快扣 (FAST) 2022 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and welcome to the Fastenal Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Taylor Ranta of Fastenal Company. Please go ahead, Taylor.

您好，歡迎參加 Fastenal 2022 年第二季度收益結果電話會議。 （操作員說明）作為提醒，本次會議正在錄製中。現在我很高興將電話轉給 Fastenal 公司的 Taylor Ranta。請繼續，泰勒。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2022 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. This call will last for up to one 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.

歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2022 年第二季度收益電話會議。本次電話會議將由我們的總裁兼首席執行官 Dan Florness 主持；和我們的首席財務官 Holden Lewis。本次電話會議將持續長達一小時，我們將從對季度業績和運營的一般概述開始，其餘時間將開放問答。

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 home page, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until September 1, 2022, at midnight Central Time.

今天的電話會議是 Fastenal 專有的演示文稿，由 Fastenal 錄製。未經 Fastenal 同意，不得對今天的電話進行錄音、複製、傳輸或分發。此次電話會議正在通過 Fastenal 投資者關係主頁investor.fastenal.com 在互聯網上進行音頻聯播。網絡直播的重播將在 2022 年 9 月 1 日中部時間午夜之前在網站上提供。

As a reminder, today's conference call may include statements regarding the company's 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.

提醒一下，今天的電話會議可能包括有關公司未來計劃和前景的聲明。這些陳述基於我們當前的預期，我們不承擔更新它們的責任。值得注意的是，公司的實際結果可能與預期的結果大不相同。

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.

可能導致實際結果與預期結果不同的因素包含在公司最新的收益發布和定期向證券交易委員會提交的文件中，我們鼓勵您仔細審查這些因素。

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

我現在想把電話轉給 Dan Florness 先生。

Thank you, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for today's earnings call. Life -- who you choose to surround yourself in life gives you freedom to do a lot of things and to find success with others. And one thing I found on this call is that holding such a fine job with sharing with the investment community, particularly the sell-side analyst community, the trends you're seeing in the business, that -- it affords me the opportunity to be a bit more philosophical and talk to our shareholders, but also talk to the employees of Fastenal on this call.

謝謝大家，大家早上好，感謝您加入我們今天的財報電話會議。生活——你選擇在生活中包圍自己的人給了你做很多事情的自由，並與他人一起取得成功。我在這次電話會議上發現的一件事是，與投資界，特別是賣方分析師社區分享你在業務中看到的趨勢，這讓我有機會成為在這次電話會議上與我們的股東進行更哲學的交談，同時也與 Fastenal 的員工交談。

I suspect for most people listening on this call, the reason you're looking at our earnings release today and looking at participating in this call is you want to see what breadcrumbs might come out of it as far as where the economy is going. Spoiler alert: we've often said that our visibility to the future is about 8 hours, and most of it comes from -- what we're hearing from our customer, the anecdotes that come through, what we're seeing in some of the trends in the business. So we get an indicator, and we try to share those as we see them. But we don't have a backlog in the traditional sense. We are a just-in-time supply chain partner to our customers, and things time through as they occur.

我懷疑對於大多數聽這個電話的人來說，你今天查看我們的收益發布並考慮參加這個電話的原因是你想看看經濟發展方向可能會產生什麼麵包屑。劇透警報：我們經常說，我們對未來的可見性大約是 8 小時，其中大部分來自——我們從客戶那裡聽到的信息、發生的軼事、我們在某些業務的趨勢。因此，我們得到了一個指標，並嘗試在我們看到它們時分享它們。但是我們沒有傳統意義上的積壓。我們是客戶的及時供應鏈合作夥伴，而且事情會隨著時間的推移而發生。

So here are some things that have occurred in our business. First off, our travel has expanded. If I look at our travel in the year-to-date and 2022 and ignore for a second 2020 and 2021, our travel is about 12% below where it was in 2019. In the second quarter, our travel is about 18% higher than it was in 2019, and that's measured in dollars. And as you know, for those of you who have bought an airplane ticket recently or done any kind of travel, things have not gotten cheaper.

以下是我們業務中發生的一些事情。首先，我們的旅行擴大了。如果我看一下我們今年迄今為止和 2022 年的旅行，而忽略第二個 2020 年和 2021 年，我們的旅行比 2019 年低 12% 左右。第二季度，我們的旅行比 2020 年高出約 18%那是在 2019 年，以美元為單位。如您所知，對於最近購買了機票或進行過任何旅行的人來說，事情並沒有變得更便宜。

So I suspect that means we're probably still down from 2019, but the expense is up because of the inflation inherent in travel today. But what that means is the most societies have entered into the endemic stage of COVID-19. Not all. And what that means, we're finding our new normal, and I'm pleased to say travel is resuming. And that's one of the ways we engage with our customer.

所以我懷疑這意味著我們可能仍比 2019 年有所下降，但由於當今旅行固有的通貨膨脹，費用上升了。但這意味著大多數社會已進入 COVID-19 的流行階段。不是全部。這意味著，我們正在找到我們的新常態，我很高興地說旅行正在恢復。這是我們與客戶互動的方式之一。

Our Fastenal culture is one of -- we trust each other. We work every day to build our own talent pool, and we promote from within. An integral part of that is the idea of human interaction and our ability to teach and learn from each other every day, and it's, frankly, more efficient when you can have in-person conversations. But we have adapted. If you went into a Fastenal branch today versus 2019, you'd see a different branch.

我們的 Fastenal 文化是其中之一——我們彼此信任。我們每天都在努力建立自己的人才庫，並從內部進行晉升。其中一個不可或缺的部分是人際互動的理念以及我們每天相互教學和學習的能力，坦率地說，當你可以進行面對面的對話時，效率會更高。但我們已經適應了。如果您今天與 2019 年相比進入 Fastenal 分支，您會看到不同的分支。

You see many locations where we've changed what the front room looks like. You've seen many locations where we either have reduced hours or we don't have an open front door anymore because we've really morphed into more and more of a supply chain partner and more product that's going out the back door than ever before. In markets where we have a larger construction presence or we have a meaningful walk-in business and the local team sees that as their means to serve the market, they might be open.

您會看到很多地方我們已經改變了前廳的樣子。您已經看到許多地方我們要么減少了工作時間，要么我們不再有開放的前門，因為我們真的變成了越來越多的供應鏈合作夥伴，並且比以往任何時候都更多的產品走出了後門.在我們擁有更大的建築業務或我們有有意義的步入式業務的市場中，當地團隊認為這是他們為市場服務的手段，他們可能是開放的。

But in many markets, we've changed that format, and it allows us to find success in an era when it's more difficult to hire and because it's a more efficient labor model in our business. I'm also -- the folks that aren't in a branch or on-site. Obviously, folks that work in a distribution center or manufacturing division or drive a truck never had the opportunity to work remote. But since the first half of 2021, we've been largely in the office, working in a different fashion than we did 3 years ago, but finding success together.

但在許多市場，我們已經改變了這種格式，它讓我們能夠在一個更難招聘的時代取得成功，因為它是我們業務中更高效的勞動力模式。我也是——不在分支機構或現場的人。顯然，在配送中心或製造部門工作或駕駛卡車的人從來沒有機會遠程工作。但自 2021 年上半年以來，我們大部分時間都在辦公室，以與 3 年前不同的方式工作，但我們一起尋找成功。

We were able to better engage with our customer. and some of the stuff we're going to talk about Onsite, et cetera, were a reflection of that. But in April, we held our first in-person customer expo since 2019, and it was a great event. We had great engagement with the customers that were there. We did have to limit some geographies just from the hassle of travel and some of the COVID restrictions, but we found really good successful events that we held back in April.

我們能夠更好地與客戶互動。我們將要討論的關於 Onsite 等的一些內容就是對這一點的反映。但在 4 月，我們舉辦了自 2019 年以來的首次面對面客戶博覽會，這是一場盛大的活動。我們與在那裡的客戶進行了很好的互動。由於旅行的麻煩和一些 COVID 限制，我們確實不得不限制一些地區，但我們發現了我們在 4 月推遲的非常好的成功活動。

Hiring remains challenging. However, our trends and applications received have improved. In fact, if I use 2019 as the benchmark, in 2020, post-COVID starting, our applications coming in were down close to 40%. In 2021, our applications using 2019 as a benchmark were down about 36%. In the first 5 months of this year, they're down about 18% from what we saw in 2019.

招聘仍然具有挑戰性。但是，我們的趨勢和收到的申請有所改善。事實上，如果我以 2019 年為基準，在 2020 年，即 COVID 之後的開始，我們的申請量下降了近 40%。 2021 年，我們以 2019 年為基準的應用程序下降了約 36%。今年前 5 個月，它們比我們在 2019 年看到的下降了約 18%。

And I'm pleased to say in the last 3 months, applications coming in every month are about 10% below where they were in 2019. I consider that a huge win and a sign that people are more comfortable and ready to get back to work and to build their career and to build their future. And that's just an element of that in our business.

我很高興地說，在過去的 3 個月裡，每個月收到的申請比 2019 年的水平低 10%。我認為這是一個巨大的勝利，表明人們更加舒適並準備好重返工作崗位並建立他們的職業生涯並建立他們的未來。這只是我們業務中的一部分。

We have effectively managed marketplace disruption. It's made supply chains more expensive than prepandemic and elongated. And you're seeing that in -- if you look at our balance sheet, look at our cash flow. First 6 months of this year, between a combination of inflation and the fact that it takes longer for products to physically move, we have a deeper supply of inventory, and that supply of inventory is more expensive, and you're seeing that in our balance sheet. And again, you're seeing that in our cash flow if that inventory is building and turning.

我們有效地管理了市場混亂。它使供應鏈比大流行前更加昂貴和拉長。你會看到——如果你看看我們的資產負債表，看看我們的現金流。今年前 6 個月，在通貨膨脹和產品實際移動需要更長的時間之間，我們有更深的庫存供應，而且庫存供應更加昂貴，你在我們的資產負債表。同樣，如果庫存正在增加和轉變，您會在我們的現金流中看到這一點。

We're pleased with the fact that we have the balance sheet to withstand that and we can make that covenant with our customer that we are your supply chain partner and we will serve your needs. We did that before COVID. We did that during COVID, and we're doing that today in whatever stage of COVID you do care to call this.

我們很高興我們的資產負債表能夠承受這一事實，我們可以與客戶簽訂契約，即我們是您的供應鏈合作夥伴，我們將滿足您的需求。我們在 COVID 之前就這樣做了。我們在 COVID 期間這樣做了，而且我們今天在 COVID 的任何階段都這樣做，你願意稱之為。

Finally, this is our earnings release. And for the quarter, we grew our sales 18%, and our pretax profit grew just under 21%. Demand is generally healthy. But there were some signs of softening in May and June, and we'll delve into that as we go through this call.

最後，這是我們的收益報告。本季度，我們的銷售額增長了 18%，稅前利潤增長了不到 21%。需求總體上是健康的。但在 5 月和 6 月出現了一些疲軟的跡象，我們將在本次電話會議中對此進行深入研究。

Onsites. We signed 102 Onsites in the second quarter. We did -- we signed 106 in the first quarter. The last time we signed 100 plus in a quarter, it was back in 2019. I believe it was the first quarter. This is the first time we've ever signed 100 plus in 2 consecutive quarters. And I think there's a number of things going on there. Again, the marketplace sees value in our Onsite model. In an era where it's more difficult to hire and more difficult to manage supply chain, I believe our Onsite model is even a better option for our customer in the marketplace.

現場。我們在第二季度簽署了 102 個 Onsites。我們做到了——我們在第一季度簽了 106 份。上一次我們在一個季度簽下 100+ 是在 2019 年。我相信那是第一季度。這是我們第一次連續兩個季度簽約超過 100 人。我認為那裡發生了很多事情。同樣，市場在我們的現場模型中看到了價值。在這個更難招聘、更難管理供應鏈的時代，我相信我們的 Onsite 模式對於市場上的客戶來說甚至是更好的選擇。

And I think that's shining through in our signings. Obviously, the fact that we had a customer event in April, while it didn't help the first quarter number, I think it was an element in the second quarter number. And we remain committed to strong signings for second -- for all of 2022. And we see this as a means to take market share faster and a hedge on whatever the economy might do in the months and years to come.

我認為這在我們的簽約中得到了體現。顯然，我們在 4 月份舉辦了一次客戶活動，雖然這對第一季度的數字沒有幫助，但我認為這是第二季度的一個因素。我們仍然致力於在 2022 年全年進行第二次強有力的簽約。我們認為這是更快佔領市場份額的一種手段，也是對未來幾個月和幾年經濟可能發生的任何事情的對沖。

FMI Technology continued to have industry-leading signing levels, albeit not maybe at the level we'd like. Our internal goal is always to get that number to 100 per day. And during the quarter, we were at 86, an improvement from what we saw in the first quarter, but not where we'd like it to be. And our aspirations here are very high, and that signs through on our expectations. We did, given where we are year-to-date, adjust our expectations for the year. Previously, we had indicated 23,000 to 25,000 signings. We think that number is more in the neighborhood of 21,000 to 23,000, and that's a machine equivalent unit basis.

FMI Technology 繼續擁有行業領先的簽約水平，儘管可能不是我們想要的水平。我們的內部目標始終是讓這個數字達到每天 100 個。在本季度，我們的業績為 86，與第一季度相比有所改善，但不是我們想要的。我們在這裡的願望非常高，這體現了我們的期望。鑑於我們年初至今的情況，我們確實調整了對今年的預期。此前，我們曾表示有 23,000 到 25,000 人簽約。我們認為這個數字更多地在 21,000 到 23,000 之間，這是機器當量單位的基礎。

E-commerce continues to grow nicely. It rose 53% in the second quarter of 2022, and our large customer-oriented EDI was up 53%, whereas our web sales were up 51%. And you combine those 2, e-commerce was about 17.1% of sales in the second quarter. Finally, our digital footprint. We've talked about that in prior calls. It's our ability to manage supply chain more efficiently and illuminate that supply chain for our customers. That increased and was 47.9% of sales in the second quarter, 48% in the month of June.

電子商務繼續保持良好增長。它在 2022 年第二季度增長了 53%，我們面向客戶的大型 EDI 增長了 53%，而我們的網絡銷售額增長了 51%。將這兩者結合起來，電子商務在第二季度約佔銷售額的 17.1%。最後，我們的數字足跡。我們在之前的電話會議中談到了這一點。這是我們更有效地管理供應鏈並為我們的客戶照亮供應鏈的能力。這一數字有所增加，佔第二季度銷售額的 47.9%，6 月份為 48%。

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

有了這個，我會把它交給霍爾頓。

Thank you, Dan. All right. Starting on Slide 5. Our total and daily sales increased 18% in the second quarter of '22. A stronger dollar reduced growth by 60 basis points, and currency-adjusted growth was consistent from the first to the second quarter. In contrast to the first quarter, however, we did experience a softening intraquarter trend in the second. That softening was not particularly deep, and if the level of economic activity that we experienced exiting the second quarter were sustained, we feel good about the rest of the year.

謝謝你，丹。好的。從幻燈片 5 開始。我們的總銷售額和每日銷售額在 22 年第二季度增長了 18%。美元走強使經濟增長減少了 60 個基點，經貨幣調整的增長從第一季度到第二季度是一致的。然而，與第一季度相比，我們確實在第二季度經歷了一個疲軟的季度內趨勢。這種疲軟並不是特別嚴重，如果我們在第二季度之後經歷的經濟活動水平能夠持續下去，那麼我們對今年剩下的時間感覺良好。

I might characterize it through this prism: the percentage of our branches that are growing. 72% in May and June is not as good as 76% in March and April, but on its own, it's pretty good. Nor was the softening that we experienced particularly broad. We experienced it largely in areas that directly touch consumers as well as construction while our core capital goods and commodity-related markets remain strong with healthy backlogs. As we've said before, we experienced demand in real time, and we lack much visibility in how demand will trend through the second half of 2022.

我可以通過這個棱鏡來描述它：我們的分支機構正在增長的百分比。 5 月和 6 月的 72% 不如 3 月和 4 月的 76%，但就其本身而言，還不錯。我們所經歷的軟化也不是特別廣泛。我們主要在直接接觸消費者的領域和建築領域經歷了這種情況，而我們的核心資本貨物和大宗商品相關市場依然強勁，積壓狀況良好。正如我們之前所說，我們實時體驗了需求，我們對 2022 年下半年的需求趨勢缺乏太多了解。

Pricing contributed 660 to 690 basis points to growth in the second quarter of 2022, reflecting carryover of broad pricing actions taken over the last 12 months, the timing of opening of contractual windows and tactical SKU-based actions based on supplier actions. Most costs remain elevated but not worsening. As a result, while we expect price levels to be stable in the third quarter of 2022, we expect the contribution to growth to moderate as we begin to grow over the start of more aggressive pricing actions from the third quarter of last year.

定價為 2022 年第二季度的增長貢獻了 660 至 690 個基點，這反映了過去 12 個月採取的廣泛定價行動的延續、合同窗口的開放時間以及基於供應商行動的基於 SKU 的戰術行動。大多數成本仍然很高，但沒有惡化。因此，雖然我們預計 2022 年第三季度的價格水平將保持穩定，但隨著我們從去年第三季度開始採取更積極的定價行動開始增長，我們預計對增長的貢獻將放緩。

The supply chain picture is unchanged from the first quarter. Challenges with availability persist, but we and our customers are managing them more effectively. Labor market tension seems to have eased some as reflected in our strong FTE additions in the second quarter of 2022. So disruptions persist, but the chaos surrounding them has receded, resulting in a more predictable business environment.

供應鏈情況與第一季度相比沒有變化。可用性方面的挑戰依然存在，但我們和我們的客戶正在更有效地管理它們。正如我們在 2022 年第二季度強勁的 FTE 增加所反映的那樣，勞動力市場的緊張局勢似乎有所緩解。因此，中斷仍然存在，但圍繞它們的混亂已經消退，導致商業環境更加可預測。

Now to Slide 6. Operating margin in the second quarter of 2022 was 21.6%, up from 21.1% in the second quarter of 2021. Our incremental margin was 24.2%. A couple of trends are at play in the period. First, we saw a moderation in the growth of certain expenses, such as incentive pay, profit sharing and health care costs that are subject to early cycle resets. As expected, this produced improved operating expense leverage. It also contributed to the second trend, which is a further gradual migration toward a pre-pandemic margin profile with a mix-related gross margin pressure more than offset by stronger operating leverage.

現在到幻燈片 6。2022 年第二季度的營業利潤率為 21.6%，高於 2021 年第二季度的 21.1%。我們的增量利潤率為 24.2%。在此期間有幾個趨勢在起作用。首先，我們看到某些費用的增長放緩，例如激勵性薪酬、利潤分享和醫療保健費用，這些費用會受到早期週期重置的影響。正如預期的那樣，這提高了運營費用槓桿。它還促成了第二個趨勢，即進一步逐漸向大流行前的利潤率狀況轉變，與混合相關的毛利率壓力被更強的經營槓桿所抵消。

Gross margin was 46.5% in the second quarter of 2022, flat versus the second quarter of 2021. Product margin was modestly down with a wider negative impact from product and customer mix, a slightly lower fastener margin more than offsetting higher non-fastener product margin. This is offset by stronger organizational leverage and sustained strength in volumes absorbed overhead. This absorption slightly exceeded my expectations in the period.

2022 年第二季度的毛利率為 46.5%，與 2021 年第二季度持平。產品利潤率小幅下降，產品和客戶組合的負面影響更大，緊固件利潤率略低，抵消了非緊固件產品利潤率的上升.這被更強大的組織槓桿作用和吸收間接費用的數量持續增長所抵消。這種吸收稍微超出了我在此期間的預期。

The impact of freight on margin is neutral, with higher fuel and shipping costs being offset by good leverage related to a 37.5% increase in freight sales. Pricing actions continued to match higher costs, yielding a neutral price/cost dynamic in the quarter. We achieved greater operating leverage in the second quarter of 2022 with an operating expense to sales ratio being 40 basis points improved to 25%. We achieved 60 basis points of leverage over occupancy related to a 10% reduction in our traditional branch count and the effect of what has been, to this point, relatively slow expansion of our vending install base.

運費對利潤率的影響是中性的，較高的燃料和運輸成本被與貨運銷售額增長 37.5% 相關的良好槓桿所抵消。定價行動繼續與更高的成本相匹配，在本季度產生了中性的價格/成本動態。我們在 2022 年第二季度實現了更大的運營槓桿，運營費用與銷售額的比率從 40 個基點提高到 25%。我們實現了 60 個基點的入住率，這與我們的傳統分支機構數量減少 10% 以及到目前為止我們的自動售貨機安裝基礎擴張相對緩慢的影響有關。

We also achieved modest leverage over total employee expenses. FTE growth continues to lag sales growth and health care expenses were lower, which more than offset an increase in employee incentive payouts and profit sharing expense growth. Other operating expenses reflected increases in selling-related transportation costs, including fuel and further increases in spending on travel and supplies. Putting it all together, we reported second quarter 2022 earnings per share of $0.50, up 19.7% from $0.42 in the second quarter of 2021.

我們還對員工總支出實現了適度的槓桿作用。 FTE 增長繼續落後於銷售增長，醫療保健費用較低，這足以抵消員工獎勵支出和利潤分享費用增長的影響。其他運營費用反映了與銷售相關的運輸成本的增加，包括燃料以及旅行和用品支出的進一步增加。綜上所述，我們報告的 2022 年第二季度每股收益為 0.50 美元，比 2021 年第二季度的 0.42 美元增長 19.7%。

Now turning to Slide 7. We generated $151 million in operating cash in the second quarter of 2022, which is roughly 53% of net income in the period. Traditionally, second quarter conversion rates are low due to the timing of tax payments. As in the first quarter, the current quarter's conversion was below historical norms due to the impact of strong sales growth, supply chain constraints and high inflation on our investment in working capital. We view the lower conversion rate as reflecting our commitment to supporting our customers.

現在轉向幻燈片 7。我們在 2022 年第二季度產生了 1.51 億美元的營業現金，約佔該期間淨收入的 53%。傳統上，由於納稅時間的原因，第二季度的轉化率很低。與第一季度一樣，由於強勁的銷售增長、供應鏈限制和高通脹對我們營運資金投資的影響，本季度的轉換率低於歷史標準。我們認為較低的轉化率反映了我們對支持客戶的承諾。

Year-over-year, accounts receivable was up 21.5%. This reflects strong customer demand and an increase in the mix of larger key account customers, which tend to have longer terms than our smaller customers. Inventories were up 25.4% and inflation accounted for half of the total increase, a proportion that continues to moderate as the flow of physical products into our hubs continues, supporting strong product availability and fulfillment rates.

應收賬款同比增長 21.5%。這反映了強勁的客戶需求和大客戶客戶組合的增加，這些客戶的期限往往比我們的小客戶更長。庫存增長了 25.4%，通貨膨脹佔總增長的一半，隨著實體產品流入我們的樞紐，這一比例繼續放緩，支持強勁的產品可用性和履行率。

The twin disruptions on inflation and supply chain have created an additional level of inventory value. Despite that, our 161 days on hand in the second quarter of 2022 is more than 10 days below the days on hand in the second quarter of 2019 prior to the pandemic, which reflects increasing and sustainable efficiencies in how we manage our inventories.

通貨膨脹和供應鏈的雙重中斷創造了額外的庫存價值。儘管如此，我們在 2022 年第二季度的 161 天在手天數比大流行前 2019 年第二季度的在手天數低了 10 多天，這反映了我們在管理庫存方面的效率不斷提高和可持續。

Net capital spending was $43 million in the second quarter of 2022, up 37.8%. Year-to-date, net capital spending was $76 million, up 24.4% due most significantly to increased spending for FMI equipment and hub automation and upgrades. We continue to anticipate 2022 net capital spending in a range of $180 million to $200 million. However, the combination of slower FMI signings and continued supply chain challenges for transportation and IT equipment suggests there is a downward bias to our net capital spending budget.

2022 年第二季度的淨資本支出為 4300 萬美元，增長 37.8%。年初至今，淨資本支出為 7600 萬美元，增長 24.4%，最顯著的原因是 FMI 設備和集線器自動化和升級的支出增加。我們繼續預計 2022 年的淨資本支出在 1.8 億美元至 2 億美元之間。然而，較慢的 FMI 簽署以及運輸和 IT 設備的持續供應鏈挑戰表明我們的淨資本支出預算存在向下偏差。

We returned cash to shareholders in the quarter in the form of $178 million in dividends and $49 million share buyback. While our opportunistic approach to share buyback is unchanged, our Board did approve an 8 million share increase to our authorization, leaving us with 10.2 million shares authorized for repurchase. From a liquidity standpoint, we finished the second quarter of 2022 with debt at 13.7% of total capital, up from 12.3% in the year-ago period and 11.4% versus the fourth quarter of 2021.

我們在本季度以 1.78 億美元的股息和 4900 萬美元的股票回購的形式向股東返還了現金。雖然我們股票回購的機會主義方法沒有改變，但我們的董事會確實批准了我們授權增加 800 萬股，使我們有 1020 萬股被授權回購。從流動性的角度來看，我們在 2022 年第二季度結束時的債務佔總資本的 13.7%，高於去年同期的 12.3%，與 2021 年第四季度相比為 11.4%。

With that, operator, we'll turn it over to Q&A.

有了這個，操作員，我們將把它交給問答環節。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question today is coming from Josh Pokrzywinski from Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）我們今天的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Josh Pokrzywinski。

A lot of good detail on the release on price, and you guys have kind of helped us throughout kind of this inflationary environment. It seems like there was less coming in 2Q. And then I think prospectively, maybe steel starts to flow through the business.

關於價格發布的很多很好的細節，你們在這種通貨膨脹環境中幫助了我們。似乎第二季度的到來較少。然後我前瞻性地認為，也許鋼鐵開始在業務中流動。

How should we think about that, particularly on the fastener piece in terms of not only maybe what the sensitivity on what you guys could see on pricing is, but is there any margin impact as that kind of flows through and you guys recognize lower prices or maybe customers kind of sharpen their pencil a little bit?

我們應該如何考慮這一點，尤其是在緊固件方面，不僅可能對你們可以看到的定價敏感度是什麼，而且隨著這種流動以及你們認識到較低的價格或也許客戶有點削鉛筆？

What I would say is we've been dealing with inflation now for the better part of the year. And we've been managing that through a number of means, but one of those means has been price actions on our own end. And as we've reported each quarter, we've really been able to align the pacing of our price increases with the pacing of our cost increases. And frankly, I don't expect that to change.

我想說的是，在今年的大部分時間裡，我們一直在應對通貨膨脹。我們一直在通過多種方式進行管理，但其中一種方式是我們自己的價格行為。正如我們每個季度報告的那樣，我們確實能夠使價格上漲的步伐與成本增加的步伐保持一致。坦率地說，我不認為這種情況會改變。

Our material costs today are fairly stable at a high level with where they've been. And so in the second quarter, we didn't take any additional broad actions. There were certainly some actions around freight. There were certainly actions where we had suppliers put increases into us and things like that. But I view those as being more tactical. We certainly took actions as contract windows opened up. But again, that's part of how we manage.

我們今天的材料成本與過去相比相當穩定。所以在第二季度，我們沒有採取任何額外的廣泛行動。貨運方面肯定有一些行動。當然，我們有一些行動讓供應商增加了我們的費用等等。但我認為這些更具戰術性。隨著合同窗口的打開，我們當然採取了行動。但同樣，這是我們管理方式的一部分。

The price/cost dynamic is understanding where our costs are coming from and when we'll have opportunities to make adjustments, and I give an enormous amount of credit to the folks who manage our pricing and costing strategies and frankly, the folks in the field that have to execute them because I think they've done a really, really good job of that.

價格/成本動態是了解我們的成本來自哪里以及我們何時有機會進行調整，我非常感謝管理我們的定價和成本計算策略的人，坦率地說，是該領域的人必須執行他們，因為我認為他們在這方面做得非常非常好。

When I look forward right now, it feels like it's going to be more of the same. To the extent that we see suppliers putting cost increases into us first, we'll push back on them. We have a good sense of what's going on with raw materials as well. And depending on how that goes, we might have to push some SKU-specific price increases through.

當我現在向前看時，感覺它會變得更加相同。如果我們看到供應商首先將成本增加放在我們身上，我們會反擊他們。我們對原材料的情況也有很好的了解。根據具體情況，我們可能不得不推動一些特定於 SKU 的價格上漲。

But unless there's some meaningful change in the overall cost environment from where we spent most of the past quarter, I don't anticipate any aggressive actions to have to be taken. Again, we'll see how the environment plays out. I'm just going by what we see today. But I also expect that we'll continue to manage to a neutral price/cost.

但是，除非我們在過去一個季度的大部分時間里花費的整體成本環境發生了一些有意義的變化，否則我預計不需要採取任何積極的行動。同樣，我們將看到環境如何發揮作用。我只是按照我們今天所看到的進行。但我也預計我們將繼續保持中性價格/成本。

And so I'm not seeing much change in that area, but one change you will see is as we run into Q3, we're going to run against tougher comps. And so I do expect that the percentage growth related to price increases will moderate from where we were in Q2. But again, that doesn't reflect the change in the overall price level. That would be my expectation.

所以我在那個領域沒有看到太大的變化，但你會看到一個變化是當我們進入第三季度時，我們將面對更強大的組合。因此，我確實預計與價格上漲相關的百分比增長將從第二季度開始放緩。但同樣，這並不能反映整體價格水平的變化。那將是我的期望。

Got it. That's helpful. And then just as a follow-up, you guys have been at the branch conversion here for a bit now. Any observation for how that's impacted kind of the traditional retail or branch-facing model? I know that the objective there was to kind of push more of those customers to e-commerce, maybe be willing to lose some of them. But how would you sort of rate how that's gone? And any observations or attrition rates or stuff like that you could share?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後作為後續行動，你們已經在這裡進行了分支轉換。有沒有觀察到這對傳統零售或面向分支機構的模式有何影響？我知道目標是推動更多這些客戶轉向電子商務，也許願意失去其中的一些。但你會如何評價它是如何消失的？您可以分享任何觀察結果或流失率或類似的東西嗎？

I think part of what we did, obviously, the COVID period pushed everybody to abruptly change what they're doing. And I think that the strength you see in our e-commerce sales growing north of 50% is a testament to the marketplace -- I don't know if the marketplace is reacting to what we're doing or we're reacting to what the marketplace is doing. I think it's more of the latter. And -- but buying habits have changed. You see it in your personal life. What you do today is different than what it would have been 5 years ago.

我認為我們所做的部分工作，很明顯，COVID 時期促使每個人突然改變他們正在做的事情。而且我認為您在我們的電子商務銷售額中看到的增長超過 50% 的實力證明了市場——我不知道市場是否對我們正在做的事情做出反應，或者我們正在對什麼做出反應市場正在做。我認為更多的是後者。而且——但購買習慣已經改變。你會在你的個人生活中看到它。您今天所做的與 5 年前不同。

And so as we've moved -- as more and more of our growth comes from the fact we're engaging deeper with customers and they're seeing the ability for us to help them in more ways than maybe they would have 5 and 10 years ago, it changed the footprint we needed. And sometimes when you change your footprint, if all of a sudden you have 5 locations in a market and you go to 3, you will lose some business because you're not close proximity.

因此，隨著我們的發展，我們越來越多的增長來自於我們與客戶進行更深入的互動，他們看到我們有能力以比他們可能擁有的 5 和 10 更多的方式幫助他們幾年前，它改變了我們需要的足跡。有時當你改變你的足跡時，如果你突然在一個市場上有 5 個位置，然後你去了 3 個，你會失去一些生意，因為你離得不近。

But most of that is morphing to a different channel, and that was going to happen regardless of our changing footprint. And we think we're doing a nice job keeping a lot of that business as, again, if you look at our increase in web sales, because a lot of that business would go to the web sales, that's growing at 50%.

但其中大部分正在轉變為不同的渠道，無論我們的足跡如何變化，這都會發生。而且我們認為我們在保持很多業務方面做得很好，再次，如果你看一下我們在網絡銷售方面的增長，因為很多業務將用於網絡銷售，增長率為 50%。

Yes. I mean I would build on that -- point to the same thing. I mean our -- despite the changes that have been made, our growth has been very good and that includes on the e-commerce side.

是的。我的意思是我會在此基礎上再接再厲——指向同一件事。我的意思是我們的 - 儘管已經做出了改變，但我們的增長非常好，包括電子商務方面。

And with our local customers.

並與我們當地的客戶一起。

And with our local customers. That's one of the things I was going to say. It's really early to really understand in a concrete fashion where the numbers are all falling. Because obviously, this is something that's come up in the last couple of years. There's a period of time to execute, get comfortable in a certain environment center.

並與我們當地的客戶一起。這是我要說的事情之一。現在要真正了解數字都在下降的具體方式還為時過早。因為很明顯，這是最近幾年出現的問題。有一段時間可以執行，在某個環境中心適應。

But I do believe that at least very early on, I think the growth that we're getting out of our branches relative to the marketplace is a little bit better in this cycle than what we saw last cycle, and I think that, that attributes to a lot of the changes that we're making. But this is a wealth of data that we're going to have to continue to collect and evaluate. But everything coming out of the field anecdotally, and really early indications on the data, I think, are all encouraging.

但我確實相信，至少在很早的時候，我認為在這個週期中，我們從分支機構中獲得的相對於市場的增長比我們在上個週期看到的要好一點，我認為，那個屬性我們正在做的很多改變。但這是我們必須繼續收集和評估的大量數據。但我認為，從該領域傳出的一切，以及數據的早期跡像都令人鼓舞。

Your next question is coming from David Manthey from Baird.

您的下一個問題來自 Baird 的 David Manthey。

Dan, Holden, so back in 2009, and I know every cycle is different, but through that year, your gross margin dropped about 300 basis points. And at the time, you were -- you talked about FIFO and lower rebates and competitive pricing.

丹，霍爾頓，早在 2009 年，我知道每個週期都是不同的，但在那一年，你的毛利率下降了大約 300 個基點。當時，你是——你談到了先進先出、更低的回扣和有競爭力的定價。

Can you just discuss what's different today about the business other than the fastener mix, which I think was about 50% back then. And anything else that's changed that would limit that kind of an impact on your P&L?

你能不能談談今天除了緊固件組合之外的業務有什麼不同，我認為當時大約有 50%。還有什麼其他改變會限制對您的損益的影響？

Sure. You have a good memory, Dave. And last -- yesterday, we had our Board meeting and I was reflecting on just that element with the Board because we're talking about what could happen in different scenarios, what we're seeing. And if you recall in 2009 -- so in 2008, there was a fair amount of inflation and -- nothing like we're seeing today, but there was inflation going on. And when demand fell back, that flipped from inflation to deflation.

當然。你記性很好，戴夫。最後 - 昨天，我們舉行了董事會會議，我正在與董事會一起思考這一要素，因為我們正在討論在不同情況下可能發生的事情，我們所看到的。如果你回想 2009 年 - 所以在 2008 年，有相當多的通貨膨脹 - 和我們今天看到的完全不同，但通貨膨脹仍在繼續。當需求回落時，就會從通貨膨脹轉向通貨緊縮。

And all of a sudden, what is 6 months' worth of product, if your demand drops off enough, that might turn into 7 or 8 or 9 months' worth of product. And you saw the squeeze that occurred. You also saw a mix shift in your business depending on who's being impacted by it.

突然之間，6 個月的產品價值是多少，如果您的需求下降得足夠多，那可能會變成 7 或 8 或 9 個月的產品價值。你看到了發生的擠壓。您還看到了業務的混合轉變，具體取決於受其影響的人。

And then the deleveraging, obviously, of the trucking network -- if we're driving a truck from Winona, Minnesota to Minneapolis to deliver to branches, and that truck has 10% -- is running full or it's running at 80%, the cost of the truck and the cost of the driver and the cost of the fuel going in, that is what the market is that day and you deleverage that network. Same thing with our distribution.

然後，顯然，卡車運輸網絡的去槓桿化——如果我們開著卡車從明尼蘇達州威諾納到明尼阿波利斯運送到分支機構，而那輛卡車有 10%——正在滿負荷運行，或者以 80% 的速度運行，卡車的成本、司機的成本和燃料的成本，這就是那天的市場，你可以去槓桿化那個網絡。我們的發行版也是如此。

If -- what's different today, the element of deleveraging the trucking network, that's the same. Nothing's changed there. The -- our mix is different. You're right, fastener is 50% of our mix. A fair amount of that is product that -- most of the fasteners in this country are not produced in this country, and so whether it's us or supply chain partners in North America, most of that's coming from Asia.

如果 - 今天有什麼不同，去槓桿化貨運網絡的元素，那是一樣的。那裡什麼都沒有改變。我們的組合是不同的。你是對的，緊固件是我們組合的 50%。其中相當一部分是產品——這個國家的大多數緊固件都不是在這個國家生產的，所以無論是我們還是北美的供應鏈合作夥伴，大部分都來自亞洲。

And if there is deflation going on, there's a squeeze that goes down there that occurs in your turn of inventory. Once you get through that turn of inventory, that issue goes away. Again, the question is how much supply do you have? Those dynamics are in play. The non-fastener piece, a chunk of that, we source domestically, a chunk of that, we import.

如果出現通貨緊縮，那麼在你的庫存周轉時就會出現緊縮。一旦你完成了那輪庫存，這個問題就會消失。同樣，問題是你有多少供應？這些動態正在發揮作用。非緊固件部分，其中一部分，我們在國內採購，一部分，我們進口。

I suspect some of what we buy domestically is imported by somebody else. There will be some of those dynamics going on, too. Deflationary environment is not a friend to gross profit in the short term. It wasn't in 2009. It wasn't in the early '90s. It wasn't in the late '90s. And it won't be if something -- if that would happen in today's world.

我懷疑我們在國內購買的一些東西是別人進口的。也會有一些這樣的動態。通縮環境在短期內對毛利不利。不是在 2009 年，也不是在 90 年代初期。不是在 90 年代後期。如果有什麼事情——如果這會發生在當今世界，它就不會發生。

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

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

I think I'm going to revisit some of the questions beforehand. Maybe I think what Josh was trying to drive at was the fastener pricing with steel prices coming down. Obviously, steel prices are sub-$1,000 right now. I understand you've got contractual pricing arrangements with some customers on that. So maybe just if you could just address that and how that works and maybe just go from there.

我想我會事先重新審視一些問題。也許我認為喬希試圖推動的是隨著鋼鐵價格下跌的緊固件定價。顯然，鋼鐵價格目前低於 1,000 美元。我了解您已與一些客戶達成了合同定價安排。所以也許只要你能解決這個問題以及它是如何工作的，也許就從那裡開始。

Yes. I mean, first thing, I would challenge the assumption a little bit about steel pricing being down. It depends on which index you're looking at. I mean we source most of our steel product over in Asia. And so what's relevant to us is sort of what's going on in Taiwan, what's going on in China. At least on the last statistics that were fed to us, those prices are still relatively elevated. So consider first the region.

是的。我的意思是，首先，我會對鋼鐵價格下降的假設提出一點挑戰。這取決於您正在查看的索引。我的意思是我們從亞洲採購大部分鋼鐵產品。所以與我們相關的是台灣正在發生的事情，中國正在發生的事情。至少在提供給我們的最新統計數據中，這些價格仍然相對較高。所以首先考慮地區。

But the -- look, I think that -- I think deflation works the exact same way as inflation, right? When the cost of the raw material goes up, we approach our customers with an increase to defend -- to sort of defend our margin. And when it goes down, our customers approach us with a decrease, and there's a whole bunch of them that have those contractual windows that allow them to do that.

但是 - 看，我認為 - 我認為通貨緊縮的作用與通貨膨脹完全相同，對吧？當原材料成本上漲時，我們會增加與客戶接觸以保護我們的利潤。當它下降時，我們的客戶以減少的方式接近我們，並且有一大群人擁有允許他們這樣做的合同窗口。

As a result, is it possible that you could have negative pricing in your business? Sure. I think we saw that in 2015 and '16. Now consider the pieces, right? I don't believe that we've historically seen negative pricing in our non-fastener mix. And on the fastener side, consider that no more than 1/3 of the value of a fastener is the actual raw material itself. The rest of it is the value-added and the manufacturing, the transportation costs, et cetera, right?

因此，您的業務是否有可能出現負定價？當然。我想我們在 2015 年和 16 年看到了這一點。現在考慮碎片，對吧？我不相信我們歷史上在我們的非緊固件組合中看到過負定價。而在緊固件方面，考慮到一個緊固件的價值不超過 1/3 是實際原材料本身。剩下的就是附加值和製造、運輸成本等等，對吧？

And so when you start slicing and dicing, at the end of the day, in 2015, 2016, we probably saw deflation in price of 1% or 2% across the business, right? So please consider the order of magnitude of impact that we're talking about. But I think that the dynamics work the same way, but in reverse, if the pricing environment should change. But again, I want to emphasize that's not the environment that we're seeing today. Feel free to speculate, anyone on this call, if that's going to happen, but that's not the environment we're seeing today.

因此，當您開始切片和切塊時，在一天結束時，在 2015 年、2016 年，我們可能會看到整個業務的價格通縮 1% 或 2%，對吧？所以請考慮我們正在談論的影響的數量級。但我認為，如果定價環境發生變化，動態的運作方式相同，但相反。但我想再次強調，這不是我們今天看到的環境。如果這會發生，請隨意推測，如果這會發生，但這不是我們今天看到的環境。

Right. No, I mean talking about the inflation with the CPI numbers that just came out, it seems a bit academic. But no, it's a (inaudible) discussion. Just on -- just staying on inflation, I think you called out half of the inventory increase is inflation, half is units.

正確的。不，我的意思是用剛剛出來的CPI數字來談論通貨膨脹，這似乎有點學術。但不，這是一個（聽不清）討論。就在——只是保持通貨膨脹，我認為你說庫存增加的一半是通貨膨脹，一半是單位。

So it looks like we've got about 12% inflation in inventory here. Pricing is 6.6%, 6.9%. Does that mean you need to push more price in the back half of the year to maintain price/cost neutrality on products?

所以看起來我們這裡的庫存通脹率約為 12%。定價為 6.6%、6.9%。這是否意味著您需要在下半年推高價格以保持產品的價格/成本中性？

So the -- I think part of the challenge is how you measure the relative pricing. Remember that when we're talking about pricing running through our revenues, we're looking at reoccurring sales, which is about 40% subset of our total business, right? Now what that means is about 50% of our business is the sale of a product that we didn't sell in the previous period, right?

所以 - 我認為部分挑戰是你如何衡量相對定價。請記住，當我們談論貫穿我們收入的定價時，我們關注的是重複銷售，這大約占我們總業務的 40%，對吧？現在這意味著我們大約 50% 的業務是銷售我們在上一時期沒有銷售的產品，對吧？

Now the truth is, if we were to have sold the same part last year that we sold this year, we probably would have sold it for less than we did this year, right? And so I believe that there's a -- the reoccurring component of inventory is much higher than the reoccurring component of sales by the nature of our business, and I think that's the difference that you're seeing between the 2.

現在的事實是，如果我們去年銷售的零件與今年銷售的相同，我們可能會以低於今年的價格出售它，對吧？所以我相信，根據我們的業務性質，庫存的重複出現的部分遠高於銷售的重複出現的部分，我認為這就是你在兩者之間看到的差異。

Again, when I look at where we are, if I take out all that nonreoccurring and look at just reoccurring, the dynamic is we're a little bit behind on fasteners and we're sort of in line on everything else. And so no, I don't believe that we're behind, Nigel. I think that we're largely on pace with the level of inflation that we're seeing. And the gap you're talking about is reflecting sort of the different reoccurring sales levels that you see in sales versus inventory.

再次，當我查看我們所處的位置時，如果我取出所有不發生的事情並看看只是重複發生的事情，動態是我們在緊固件方面有點落後，而我們在其他所有方面都處於一致狀態。所以不，我不相信我們落後了，奈傑爾。我認為我們在很大程度上與我們所看到的通脹水平保持同步。你所說的差距反映了你在銷售與庫存中看到的不同的重複銷售水平。

There's a premise to the question that I think is being missed from the standpoint of the basis for the question. And that is when we have $100 of products sitting on the shelf, let's just say that's our ending inventory, and we're selling product next month, the month after that. We're not exclusively selling product out of our inventory. We're selling product that we're buying that month and selling that month.

我認為從問題基礎的角度來看，這個問題有一個前提被遺漏了。那就是當我們貨架上有 100 美元的產品時，假設這是我們的期末庫存，我們將在下個月、下個月銷售產品。我們並不是專門從我們的庫存中銷售產品。我們正在銷售我們在那個月購買並在那個月銷售的產品。

We're selling product -- a disproportionate piece of our inventory that's sitting on the shelf is a product that has -- that we've decided, over time, because of the length of the supply chain and the nature of the supply chain, we're going to stack that ourselves. So if we have a supplier -- a domestic supplier who we're lockstep with, we have a great supply chain relationship with, they know the demand, we know their capabilities, we don't have 6 months of their product on our shelf.

我們正在銷售產品——我們貨架上不成比例的一部分庫存是一種產品——隨著時間的推移，由於供應鏈的長度和供應鏈的性質，我們已經決定，我們將自己堆疊。因此，如果我們有一個供應商——一個與我們步調一致的國內供應商，我們有很好的供應鏈關係，他們知道需求，我們知道他們的能力，我們的貨架上沒有他們 6 個月的產品.

We have 3 weeks. We have 6 weeks. We have 8 weeks of their product on our shelf, depending on what the need is to physically move it in an efficient fashion because your supply chain is different. If that product is coming from halfway around the planet and in the last 1.5 years, that trip from source to use is less than predictable, that's where our inventory has deepened.

我們有 3 週的時間。我們有 6 週的時間。我們的貨架上有 8 週的產品，具體取決於需要以有效的方式實際移動它，因為您的供應鏈不同。如果該產品來自地球的另一端，並且在過去 1.5 年中，從源頭到使用的旅程是不可預測的，這就是我們的庫存加深的地方。

So when Holden talks about what percentage of our inventory increase related to inflation and relates to deepening of the quantity, that's disproportionate to inventory that we're sourcing outside the United States, outside of North America. And so that 12% doesn't naturally translate to -- well, that means your inflation and your sale price in the next 6 months has to be up 12% because that's not apples and apples. I hope that makes sense, Nigel.

因此，當霍爾頓談到我們庫存增加的百分比與通貨膨脹有關以及與數量加深有關時，這與我們在美國以外、北美以外採購的庫存不成比例。所以這 12% 不會自然地轉化為——嗯，這意味著你的通貨膨脹和未來 6 個月的銷售價格必須上漲 12%，因為那不是蘋果和蘋果。我希望這是有道理的，奈傑爾。

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

我們的下一個問題來自威廉布萊爾的瑞安默克爾。

So I wanted to follow up on Dave's question and just clarify. So relative to 2009, it sounds like the mix is a little bit different, obviously, of your business. But I think you're saying you're going to be just as cyclical and decrementals could still be in the mid-20s if we have weak sales and deflation. Is that a fair statement?

所以我想跟進戴夫的問題並澄清一下。因此，相對於 2009 年，顯然，您的業務組合聽起來有點不同。但我認為你的意思是，如果我們的銷售疲軟和通貨緊縮，那麼週期性和遞減仍可能在 20 年代中期。這是一個公平的說法嗎？

Well, the point Holden made in a much more artful fashion than I tried to make when I initially answered it was the mix was more acute in 2009 because half our sales were fasteners. And fasteners have different pricing dynamics than non-fasteners. And so the fact that it's 1/3 of our business today would -- it wouldn't remove it on that 1/3, but it would diminish it because it's 1/3 of our business rather than 1/2 our business. Does that make sense?

好吧，當我最初回答時，霍爾頓以一種比我試圖表達的更巧妙的方式提出的觀點是，2009 年的混合更加尖銳，因為我們一半的銷售額是緊固件。緊固件的定價動態與非緊固件不同。因此，它今天占我們業務的 1/3 的事實 - 它不會在 1/3 上刪除它，但它會減少它，因為它是我們業務的 1/3，而不是我們業務的 1/2。那有意義嗎？

It does.

確實如此。

The other thing that I would remember or that I would point out is in 2009, demand was down 60% in a blink. It's really hard to adjust your cost structure when demand is down 60% in a blink. I would -- maybe things change and maybe we have 2009 coming. I have no idea because we have no visibility, but that seems to be where a lot of questions are coming from.

我記得或要指出的另一件事是在 2009 年，需求在一瞬間下降了 60%。當需求瞬間下降 60% 時，很難調整成本結構。我會——也許事情會發生變化，也許我們將迎來 2009 年。我不知道，因為我們沒有可見性，但這似乎是很多問題的來源。

But our decremental -- And one reason '09 is so exceptional is because that's actually the only year in our history that revenue was down. But our decremental is 40% because you can't adjust your cost structure that quickly. I don't believe, unless you believe there's a replay of 2009 coming, I don't believe that 2009 is the right proxy for, let's say, a 2019-style slowdown. I would just give some consideration to the benchmark you're using now.

但我們的遞減——09 年如此出色的一個原因是，這實際上是我們歷史上收入下降的唯一一年。但是我們的遞減量是 40%，因為你不能那麼快地調整你的成本結構。我不相信，除非你相信 2009 年會重演，否則我不認為 2009 年是 2019 年式放緩的正確代表。我只是考慮一下您現在使用的基準。

Before everybody on the call walks over -- and this is to everybody. Before everybody on the call walks over to the closest window and decides to the leap, when I talk to our regional leaders, when I talked to our national account sales leaders and I get the tone of what they're seeing from their customers, I don't think there's a customer they talk to that doesn't have as strong a backlog as they've ever had in their business.

在通話中的每個人都走過之前- 這是給每個人的。在通話中的每個人都走到最近的窗口並決定飛躍之前，當我與我們的區域領導交談時，當我與我們的全國客戶銷售領導交談時，我從他們的客戶那裡看到了他們的語氣，我不要認為與他們交談的客戶的積壓訂單沒有他們在業務中所擁有的那麼強大。

Now backlogs are funny. Backlogs can evaporate in an environment. But there's a lot of -- if you think about what you see, we were down -- our transportation folks were down at the rail yards in Chicago recently, really trying to -- we're always trying to figure out ways to streamline our supply chain. And the amount of containers of product that retailers have sitting there that they're paying for storage is massive.

現在積壓很有趣。積壓可以在環境中蒸發。但是有很多——如果你想想你所看到的，我們倒下了——我們的運輸人員最近在芝加哥的鐵路站場倒下了，真的很努力——我們一直在想辦法簡化我們的供應鏈。零售商為存儲而付費的產品容器數量是巨大的。

And so there's a lot of those kinds of things we're hearing about. But when I talk to our manufacturing customer base and our construction customer base, probably the -- to the construction folks, the proverbial canary in the coal mine, I'll use a term from one of our directors yesterday, is projects don't get canceled, but they get delayed when things get softer. But there's a lot of pent-up demand because a lot of manufacturers have stuff that's sitting there ready to be finished, but they're waiting for components.

所以我們聽到了很多這樣的事情。但是，當我與我們的製造業客戶群和建築業客戶群交談時，可能是——對建築人員，眾所周知的煤礦中的金絲雀，我會用昨天我們的一位董事的話，項目不被取消，但是當事情變得更柔和時，它們會被延遲。但是有很多被壓抑的需求，因為很多製造商都有準備完成的東西，但他們正在等待組件。

One of the components they're not waiting for is their OEM fasteners. One of the components they're not waiting for is the stuff that Fastenal is there to supply them, so when that widget can be assembled or the assembly can be finished, we're there to serve that need. And so we're in a different spot than a lot of suppliers going into that.

他們不等待的組件之一是他們的 OEM 緊固件。他們不等待的組件之一是 Fastenal 可以為他們提供的東西，因此當可以組裝該小部件或可以完成組裝時，我們會在那裡滿足這一需求。因此，我們所處的位置與許多供應商不同。

But Holden's point is dead on. I still remember from -- I believe from October to January, our business dropped off about 18%. And then we dropped off 5 percentage points a month of actual business levels. So we weren't down 50%, Holden. We were down about 33%. But -- and then it started to shallow in the spring. But his point is dead on that, that's a complete different scenario than what we're talking about from the standpoint of the demand need and the backlog in the marketplace downstream from us.

但是霍爾頓的觀點是堅定的。我還記得——我相信從 10 月到 1 月，我們的業務下降了大約 18%。然後我們每月實際業務水平下降 5 個百分點。所以我們並沒有下跌 50%，霍爾頓。我們下跌了約 33%。但是 - 然後它在春天開始變淺。但是他的觀點是死的，從需求需求和我們下游市場積壓的角度來看，這與我們所說的完全不同。

Got it. That's helpful. And then my second question and the premise to this question is the worry about inflation to deflation, and probably better for Holden. So I think, Holden, that price inflation that you report reflects about 40% of sales. I think that's what you've said. So the question is, what is the risk that inflation in the other 60% that's hard to measure has been more helpful to sales and gross margins than we appreciate?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後我的第二個問題和這個問題的前提是擔心通貨膨脹到通貨緊縮，這對霍頓來說可能更好。所以我認為，霍爾頓，你報告的價格通脹反映了大約 40% 的銷售額。我想這就是你所說的。所以問題是，另外 60% 的難以衡量的通脹對銷售和毛利率的幫助比我們認為的更大的風險是什麼？

Well, again, I believe that if we had bought a widget in both periods, it would be inflated this year compared to where it was last year. I think that goes without saying. But I mean that's why if you look at fastener inflation, throw out the 60% where there's no offsetting sales year-over-year to a similar customer.

好吧，再一次，我相信如果我們在兩個時期都購買了一個小部件，那麼與去年相比，今年它會被誇大。我認為這是不言而喻的。但我的意思是這就是為什麼如果你看一下緊固件的通貨膨脹，把沒有對類似客戶的同比銷售額抵消的 60% 剔除掉。

But fastener inflation exceeds 25%. It has over the past couple of quarters, because of what's happened with the price of steel cost of transporting internationally, et cetera. If I look at non-fasteners, it's been closer to 10%, right? So I mean that's the level of inflation that we've been seeing in the marketplace. Hopefully, that gives some color. I'm not sure what else you're referring to.

但緊固件通貨膨脹超過 25%。在過去的幾個季度中，由於國際運輸的鋼鐵成本價格發生了變化，等等。如果我看非緊固件，它接近 10%，對吧？所以我的意思是這就是我們在市場上看到的通貨膨脹水平。希望這能給一些顏色。我不確定你還指的是什麼。

Yes. No, it's helpful. I just -- if it's hard to measure roughly 60% of sales on inflation, I was just worried that potential inflation is helping more than we can appreciate since we can't really see.

是的。不，這很有幫助。我只是 - 如果很難根據通貨膨脹來衡量大約 60% 的銷售額，我只是擔心潛在的通貨膨脹所帶來的幫助超過了我們所能理解的，因為我們真的看不到。

As I said, for every widget that we sell this quarter for which there's no comparable sale to the prior quarter, I'm pretty certain that we probably got more for it this quarter than we would have a year ago had we sold it.

正如我所說，對於我們本季度銷售的每一個與上一季度沒有可比銷售額的小部件，我很確定本季度我們可能會比一年前出售它時獲得更多。

I think that there's -- if we didn't sell it last period, I also think we probably gained some share or gained some products, something like that. I don't think we sold lose sight of that fact. But yes, without a doubt, most of the stuff we're buying this year, probably we're getting more for it than we would have a year ago.

我認為有——如果我們上一期沒有賣掉它，我也認為我們可能獲得了一些份額或獲得了一些產品，類似的東西。我不認為我們賣掉了這個事實。但是，是的，毫無疑問，我們今年購買的大部分東西，可能我們得到的比一年前更多。

The piece you're not factoring into this is there's numerous examples of where the customer was willing to shift what they were buying. And so for example, we have our own exclusive brands. There are examples where hey, widget A has gone up 10%. Widget B has gone up 10%, too. However, that 10% increase is less -- is only 1.5 points above what you were spending on widget A in the past.

你沒有考慮到這一點的是，有很多例子表明客戶願意改變他們所購買的東西。例如，我們擁有自己的獨家品牌。有一些例子，嘿，小部件 A 上漲了 10%。小部件 B 也上漲了 10%。但是，這 10% 的增長幅度較小——僅比您過去在小部件 A 上的花費高 1.5 個百分點。

And so to think these measurements are funny at not measuring things like that to shift, because our exclusive brands as a percentage of business -- our preferred suppliers as a percentage of business has grown faster than our overall business. And so not all of that inflation shines through in the terms of pure growth.

因此，認為這些衡量標準很有趣，因為我們的獨家品牌佔業務的百分比 - 我們首選的供應商佔業務的百分比比我們的整體業務增長得更快。因此，並非所有通貨膨脹都以純增長的形式體現出來。

Because when substitution comes into play, what you're selling is more expensive than it would have been a year ago, but it's only nominally more expensive than what the alternative was because it's kind of like going to grocery store and you're buying a different brand than you were buying a year ago. Both brands might be up 5% or 10%, but you might be spending the same as you were spending a year ago because you're buying a different brand.

因為當替代品開始發揮作用時，你賣的東西比一年前更貴，但它只是名義上比替代品貴，因為這有點像去雜貨店，你買的是與一年前購買的品牌不同。兩個品牌都可能上漲 5% 或 10%，但您的支出可能與一年前相同，因為您購買的是不同的品牌。

And I would point out, and again, ultimately, price/cost gets reflected in some way, shape or form in your gross margin. And again, our gross margin has been fairly stable. So I don't believe that there's a bunch of inflation out there that we're not seeing and we're not accounting for. Because if that were the case, it would be reflected in our gross margin. I think the actions that we've taken are capturing the order of magnitude of increase that we've seen.

我要再次指出，價格/成本最終會以某種方式、形狀或形式反映在您的毛利率中。同樣，我們的毛利率一直相當穩定。所以我不相信有一堆我們沒有看到也沒有考慮在內的通貨膨脹。因為如果是這樣，它將反映在我們的毛利率中。我認為我們採取的行動正在捕捉我們所看到的增長數量級。

Our next question is coming from Hamzah Mazari from Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Hamzah Mazari。

My first question was just around the Onsite business. You mentioned, clearly it's a good solution for some of the supply chain issues you're seeing. Do you view there to be structurally higher demand for Onsites in kind of a post-COVID world post-pandemic relative to your kind of expectations pre-pandemic? And kind of has the time line in terms of implementing a new Onsite or the ramp changed at all with some of the labor availability issues? I know you mentioned you had pretty good hiring in Q2.

我的第一個問題是關於現場業務。您提到，對於您所看到的一些供應鏈問題，這顯然是一個很好的解決方案。相對於您在大流行前的期望，您是否認為在大流行後的 COVID 後世界中，對 Onsites 的結構性需求更高？由於一些勞動力可用性問題，實施新現場或坡道的時間線是否發生了變化？我知道您提到您在第二季度的招聘情況非常好。

Yes. Structural is a funny word. It -- I believe there is a structural change in demand. COVID -- I mean, COVID and the hiring environment is part of it. I think awareness is part of it, too. If you go back 15 years ago, there wasn't a structural demand for vending in industrial world, industrial distribution. It didn't exist. It was a one-off novelty that had been around for 20 years, but it really didn't have a presence.

是的。結構是一個有趣的詞。它——我相信需求發生了結構性變化。 COVID--我的意思是，COVID 和招聘環境是其中的一部分。我認為意識也是其中的一部分。如果你回到 15 年前，工業界沒有對自動售貨機、工業分配的結構性需求。它不存在。這是一個已經存在了 20 年的一次性新奇事物，但它確實沒有存在。

Even internally, when we first started talking about it, most -- a lot of the reaction was we want to put what in a stack machine? And it's a better means to distribute that type of product. And we've expanded that footprint now into our FAST Bin offering, our FASTStock offering. And what's changed is our awareness of the solution, but as of equal importance, the customers' awareness of the solution.

甚至在內部，當我們第一次開始談論它時，大多數人的反應是我們想把什麼放在堆棧機器中？這是分發此類產品的更好方法。現在，我們已將這一足跡擴展到我們的 FAST Bin 產品和 FASTStock 產品中。改變的是我們對解決方案的認識，但同樣重要的是客戶對解決方案的認識。

The one thing that is nice about an event like our customer show is customers get to come to that event, and they see firsthand examples. They talk to other customers that are doing it. And all of a sudden, the awareness changed of what the Onsite is about, Fastenal model. Because there's other Onsite models out there, implant models out there, but they learned about what it is in the Fastenal supply chain armed with all of our FMI technology of why it's a great solution.

像我們的客戶展示這樣的活動的一個好處是客戶可以參加該活動，他們會看到第一手的例子。他們與其他正在這樣做的客戶交談。突然之間，人們對 Onsite 的認識發生了變化，即 Fastenal 模型。因為那裡還有其他 Onsite 模型、植入模型，但他們了解了 Fastenal 供應鏈中的內容，這些模型配備了我們所有的 FMI 技術，為什麼它是一個很好的解決方案。

I believe structurally, there's a better environment for it, and that's why we're signing 100 versus 80 or 85 or 90, if I go back even prepandemic. That's enhanced by the fact that maybe some folks look at that as, "Geez, it's really difficult to hire, especially for an expertise that isn't inherent in my business."

我相信從結構上講，它有一個更好的環境，這就是為什麼我們要簽 100 對 80 或 85 或 90，如果我回到大流行前。或許有些人認為，“天哪，這真的很難招聘，尤其是對於我的業務並非固有的專業知識。”這一事實增強了這一點。

We make widgets. We don't source product. And so it's an expertise and a hiring element. Don't lose sight of the fact that it's worked for us to add those people, too. And so sometimes the limiting factor to how fast it ramps up is our ability to staff it with a talented team and our customers' ability to make change in their business and willingness to make change.

我們製作小部件。我們不採購產品。因此，這是一種專業知識和招聘要素。不要忽視這樣一個事實，我們也可以添加這些人。因此，有時限制它增長速度的因素是我們為它配備一支才華橫溢的團隊的能力，以及我們的客戶在他們的業務中做出改變的能力和做出改變的意願。

But the premise of your question is, structurally, there are a better environments today than there would have been in the past? Yes. Part of that's COVID. Part of that is a hiring environment. But I think the most important element is awareness. And that gives us sustainability past the next 6 to 12 months. That gives us sustainability for years into the future because it's a thing.

但你的問題的前提是，從結構上講，今天有比過去更好的環境嗎？是的。其中一部分是COVID。其中一部分是招聘環境。但我認為最重要的因素是意識。這使我們能夠在接下來的 6 到 12 個月內保持可持續性。這給了我們未來幾年的可持續性，因為它是一回事。

Bit of color I might add to that, probably over the last 3 to 5 months, which kind of coincides with where I think ourselves and our customer base begin to sort of adapt to the current setting. But over the last 3 to 5 months, a lot of the feedback that's come back from the Regional Vice Presidents in their commentary to me that they give me each month, each quarter, there's been many of them that have said that the lessons that were learned from the period you just came out of was that our customers are not supply chain managers, and they're looking for someone to bring that expertise into them.

可能在過去的 3 到 5 個月內，我可能會添加一點顏色，這與我認為我們自己和我們的客戶群開始適應當前環境的地方相吻合。但在過去的 3 到 5 個月裡，區域副總裁在他們每個月、每個季度給我的評論中反饋給我的很多反饋，其中很多人說，這些教訓是從你剛出來的那段時間學到的是，我們的客戶不是供應鏈經理，他們正在尋找能夠將這種專業知識帶入他們的人。

And so to Dan's point about structural, I think that this has laid bare how difficult managing your supply chain can be. On top of that, supply chains have just gotten more expensive in the current environment. And I think that our customers are looking for more assistance in that, and I think they're conveying that to the field salesforce based on the commentary that I'm getting back. So just some anecdotal support for that.

因此，就丹關於結構的觀點而言，我認為這暴露了管理供應鏈的難度。最重要的是，供應鏈在當前環境下變得更加昂貴。我認為我們的客戶正在尋求更多幫助，我認為他們正在根據我收到的評論將這一點傳達給現場銷售人員。所以只是一些軼事支持。

Got it. Very helpful. My follow-up question, I'll turn it over. Is just -- I think maybe it was asked a few quarters ago, but anything you're hearing from your customers on reshoring manufacturing capacity back to the U.S. domestically? Is it more anecdotal? Or are you sort of seeing any data points suggesting that that's beginning or happened or happening?

知道了。非常有幫助。我的後續問題，我會翻過來。只是——我想也許幾個季度前有人問過這個問題，但是您從客戶那裡聽到的關於將製造能力轉移回美國國內的任何消息？是不是更傳聞？或者你是否看到任何數據點表明這已經開始、發生或正在發生？

Yes. I mean what I'll tell you is I haven't received any concrete commentary from people saying, "Oh, all these plants are coming back." So I've never seen any anecdotes to support the idea that onshoring is or isn't happening. But I'll tell you that in my view, I think that that's sort of a long cycle thing that we're going to look back 10 years from now and say it happened or it didn't happen. I don't know how you identify that in a given quarter or frankly, even a given year that, that trend is in place. But I've not received any specific feedback from the field suggesting that, that's driving our business.

是的。我的意思是，我要告訴你的是，我還沒有收到人們說“哦，所有這些植物都回來了”的任何具體評論。因此，我從未見過任何軼事來支持外包正在發生或未發生的想法。但我會告訴你，在我看來，我認為這是一個長周期的事情，我們將在 10 年後回顧過去，說它發生了或沒有發生。我不知道您是如何在給定的季度或坦率地說，甚至在給定的一年中識別出這種趨勢的。但我沒有收到來自該領域的任何具體反饋，表明這正在推動我們的業務。

Our next question is coming from Tommy Moll from Stephens.

我們的下一個問題來自斯蒂芬斯的湯米摩爾。

I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on the softening demand trends that you called out. And I'm thinking about it in a couple of ways. First, just if you can walk us through the quarter. And Holden, you referenced the exit rate and what that might imply for the remainder of the year.

我希望你能詳細說明你所說的需求疲軟趨勢。我正在從幾個方面考慮它。首先，只要你能帶我們走過這個季度。霍爾頓，你提到了退出率以及這對今年剩餘時間可能意味著什麼。

And then the second way I'm thinking about it is you made a comment, I believe it was Holden, around the weakness or softening we can say largely centering around consumer/construction end markets. So any end market commentary would be helpful as well.

然後我考慮的第二種方式是你發表評論，我相信是霍爾頓，圍繞著我們可以說主要圍繞消費/建築終端市場的疲軟或疲軟。因此，任何終端市場評論也會有所幫助。

Yes. I'm taking the last first. Getting down to specific end markets can be a challenge. The message that I'm conveying is, again, based on the feedback from the RVPs, where they talk about seeing some softening, it winds up being things like automotive, recreational vehicles, right, things like that, that tend to have a more direct connection to the consumer.

是的。我先拿最後一個。進入特定的終端市場可能是一個挑戰。我要傳達的信息是，再次基於 RVP 的反饋，他們談到看到一些軟化，最終是汽車、休閒車之類的東西，對，類似的東西，往往有更多直接連接到消費者。

When we start talking about things around commodities like oil and gas or things around capital goods like agriculture, the feedback is still pretty positive there. No real sense that there's been any slowing in demand and no sense that backlogs are anything other than strong. And so that's kind of the split. So it's difficult for me to give a lot of color from -- in terms of an SIC Code sort of perspective, but just in terms of the anecdotes come from the field, that seems to be the direction that they're pushing us, where, where you touch the consumer directly, it's a challenge. Where you don't, it's still strong.

當我們開始談論石油和天然氣等大宗商品或農業等資本貨物時，那裡的反饋仍然非常積極。沒有真正意義上的需求放緩，也沒有任何積壓的跡象。這就是一種分裂。所以我很難從 SIC 代碼的角度給出很多顏色，但就來自該領域的軼事而言，這似乎是他們推動我們的方向，在哪裡，在直接接觸消費者的地方，這是一個挑戰。在你沒有的地方，它仍然很強大。

And that's why I said the softening we saw during the period, it's not broad and it's not deep. But it was a bit of a change. And to your -- to the first question or maybe part A of the first question, we didn't finish June as strong as we started it. That's different from what we experienced in March. We finished March stronger than we started it. Two out of the 3 months of the quarter, including June, we did not achieve the sequential norm that you would normally expect to see, right? I mean those are sort of the elements that we're talking about.

這就是為什麼我說我們在此期間看到的軟化，它不廣泛也不深。但這有點改變。對於您的第一個問題或第一個問題的 A 部分，我們在 6 月結束時並沒有像開始時那樣強大。這與我們三月份的經歷不同。我們在三月結束時比開始時更強大。本季度 3 個月中有兩個，包括 6 月，我們沒有達到您通常期望看到的連續標準，對吧？我的意思是這些是我們正在談論的元素。

Now when I talk about if the exit rate were to be sustained, we feel pretty good about it. You can run the math yourself, right? I mean I'm simply taking where we finished in June and I'm running the sequentials out the rest of the year, and it tells me that we would grow if nothing else changed based on where we exited June. And we can feel pretty good about that rate of growth. So that's how I tend to think about it.

現在，當我談到退出率是否能夠維持時，我們對此感覺很好。您可以自己運行數學，對嗎？我的意思是，我只是按照我們在 6 月份完成的工作，我將在今年剩下的時間裡運行順序，它告訴我，如果根據我們 6 月份的退出位置沒有任何其他變化，我們將會增長。我們可以對這種增長率感覺很好。所以我傾向於這樣想。

That's helpful. As a follow-up, I wanted to shift to hiring. Dan, it sounds like the conditions remain challenging, but I believe you said the trends on applications have improved. I just wondering if that might be driven by softening and hiring elsewhere. And you may not have a ton of visibility on that, but I'd be curious if you had any thoughts.

這很有幫助。作為後續行動，我想轉向招聘。丹，聽起來條件仍然充滿挑戰，但我相信你說應用程序的趨勢已經改善。我只是想知道這是否可能是通過軟化和在其他地方招聘來推動的。而且您可能對此沒有太多了解，但是如果您有任何想法，我會很好奇。

And to the extent we do enter a period, a recession period, can you just refresh us on the philosophy on how you manage hiring and leverage and/or deleverage on employee-related expenses in that kind of environment?

如果我們確實進入了一個時期，一個衰退期，你能否讓我們重新了解一下在這種環境下如何管理招聘、槓桿和/或去槓桿化員工相關費用的理念？

Yes. What's really changed in our hiring -- and it's more about our hiring in the field than it would be in our hiring in distribution or hiring in some of the support areas or in transportation. Our model for hiring is we have relationships that we've nurtured over the years with 4-year state colleges, 2-year technical colleges that are in the proximity of our network. And so if I'm in Northern Wisconsin, for example, we're recruiting from University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, University of Wisconsin-Stout, which is in Menomonie, Wisconsin. We're going to UW-River Falls. We're going to the -- I believe it's West Central Technical College.

是的。我們的招聘真正發生了變化——更多的是我們在該領域的招聘，而不是我們在分銷或某些支持領域或運輸方面的招聘。我們的招聘模式是，我們多年來與我們網絡附近的 4 年制州立大學、2 年制技術大學建立了良好的關係。例如，如果我在威斯康星州北部，我們將從威斯康星大學歐克萊爾分校和威斯康星大學斯托特分校招聘，該大學位於威斯康星州的梅諾莫尼。我們要去UW-River Falls。我們要去-- 我相信它是West Central Technical College。

And we have relationships there. Well, if you think of what happened in 2020, all these kids went home and moved in with mom and dad and were doing college and tech school remotely. Unless it was a trade that they were learning that required hands on, but they were doing it remotely. And the 2020 to 2021 school year was, well, we're remote some of the time and we're in some of the time, and it was a chaotic environment, and some people just sit out, to heck with it, I'm going to stay remote because I can.

我們在那裡有關係。好吧，如果你想想 2020 年發生的事情，所有這些孩子都回家了，和爸爸媽媽一起搬進來，遠程上大學和技術學校。除非這是他們正在學習的需要動手的交易，但他們是遠程進行的。 2020 到 2021 學年是，嗯，我們有時很遙遠，有時我們身處其中，這是一個混亂的環境，有些人只是坐在外面，見鬼去吧，我我會保持遠程，因為我可以。

The current school year that ended that started last fall in '21 and through 2022, it was -- pretty much everybody was in class. And so I think what really changed in 2022 for us that moved the numbers was all of a sudden, this young person who's going to college somewhere or going to a tech college somewhere, they're now 6 months into, hey, I'm at college. They haven't kicked me out and sent me home to my parents. I need a job. And so we're finding those people, and they're applying for jobs we're posting.

從去年秋天開始的 21 年到 2022 年結束的當前學年，幾乎每個人都在上課。所以我認為 2022 年對我們來說真正改變了數字的是突然之間，這個在某個地方上大學或去某個技術學院的年輕人，他們現在已經 6 個月了，嘿，我在大學。他們沒有把我趕出去，送我回家見父母。我需要一個工作。所以我們正在尋找那些人，他們正在申請我們發布的工作。

I think that's what's really moved the needle. Because we haven't seen the needle move as well in our distribution centers. I wish we would. We haven't seen it move as well in our transportation. I wish it would. But same thing with manufacturing. But I think that's what's driving it more than people not -- hiring somewhere else has changed. I think the availability of talent has improved or the willingness of talent to work has improved more so than the opportunities have dropped off because there's still a lot of -- it's a rare business that you go to today that has enough people.

我認為這才是真正動人的地方。因為在我們的配送中心，我們還沒有看到針頭移動。我希望我們會。我們還沒有看到它在我們的運輸中移動。我希望它會。但製造業也是如此。但我認為這比人們更能推動它——在其他地方招聘已經發生了變化。我認為人才的可用性得到了改善，或者人才的工作意願得到了改善，而不是機會減少了，因為仍然有很多——你今天去的一個罕見的行業，有足夠的人。

And typically, when I go out to eat, I call the restaurant first because I don't know if they're open. Because in this environment, there's a lot of times business is shut down on different days of the week because it just doesn't -- if they only have 300 hours of work or 1,000 hours of work this week, they're going to put it in the point that it's most useful for the employee and for the employer and their market. And I think that's what's driving it more than anything.

通常，當我出去吃飯時，我會先給餐廳打電話，因為我不知道他們是否開門。因為在這種環境下，很多時候企業會在一周的不同日子關閉，因為它只是沒有——如果他們這週只有 300 小時或 1000 小時的工作，他們就會放它對員工和雇主及其市場最有用。我認為這就是推動它最重要的原因。

Our next question is coming from Chris Snyder from UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀的克里斯·斯奈德。

My first question is on Onsite and specifically, the lag between signings and activations. So the first half of the year, you guys signed 208 but only activated 138. Can you maybe talk about the typical lag? Has that been impacted by tight labor market so far in 2022? And any expectations for activations into the back half?

我的第一個問題是在現場，特別是簽約和激活之間的延遲。所以上半年，你們簽了208，但只激活了138。你能談談典型的滯後嗎？到目前為止，這是否受到 2022 年勞動力市場緊張的影響？對後半場的激活有什麼期望嗎？

Yes. It's not unusual for activations to occur somewhere between 3 months and 6 months is probably sort of the gap in which that traditionally occurs. There absolutely is a period of time where those signings have to bleed in. Do we believe that labor has played some role in the slowness? Yes, yes, we do. Hopefully, that's beginning to resolve itself to some degree.

是的。激活發生在 3 個月到 6 個月之間的情況並不罕見，這可能是傳統上發生的時間間隔。這些簽約絕對有一段時間必須流入。我們是否認為勞動力在緩慢中發揮了某種作用？是的，是的，我們有。希望這在某種程度上開始自行解決。

I will note we had a lot of implementations in the second quarter. Even so, we had a lot of signings so we grew the backlog again. And we do, in fact, have a record backlog of implementations to do. And so we feel pretty good about the degree to which the number of signings that we have, the backlog that we have in place, the degree to which that's either a bit of a hedge against any sort of downturn that plays out or an accelerant if one doesn't play over the back half of this year and into next year, we feel really good about that.

我會注意到我們在第二季度進行了很多實施。即便如此，我們有很多簽約，所以我們再次增加了積壓。事實上，我們確實有大量的實施積壓工作要做。因此，我們對我們擁有的引援數量、我們的積壓工作、在某種程度上對沖任何類型的經濟衰退或加速的程度感到非常滿意今年下半年和明年都沒有參加比賽，我們對此感覺非常好。

I appreciate that. So I guess just kind of following up on the potential tailwind, whether it's into a slowing macro or not a slowing macro tailwind either way. You guys have spoken in the past about a $1 million target for Onsite revenue. Is there any color you could provide on the ramp, how long it could take to get to something like that? Maybe any color on what an Onsite typically kind of comes out at? Just kind of how we can think about that or try to quantify that challenge.

我很感激。所以我想只是跟進潛在的順風，無論是進入放緩的宏觀還是不是放緩的宏觀順風。你們過去曾說過 Onsite 收入的目標是 100 萬美元。您可以在坡道上提供任何顏色嗎？需要多長時間才能達到類似的效果？也許現場通常會出現任何顏色？只是我們如何思考或嘗試量化該挑戰。

Yes. Well, the $1 million you're talking about has been -- a lot of times we use the example of a $30,000 a month customer. We think we can add $80,000 to $100,000 of incremental business and grow that to a $110,000, $120,000, $130,000, $140,000 relationship, and that $80,000 increment is at least $1 million layer on top. To the point when you get it, when you're turning it on, I think we're getting better at turning on Onsites every day, so that enhances our ability to drive that quicker. But it's still going to be dependent on the circumstances. And so I think the layering event of numbers that we've historically shared, I think that's still as good a proxy as anything about what to expect.

是的。嗯，你所說的 100 萬美元一直是 - 很多時候我們使用每月 30,000 美元的客戶的例子。我們認為我們可以增加 80,000 美元到 100,000 美元的增量業務，並將其增長到 110,000 美元、120,000 美元、130,000 美元、140,000 美元的關係，而這 80,000 美元的增量至少是 100 萬美元。當你得到它時，當你打開它時，我認為我們每天都在打開 Onsites 方面做得更好，這增強了我們更快地駕駛的能力。但這仍將取決於具體情況。所以我認為我們歷史上共享的數字分層事件，我認為這仍然是一個很好的代理，就像任何關於預期的事情一樣。

And I see we're at 10:00 Central Time. I probably shouldn't have taken that last question. We're running out of time. But Chris, if you have a follow-up, feel free to give me or Holden a call. And for everybody else, thank you again for participating in the call today and hope you have a successful Q3 and the rest of the year.

我看到我們在中部時間 10:00。我可能不應該回答最後一個問題。我們的時間不多了。但是克里斯，如果你有後續，請隨時給我或霍爾頓打電話。對於其他所有人，再次感謝您參加今天的電話會議，並希望您在第三季度和今年剩下的時間裡取得成功。

Thanks, everyone.

感謝大家。

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

謝謝你。今天的電話會議和網絡直播到此結束。你可以在這個時候斷開你的線路，並有一個美好的一天。我們感謝您今天的參與。