重複性，您可以擴大分支機構網路的交易規模，從而提高效率。這樣有幫助嗎？

It does. Thanks for the color, Dan.

確實如此。謝謝你提供的色彩，丹。

Our next question is coming from Ryan Merkel of William Blair.

下一個問題來自威廉·布萊爾的瑞安·默克爾。

So I guess, first off, Holden, you mentioned bigger inflation in the second half of '21 and then potentially some price/cost issues. Just given that the market is receptive to price, why is there a worry on price/cost timing?

所以我想，首先，霍頓，你提到了 2021 年下半年通貨膨脹加劇，然後可能會出現一些價格/成本問題。既然市場對價格敏感，為什麼還要擔心價格/成本時機？

Well, I would say it has as much to do with simply the rate of increase as much as anything else. You didn't see an uplift in price in Q1, and then it's kind of stayed there, right? You've continued to see those increases build. And much as we saw during the period of tariffs and inflation, when you see a rapid rate of ascent that continues on for a period of time, it can be difficult to maintain the pace, particularly when you have a business like ours where over half of it is national accounts and contract business.

嗯，我認為這主要與成長率有關，而非其他因素。第一季價格沒有上漲，然後就一直保持在這個水平，對吧？你已經看到這些成長持續下去。正如我們在關稅和通貨膨脹時期所看到的那樣，當經濟快速增長並持續一段時間時，保持這種增長速度就變得很困難，特別是對於像我們這樣一半以上業務都是國民賬戶和合約業務的企業來說。

So now much like in the prior period, do we think that you catch up to this? Absolutely. And I've always said that I feel like if you achieve price/cost parity anytime within a quarter ahead to 2 quarters behind, that's kind of what the business supports, and I still believe that's true. But there's always timing involved when cost is trending. And that's the situation that we have today. We've gone to the marketplace for different purposes a couple of times, done at least 1 large increase earlier in the second quarter.

所以現在，就像之前的情況一樣，我們認為你能趕上嗎？絕對地。我一直認為，如果在前後一個季度到兩個季度內實現價格/成本持平，這基本上就是企業所需要的，我仍然相信這是正確的。但成本趨勢總是會涉及到時機。這就是我們今天面臨的局面。我們曾多次出於不同目的進入市場，並在第二季初至少進行了一次大幅增發。

And that was received fairly well. But based on what cost is doing, we'll have to go to the market with some additional ones. To this point, we continue to hear from the field that customers are still so busy and receiving it from so many areas that it's not been a huge bone of contention. But there are timing issues around cost and around contracts that we navigate every cycle, and we'll navigate this one too.

反應相當不錯。但根據成本情況來看，我們可能需要向市場引進一些額外的產品。到目前為止，我們不斷從一線客戶那裡了解到，他們仍然非常忙碌，而且從很多方面都收到了產品，因此這並沒有成為一個很大的爭議點。但是，每個週期我們都會遇到成本和合約方面的時效性問題，這次也不例外。

Just a couple of added tidbits I'll throw in there. One element, Ryan, is frankly fatigue that sets in from the standpoint of -- I'm going back one more time. And that's an element. That doesn't mean you don't get it, but that makes it challenging in the short term.

我再補充幾點。瑞安，坦白說，其中一個因素是疲勞，這種疲勞來自於──我又要回去一次了。這是一個要素。這並不意味著你無法理解，但這會在短期內帶來挑戰。

The other piece is the vast majority of what we're seeing, we don't view as transitionary. But there is a transitionary component, and that is with the congestion at the ports, we're doing fill-in buys. And we estimate right now that the magnitude of fill-in buys that we do this year will be about 5x what we see in a typical year. There's always issues that come up. There's a spike in demand, and we need to do a fill-in by. There's an issue with production from a manufacturer or shipment, we do a fill-in buy. But the magnitude is so much bigger right now. And a piece of that is transitionary. And a piece of that, you might not capture.

另一方面，我們所看到的絕大多數現象，我們並不認為是過渡性的。但其中存在一個過渡階段，那就是由於港口擁堵，我們正在進行填補性採購。我們目前估計，今年我們進行的補貨採購規模將約為往年同期的 5 倍。總是會有各種各樣的問題出現。需求激增，我們需要盡快完成填補工作。如果製造商的生產或運輸出現問題，我們會進行補貨採購。但現在情況嚴重得多。其中一部分是過渡性的。而其中的一部分，你可能無法捕捉。

Yes. Okay. Makes sense and not any different than I expected, actually. And then I just want to clarify the decision to remove counter labor at some of the branches. Have been taking a lot of questions on this. So what are you giving up? What are you getting? And would you call this a tweak to the strategy? Or is this a major change?

是的。好的。合情合理，其實跟我預想的沒什麼兩樣。然後，我想澄清一下取消部分分店櫃檯服務人員的決定。我收到了很多關於這個問題的提問。所以你要放棄什麼？你會得到什麼？你會稱這為對策略的微調嗎？這算是一項重大變革嗎？

Part of it is -- I don't know if we know the answer to that. Keep in mind that the incredible majority of our business is B2B. And what we saw during COVID is a lot of habits changed. In your personal life, I suspect there's things you do today in how you procure items for your personal life that are different from what they were 1.5 years ago. Well, that's true with our customer base, too. It's true with both the B2B. And then a piece of it is -- I don't know if I'd call it B2C, but maybe it's B to very small B, where it's a local business that just buys -- doesn't even have an account.

部分原因是——我不知道我們是否知道答案。請記住，我們絕大部分的業務都是 B2B 業務。我們在新冠疫情期間看到，許多人的生活習慣都改變了。我懷疑，在你的個人生活中，你現在獲取個人生活用品的方式與 1.5 年前有所不同。嗯，我們的客戶群也確實如此。B2B 領域的情況也是如此。然後還有一部分是——我不知道是否應該稱之為 B2C，但也許是 B 對 B，也就是規模非常小的 B，例如本地企業直接購買——甚至沒有帳戶。

And we've really encouraged that customer. We can be a better partner for you and we can provide you a higher level of service by ordering electronically, and we'll have it ready for you. Part of the reason for -- we aren't necessarily removing some counter labor. Part of it is it doesn't exist. So our business -- our branch-based business is up 20-some percent. Our FTE at the branch is up less than 1. And that isn't my choice. That's what's available. And so part of it is an offshoot of COVID. Part of it is legacy because we don't have some of the staffing we want. Part of it, we do believe this is our model for the future, and we believe it's a better model.

我們確實鼓勵了這位客戶。透過電子訂購，我們可以成為您更好的合作夥伴，為您提供更高水準的服務，並且我們會為您準備好所需物品。部分原因是──我們不一定是在減少一些櫃檯勞動力。部分原因是它根本不存在。所以我們的業務－我們分公司的業務成長了20%左右。我們分行的全職員工人數只增加了不到1人。這不是我能決定的。這就是目前能買到的。因此，其中一部分是新冠疫情的衍生性商品。部分原因是歷史遺留問題，因為我們缺少一些我們想要的人員。我們確實相信這是我們未來的模式，而且我們相信這是一個更好的模式。

And what I'd probably add, Ryan, is if you think about the amount of revenue that's being impacted here. I mean, the cash business, just what is paid to us in actual dollars, incentives...

瑞恩，我可能還要補充一點，想想這裡受影響的收入規模。我的意思是，現金交易，也就是我們實際拿到的美元工資，還有各種獎勵…

Or credit card.

或者信用卡。

Or credit card is about 2% of our revenue. I mean, it's not a huge number. If I think about those accounts that are $250 a month or less, it's about 4% of our revenue, but it represents more than 80% of our active accounts. And so what we're essentially trying with time to think through is how much labor are we putting into 80% of our accounts that represents 4% of our revenues.

或者說，信用卡收入約占我們總收入的 2%。我的意思是，這個數字並不算大。如果我考慮那些每月消費 250 美元或以下的帳戶，它們約占我們收入的 4%，但卻占我們活躍帳戶的 80% 以上。因此，我們現在實際上是在努力思考，我們究竟在 80% 的客戶帳戶上投入了多少人力，而這些帳戶的收入僅占我們總收入的 4%。

And when we think about the development of e-commerce, and you see in this quarter, our e-commerce -- our web sales of e-commerce were up north of 60%. That wasn't entirely because of our conversations with these smaller customers about how we can service them through that model, but a part of it was certainly because of that. So we don't view it as walking away from a lot of revenues.

當我們思考電子商務的發展時，你會發現本季我們的電子商務——我們的網路銷售額成長了 60% 以上。這並非完全是因為我們與這些小客戶討論瞭如何透過這種模式為他們提供服務，但部分原因肯定正是如此。所以我們不認為這是放棄大量收入。

We view it as aligning the best way to service different groups of customers within our branch in a way that, in turn, frees up time for our people to sell. So much like the question earlier, we created the LIFT program to free up time for our people to sell to customers that are really going to move the needle. The things that we're doing in the branch is really intended to do very much the same thing.

我們認為，這樣做可以更好地服務我們分行內的不同客戶群體，從而騰出時間讓我們的員工進行銷售。就像之前的問題一樣，我們創建了 LIFT 計劃，目的是讓我們的員工騰出時間去服務那些真正能帶來改變的客戶。我們在分部所做的事情，其實也是為了達到同樣的目的。

And what I'll tell you is I'm not sure this model is a whole lot different from what we did 15 years ago. So it's a bit of a evolution towards that, if you will. So you asked what we're giving up. This just seems like a refinement in the model to focus on key accounts that can really move the needle and free up a lot of time for talented salespeople to go after those accounts. And we think that makes us grow faster.

我可以告訴你的是，我不確定這種模式與我們 15 年前的做法有很大的不同。所以，這算是一種朝著那個方向的演變吧。所以你問我們放棄了什麼。這似乎只是對現有模式的改進，旨在專注於能夠真正帶來改變的關鍵客戶，從而騰出大量時間讓有才華的銷售人員去爭取這些客戶。我們認為這能讓我們發展得更快。

I'll add one tidbit, and that is I'm probably more sensitive to this change than most. I grew up -- I think you know I grew up on a farm in Wisconsin. And I think of my dad would be what I would have just described as a B to small business. He was a -- he basically had himself -- he and my mom ran the farm, the kids helped. And -- but they did the real lifting, but it was a small business. And I'm very conscious of we want to serve that customer too. And how do we figure out the best way to serve it? So when I see web feedback come in and I read every web feedback that comes in. I called quite a few customers over the last 1.5 years to understand some of the feedback is positive, some of it's negative. It's a rare conversation I don't come off it with the response from the customer saying, "I didn't know you guys can do that. Hell, I'd rather buy from you that way. That's how I do a bunch of stuff in my personal life. I didn't know you guys did that because I think of you as the hardware store in Rice Lake, Wisconsin." And so I think the market wants us to do it.

我再補充一點，那就是我可能比大多數人對這種變化更敏感。我想你應該知道，我是在威斯康辛州的農場長大的。我覺得我爸爸就像我剛才形容的那種小企業主。他基本上是靠自己——他和我媽媽一起經營農場，孩子們幫忙。而且──但他們才是真正工作的人，但這畢竟只是個小生意。我非常清楚，我們也想服務這位顧客。那麼，我們如何找到最佳的供應方式呢？所以，每當我看到收到網路回饋時，我都會閱讀每一個收到的網路回饋。在過去一年半的時間裡，我給不少客戶打了電話，了解他們的回饋，有些是正面的，有些是負面的。很少有哪次對話結束後，客戶不會說：“我不知道你們還能做到這一點。”我寧願那樣跟你買。我在個人生活中很多事情都是這麼做的。我不知道你們也做這個，因為我一直以為你們是威斯康辛州賴斯湖的五金行。所以我覺得市場需要我們這樣做。

Our next question is coming from Josh Pokrzywinski of Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的喬許波克日溫斯基。

Just to follow up on that last question in terms of the freed up time to sell to customers. Dan, how do you think about the priorities there? Is it Onsites or national accounts and more midsize customers, maybe all of the above? Like what is that kind of new ideal customer that the sales force is freed up to go pursue? And is there some sort of seasoning period as they get to meet what are, I would imagine, are newer customers? Or are they productive right away?

關於最後一個問題，即騰出時間向客戶銷售的問題，我想補充一點。丹，你覺得那裡的優先事項是什麼？是現場服務客戶、全國性客戶還是中型客戶，或許以上皆是？銷售團隊可以騰出精力去追求的那種新型態理想客戶是什麼樣的呢？當他們逐漸接觸（我猜想）新客戶時，是否需要經歷一段適應期？還是他們能立即投入工作？

The priority is very simple, have a plan. And that plan involves know who your larger opportunities are in the marketplace and make sure you're engaging with those customers. Know who -- really understand the potential of your existing customers in the market and engage with that customer and then have a plan for everybody else. And that means when something is ordered electronically and it's a smaller customer, serve the heck out of that customer, meet that customer where it works for both parties.

首要任務很簡單，就是訂定計畫。該計劃包括了解市場上的更大機遇，並確保與這些客戶建立聯繫。了解你的客戶－真正了解現有客戶在市場上的潛力，與這些客戶互動，然後再為其他客戶制定計畫。這意味著，當顧客透過電子方式訂購商品，而且是小客戶時，要盡力為該顧客服務，滿足該顧客的需求，並做到對雙方都有利。

And that means if somebody orders it, if it's in the branch, it's ready for them in a short window of time for them to come in and pick it up. If it's something that's not in the branch and it's in the distribution center, we get it in the next morning, and it's in a locker at 7:00 in the morning. And -- or it's ready for the customer to pick up in the branch at 7:00 in the morning. So you're very mindful of what is your plan because the bulk of the dollar opportunity is coming from the larger opportunities in the market. That's just math.

這意味著如果有人訂購了商品，而該商品又在分店裡，那麼在很短的時間內，他們就可以來取貨了。如果某件商品不在分店，而是在配送中心，我們會在隔天早上收到，並在早上 7 點前送到置物櫃。或者，顧客可以在早上 7:00 到分行取貨。所以你非常清楚自己的計畫是什麼，因為大部分的賺錢機會都來自市場上更大的機會。這只是數學問題。

But you want a nice mix to your business because it helps you be a great partner to a wide range of customers. And we can be a special business because we can fulfill transactions faster than our industry because of our local stocking and our captive distribution network. We have a better cost structure to our industry. We have a better fulfillment cycle to our industry, and it's incredibly reliable. And we have that local team that can react to the unexpected. And that's what froze up for so many companies in the second quarter of 2020. They don't have that decentralized something special local that can react to the unexpected.

但你的業務需要多元化，因為這有助於你成為眾多客戶的優秀合作夥伴。我們之所以能成為一家特殊的企業，是因為我們擁有本地庫存和專屬分銷網絡，能夠比同行業更快完成交易。我們的成本結構在業界更具優勢。我們的產品交付週期在業界更勝一籌，而且非常可靠。我們還有一支能夠應對突發情況的本地團隊。而這正是 2020 年第二季許多公司陷入困境的原因。他們沒有那種分散的、特殊的本地機制來應對意外情況。

And I think what you do with that time is it frees you up to spend more time in front of those key accounts where those large volume opportunities are. And what comes out of that is going to be determined by that conversation. And so do we think it's more Onsite? Probably because we think Onsites bring a tremendous amount of value. Is it more FMI? Probably because we think that brings a tremendous amount of value. But ultimately, remember, Josh, our model is set up so that we don't have one solution for a customer. In fact, we don't have one solution for each of our customers' plants. We have a different solution that's tailored to each plant for each customer. And when we're out having a conversation about how we can do that, we have more time to have that conversation. We suspect more Onsites would come out of it. We suspect more digital footprint is going to come out of it. But ultimately, it's about the conversation with the customer that gains us share as a supply chain partner.

我認為，利用這些時間可以讓你騰出更多時間去拜訪那些關鍵客戶，抓住那些大宗交易機會。而最終的結果將取決於那次談話。所以我們認為它更偏向現場服務嗎？可能是因為我們認為現場服務能帶來巨大的價值。是FMI嗎？或許是因為我們認為這能帶來巨大的價值。但歸根結底，喬希，記住，我們的模式是這樣的：我們不會為客戶提供單一的解決方案。事實上，我們無法為每個客戶的工廠提供同一種解決方案。我們針對每位客戶的每家工廠量身打造不同的解決方案。當我們外出討論如何做到這一點時，我們就有更多的時間進行討論。我們預計會有更多現場服務項目因此而推出。我們懷疑這將會產生更多的數位足跡。但歸根究底，與客戶的對話才是我們作為供應鏈夥伴贏得市場份額的關鍵。

Got it. That's helpful. That's helpful color around. And then just a follow-up on Onsites. I know that I saw that in the release, the closings, I guess, and conversions together, kind of remain elevated here. Is that just a function of folks kind of reassessing post-COVID, now that they're back out in the world? Do you think that's more of a temporary phenomenon? Or is this kind of the run rate there on churn for a while?

知道了。那很有幫助。周圍有很美的顏色。然後是關於現場活動的後續跟進。我知道我在發布會上看到了這一點，收官戰、收官戰和收官戰加起來，似乎都保持著很高的水準。這是否只是人們在新冠疫情後重返社會，重新評估自身狀況的一種表現？你認為這更像是暫時現象嗎？或者說，這種人員流動率會持續一段時間嗎？

Since the level hasn't seemed to have changed during COVID or after COVID, I guess, I'd say that it's been a little sticky. If you talk to the folks in Onsite, I think they would say that 27 in a quarter is a bit elevated. And I think that if we were at a pace of 80, I don't think that would surprise anybody. A pace of 100 is probably a little bit more than we might have expected. Why that is, I'm not sure. Now each quarter, we -- again, we go through why we're seeing closings.

由於疫情期間和疫情後疫情水準似乎都沒有變化，我想說，情況一直有點不穩定。如果你和 Onsite 的人談談，我想他們會說一個季度 27 個數字有點高。我認為，如果我們的速度達到 80，應該不會讓任何人感到驚訝。100 的速度可能比我們預期的快一些。我也不確定原因。現在每個季度，我們都會——再次——分析為什麼會出現關店現象。

And what we take out of that is the large majority of those closings continue to either be a plant being shut and the volume going elsewhere or going to a different geography or simply a decision on the part of somebody at Fastenal to say -- this isn't actually working out as an Onsite. We think we can service this just as well, if not better, at a branch, and we're going to take it back there and do it that way. And that continues to be the vast majority of the closures that we see as opposed to those fewer cases where it's we've lost the business, which does happen, but it's the minority of those closures.

我們從中可以看出，絕大多數工廠關閉要么是工廠關閉，產量轉移到其他地方或不同的地區，要么只是 Fastenal 的某個人決定——這實際上並不適用於現場生產。我們認為，即使不能做得更好，我們也能在分行提供同樣優質的服務，所以我們會把它帶回分行，用那種方式處理。而且，我們看到的絕大多數倒閉案例仍然是這種情況，而不是像少數情況下那樣，我們失去了生意，雖然這種情況確實會發生，但只是倒閉案例中的少數。

So in the case of the first, there's not much we can do about plants moving, right? In the case of the second, we're making a business decision. And I can't tell you it's a bad decision. In the case of the third, that happens. Every now and again, you lose a piece of business. But for the most part, what we're not seeing is our competitive moat around Onsites get degraded, and that's why we're seeing closings. We just haven't seen any indication of that. So that mix hasn't changed and that answer hasn't changed. And so that's, I guess, where I'd leave it.

所以對於第一種情況，我們對植物的移動無能為力，對吧？對於第二種情況，我們是在做商業決策。我不能說這是一個糟糕的決定。第三種情況確實如此。偶爾，你會失去一些生意。但總的來說，我們沒有看到我們在現場服務方面的競爭優勢被削弱，這就是我們看到門市倒閉的原因。我們目前還沒有看到任何這方面的跡象。所以配方沒有改變，答案也沒有改變。所以，我想，我就說到這裡吧。

And we're as excited about Onsite as we've been in the last decade.

我們對 Onsite 的熱情絲毫不亞於過去十年。

Yes.

是的。

Our next question is coming from Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 Wolfe Research 的 Nigel Coe。

Helpful as well. So Dan, I think you mentioned last quarter the outlook for pricing somewhere in the normal range. I think you said sort of 2% at the upper end. Is that going to be enough to offset the inflation that you're referring to in the back half of the year? Do you need to go above that normal 2% range?

也很有幫助。丹，我想你上個季度提到過，價格前景預計會在正常範圍內。我記得你說過上限大概2%。這足以抵銷您所說的下半年通貨膨脹嗎？你需要超過正常的2%範圍嗎？

I don't think so, Nigel. Not at this point. Now I don't know what is in store for Q1 on cost, right, in the various pieces or -- well, I'm just thinking a little bit further out on the road. I think we have a decent beat on what Q3 looks like. But I don't know how long this inflationary environment is going to persist. So it's hard to give a definitive answer on that. Based on what we know today, I don't think we need to be above our historical range. I do think we need to be above 80 to 110. And I would still expect that to be the case in the back half. But would I change my earlier statement or my statement from last quarter that it wouldn't surprise me to see us north of 150 basis points? I think that's probably what we need to see in order to continue to mitigate. And we made some progress from Q1 to Q2. I expect to make more progress Q2 to Q3, and we'll see. But no, I don't think we need to be north of that 150 to 200 basis points that I was thinking about last quarter.

我不這麼認為，奈傑爾。目前還不行。現在我不知道第一季的成本會如何，對吧，各個方面都是如此——好吧，我只是在考慮更長遠的未來。我認為我們對第三季的情況已經有了比較清晰的了解。但我不知道這種通膨環境會持續多久。所以很難對此給出確切的答案。根據我們目前所掌握的信息，我認為我們不需要超出歷史範圍。我認為我們需要達到 80 到 110 以上。我仍然預計下半季的情況也會如此。但我會改變我之前的說法，或者說我上個季度的說法嗎？那就是，如果利率超過 150 個基點，我不會感到驚訝。我認為這可能是我們繼續緩解疫情影響所需要的。從第一季到第二季度，我們取得了一些進展。我預計第二季到第三季會取得更多進展，讓我們拭目以待。但是，我認為我們不需要超過我上個季度考慮的 150 到 200 個基點。

Okay. And then -- you mentioned 3Q, Holden, and sometimes, you do give some color on gross margin mix. And I'm just -- just given the moving pieces on inflation and pricing and also the pandemic mix is coming down as well, how do we think about that sequential build into the back half of the year on gross margins?

好的。然後──你提到了第三季、霍爾頓，有時，你確實會就毛利率組成給一些見解。考慮到通貨膨脹和價格的變動，以及疫情的影響，我們該如何看待下半年毛利率的逐步成長？

Yes. I mean, it's -- well, I guess, we'll always argue over what we find to be unusual circumstances that we should guide for. I guess, I'm not viewing it the same way this time around. But I mean, I think if you think about the dynamics around gross margin, right? I mean, the last couple of months, we've seen cost of overseas transportation go up, and that goes through our cost of goods, right? Obviously, the cost of fuel, not a big expense, but continues to go up. If you think about the fill-in buys that Dan referred to earlier, those are going to continue to be at a fairly high clip. If we think about price cost being a wildcard, I don't think that our second quarter is going to be 46.5%. I would not be surprised to see it taper off from that level. But where that goes...

是的。我的意思是——好吧，我想，我們總是會對我們認為應該遵循的異常情況爭論不休。我想，這次我的看法和以前不一樣了。但我的意思是，如果你仔細想想毛利率的動態變化，對吧？我的意思是，過去幾個月，我們看到海外運輸成本上漲，這會增加我們的商品成本，對吧？顯然，燃料成本雖然不是一項很大的開支，但卻持續上漲。如果你想想丹之前提到的那些補貨，這些補貨的數量還會繼續保持在相當高的速度。如果把價格成本看成一個不確定因素，我認為我們第二季的成長率不會達到 46.5%。如果價格從那個水平開始逐漸下降，我不會感到驚訝。但那又會走向何方呢…

Third quarter, you mean.

你是說第三季吧。

I'm sorry. What did I say?

對不起。我說什麼了？

Second.

第二。

Sorry, third quarter. Yes, I fully expect second quarter to be 46.5%. I don't expect third quarter to be at that level. I think that there's just forces in the marketplace that are going to work against that before you talk about price cost. And then there's the wild card about our level of achievement on price cost. And Nigel, to be clear, we have plans for pricing. We have systems for pricing. We're not writing off the idea of being neutral price cost. We're going to work very hard to maintain that. And I think there's a good chance we could be. I'm just saying that the pressures are going up, and we have to be respectful of that.

抱歉，是第三季。是的，我完全預期第二季將達到 46.5%。我不認為第三季能達到那個水準。我認為，在討論價格成本之前，市場上就已經存在了一些不利因素。此外，我們在價格成本方面的成就水準也是一個不確定因素。奈傑爾，需要明確的是，我們有定價計畫。我們有定價系統。我們並沒有完全排除價格成本中性的可能性。我們將竭盡全力維持現狀。我認為我們很有可能做到。我只是想說，壓力越來越大，我們必須對此表示尊重。

Our next question is coming from Chris Snyder of UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的克里斯·史奈德。

I wanted to follow up on the earlier conversation around the Onsite closures. Like as you guys were saying, we've seen this 100-ish run rate really starting in '19 and carrying through today. And 100-ish per year, I mean. And with that, the churn has gone higher to high single digit from -- pre-2019, it was really in the low single digit. I guess, my question is, as you're scaling it, is it incrementally more challenging to find Onsite candidates that you have high conviction aren't going to move or going to be suitable from a volume standpoint?

我想就之前關於現場關閉的討論做個後續跟進。正如你們剛才所說，我們看到這種 100 分左右的勝率從 2019 年開始一直延續至今。我的意思是，每年大約100個左右。因此，客戶流失率從 2019 年之前的個位數低點上升到了接近兩位數。我想問的是，隨著規模的擴大，找到那些你確信不會跳槽或從數量上來說合適的現場候選人是否會變得越來越困難？

Simple answer. No, it's not more challenging. There's ample opportunity out there. What is challenging is in the last 15, 16, 17 months of the proposition of talking to a customer, moving in with them when they want to be distanced from everybody on the planet. Imagine having an apartment, you're bringing in a roommate. It's kind of the same concept. You don't want to be around people. And that's changing. And so that's seeing that expand.

簡單來說。不，這並不更具挑戰性。機會很多。最具挑戰性的是，在過去的 15、16、17 個月裡，我們向客戶提出了這樣的建議：在他們想要與地球上所有人保持距離的時候，與他們同住。想像一下，你租了一間公寓，現在要找個室友。概念差不多。你不想和人待在一起。這種情況正在改變。所以，我們看到這種情況正在擴大。

Some things that -- if you think about vending, which we've been doing now for 13 -- going on 13 years, when vending really took off for us in that latter part of 2011, 2012 standpoint, in the following year, we were pulling out 25%, 28% of the devices that we've installed because some of them were just bad. And we didn't know -- we didn't really know what we were doing yet because we were creating an industry. And then that went to 22%.

有些事情——如果你想想自動販賣機，我們已經做了 13 年了——差不多 13 年了，當自動販賣機在 2011 年下半年、2012 年真正開始蓬勃發展時，在接下來的一年裡，我們撤回了 25% 到 28% 的已安裝設備，因為其中一些設備實在太差了。而我們當時並不知道——我們其實並不知道自己在做什麼，因為我們正在創造一個產業。然後這個數字就降到了 22%。

And then it went to 18%. And then as our participation and our knowledge base across the organization improved, today, 13 years later, we remove every year about 12% of our devices. We think we can get that to 10% with our LIFT strategy and some of the things we're doing to make it a little bit easier to serve FMI devices. But we think we can get that to 10%, but it's still 10%.

然後就降到了18%。隨著我們在整個組織中的參與度和知識庫的提高，如今，13 年過去了，我們每年大約移除 12% 的設備。我們認為，透過我們的 LIFT 策略以及我們正在採取的一些措施，使 FMI 設備更容易得到服務，我們可以將這一比例提高到 10%。但我們認為可以達到 10%，但現在仍然是 10%。

The real question is what is that natural number for Onsite. And 5 years into a really hard push, unfortunately, a year plus of that 5 years is COVID. And so I don't know that we know what that number is. Now we do know that about half the Onsites that we close are because the customer moved the facility or closed down the facility. And the other half are -- we pull some back. We lose some business. There's a number of dynamics. There are some where we grow it from 30 to 60, and we get stuck at 60. And as Holden mentioned a few minutes ago, we just move it back to the branch because it's more efficient for everybody or the customer kicks us out because they're out of room. And I don't like Onsite closures, but I know -- and I don't like FMI devices coming back, but I know it's part of the business. And the real question is, can we, as an organization, over time, outgrow our industry and gain market share more efficiently, more productively and maybe redundant quicker than everybody else? If we can do that with Onsite and FMI devices and all the things we're doing, I love the business.

真正的問題是，現場服務的自然數量是多少。經過五年艱苦的努力，不幸的是，這五年中的一年多是受新冠疫情影響。所以，我不知道我們是否知道那個數字是多少。現在我們知道，我們關閉的現場服務項目中，大約有一半是因為客戶搬遷了設施或關閉了設施。另一半——我們收回一部分。我們損失了一些生意。這裡存在著多種動態因素。有些地方我們把產量從 30 提高到 60，但最終卻停留在 60。正如霍爾頓幾分鐘前提到的那樣，我們只是把它搬回分店，因為這樣對每個人來說效率更高，或者客戶因為沒有地方放而把我們趕出去。我不喜歡現場關閉，但我知道——我也不喜歡 FMI 設備重新出現，但我知道這是業務的一部分。真正的問題是，隨著時間的推移，我們作為一個組織，能否超越我們所在行業，比其他所有人更有效率、更有生產力地獲得市場份額，甚至更快地實現業務冗餘？如果我們能利用 Onsite 和 FMI 設備以及我們正在做的一切來實現這一點，我熱愛這份事業。

Yes. And I think the reason we look at it every quarter and why those closings happen, it's just so that we understand why. And when you think about that typically, I think people think about a closure as a loss of revenue. And in the large -- in the majority of cases, the closure of an Onsite is not a loss of revenue. In fact, to the extent that there was some progress at the Onsite -- at the original inception, you might be bringing more to the brands than left then initially. And so when you think about the closure rate, think about cut it in half because a bunch of the business, we're still maintaining. And then as Dan indicated, there's some historical precedent here with vending. We ran hard and fast to sort of get into the marketplace. We learned a lot. And as we learned a lot, we sort of cleaned up some things that maybe we did when we were early on in the initiative and then we were smarter and more efficient coming out of it. I think we're really following a very similar pattern.

是的。我認為我們每季都要審視這些關閉事件發生的原因，就是為了了解其中的原因。通常情況下，人們會把關店視為收入損失。而且在大多數情況下，關閉一家 Onsite 並不會導致收入損失。事實上，如果 Onsite 在最初階段取得了一些進展，那麼你為品牌帶來的價值可能比最初離開時要多。所以，當你考慮關店率時，想想把它減半，因為我們仍然在維持很多業務。正如丹所指出的，自動販賣機在這方面有一些歷史先例。我們拼盡全力，迅速打入市場。我們學到了很多。隨著我們學到了很多東西，我們也清理了一些我們在專案初期可能犯的錯誤，這樣一來，我們就能更聰明、更有效率地完成工作。我認為我們確實遵循著非常相似的模式。

I appreciate all of that. And I guess for following up and trying to tie the Onsite conversation into your prepared remarks around hiring. I guess, from a customer standpoint, whether it's social distancing in the factory or them having trouble bringing in new employees, has that impacted maybe your revenue per Onsite year-to-date? And as that all begins to come back, should we expect the revenues at Onsites to outpace growth over -- across the remainder of the business in the coming quarters?

我非常感激。我想，這樣做是為了跟進並嘗試將現場交流的內容與你準備好的關於招聘的發言聯繫起來。我想，從客戶的角度來看，無論是工廠的社交隔離措施，還是他們難以招募新員工，這是否影響了您今年迄今為止的現場服務收入？隨著這一切開始恢復，我們是否應該預期 Onsites 的營收將在未來幾季超過公司其他業務的成長速度？

Yes. I'm not quite sure how to answer your question from the standpoint of if the social distancing in the plant means their production is down 20%, and we're supplying OEM parts, OEM fasteners, it would impact us 20% in that plant.

是的。我不太確定該如何回答你的問題，如果工廠的社交隔離措施導致其產量下降 20%，而我們供應的是 OEM 零件和 OEM 緊固件，那麼這也會對我們在該工廠的產量造成 20% 的影響。

I guess my question was more on the -- I'm sorry.

我的問題更多的是關於——對不起。

If it's a MRO, it would impact us directionally.

如果是MRO（維修、維修和大修），那將對我們的發展方向產生影響。

I guess, my question is more on the safety side. Because when we see the pictures of the vending machines, it seems like there's a lot of workforce consumables in that, that are maybe more tied to how many people are in the plant, not necessarily the output from that plant.

我想，我的問題比較是關於安全方面的。因為當我們看到自動販賣機的照片時，似乎裡面有很多員工消耗品，這些消耗品可能更與工廠裡有多少人有關，而不一定與工廠的產量有關。

Yes. But they usually go hand in hand. But -- when it comes to vending, the FMI devices or the vending machine, over half the revenue there is PP&E. And that's directly related to how many human beings are in that plant and for how many hours of the day. And so if there's a smaller number of human beings but they're spread out over multiple shifts, so the same amount of hours are being worked, I wouldn't expect safety to be impacted. It might be higher because people are much more conscious about safety today than about wearing a mask or wearing gloves or doing anything. People are more -- are better about washing their (expletive) hands today than they were 1.5 years ago. And so to that extent, you might have fewer people and more consumption because everybody is saying, do this, do this, do this, and we're conscious to it.

是的。但它們通常是相輔相成的。但是——說到自動販賣機、FMI 設備或自動販賣機，超過一半的收入來自固定資產。這與工廠裡有多少人以及每天工作多少小時有直接關係。因此，如果人數較少，但他們分散在多個班次中，工作時長相同，我認為安全不會受到影響。這個數字可能更高，因為如今人們更注重安全，而不是戴口罩、戴手套或其他任何防護措施。如今人們比1.5年前更注重洗手了。因此，在某種程度上，人口可能會減少，但消費會增加，因為每個人都在說，做這個，做那個，做那個，而我們也意識到了這一點。

But I don't know it's specific to Onsites either. I mean, if what you're talking about is labor productivity in general, I mean that could be true broadly. But sector has gotten more productive over time, and we continue to drive safety revenues because we continue to gain market share. We think that opportunity is still there.

但我也不確定這是否僅限於現場服務。我的意思是，如果你指的是一般的勞動生產力，那麼從廣義上講，這可能是正確的。但隨著時間的推移，該行業的生產效率不斷提高，我們不斷擴大市場份額，從而持續推動安全收入的成長。我們認為機會依然存在。

I actually thought you were going a different place with the question. And I thought you were going to the place of if it's really difficult to hire, does that help your ability to sign Onsites because it's difficult for your customer to hire. I would say it sure doesn't hurt and -- but it's difficult for us to hire for that, too. It's just that it's a more efficient model. So the customer doesn't need to hire 3 people when maybe, we need to hire one. And so it becomes an enhancer, but it's -- I don't know how you quantify that.

我原本以為你的問題會引申到另一個方向。我以為你要說的是，如果招募真的很難，這是否會影響你簽訂現場合約的能力，因為你的客戶招募起來很困難。我覺得一定不會有什麼壞處，但我們也很難招募到這方面的人才。只不過，這是一種效率更高的模式。這樣一來，客戶就不需要雇用 3 個人，而我們可能只需要雇用 1 個人。因此它就成了一種增強劑，但是──我不知道該如何量化它。

Our next question is coming from Hamzah Mazari of Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞集團的哈姆札·馬扎里。

It's Ryan Gunning actually filling in for Hamzah. Can you just talk about -- could you talk about market share gains and how much you're kind of outperforming in terms of growth versus your end markets?

實際上是瑞恩·岡寧代替哈姆札出戰。您能否談談市場佔有率成長情況，以及您在成長方面相對於終端市場而言表現如何？

Yes. I mean, you have to make an adjustment, obviously, for the pandemic and the surge sales, which I've done. And if you compare our growth, and I think I indicated fasteners grew 28%. And if you take out the pandemic, it would have been comparable across the business. I think if you compare that to what industrial production has done during the quarter or to any of the industry surveys that are out there, I think that you would see that we outgrew them -- outgrew both of those measures. So we feel good about the continued market share gaining capabilities of the business.

是的。我的意思是，顯然你必須做出調整來應對疫情和銷售激增，而我也確實這麼做了。如果你比較我們的成長情況，我認為我之前提到過緊固件成長了 28%。如果排除疫情的影響，整個產業的業績將基本持平。我認為，如果你將它與本季度工業生產的表現或任何現有的行業調查進行比較，你會發現我們已經超過了它們——超過了這兩個指標。因此，我們對公司持續擴大市場份額的能力感到樂觀。

Got it. That's helpful. And then could you talk about how you're thinking about freight going forward and just where maybe you are in terms of optimizing your fleet from a route perspective and other last mile delivery factors?

知道了。那很有幫助。那麼，您能否談談您對未來貨運的看法，以及您在優化車隊路線和其他最後一公里配送因素方面目前處於什麼階段？

Yes. So I'd tell you what, I'm going to ask Holden to take that one offline because we're right against the hour. And we're pretty strict -- we try to hold this to an hour because we realize we're in earnings season and the analyst community has another call to jump on or stuff to review. So we'll take that one offline. But -- thank you to everybody for participating in the call today. And to the Fastenal team on the call, thanks to what you did in the second quarter. Good luck in the third.

是的。所以，我建議你，我請霍爾頓把那個貼文下線，因為時間快到了。我們非常嚴格——我們盡量將時間控制在一個小時以內，因為我們意識到現在是財報季，分析師們還有其他電話會議要參加或需要審查其他資料。所以我們會把那個問題下線。但是——感謝今天所有參加電話會議的人。也要感謝 Fastenal 團隊在第二季所做的一切。祝你第三輪好運。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation and interest in Fastenal. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，感謝各位對 Fastenal 的參與與關注。今天的活動到此結束。現在您可以斷開線路了，祝您有美好的一天。