快扣 (FAST) 2022 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and welcome to the Fastenal First Quarter 2022 Earnings Results Conference Call and Webcast. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Ellen Stolts, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

您好，歡迎參加 Fastenal 2022 年第一季財報電話會議及網路直播。 （操作說明）提醒各位，本次會議正在錄音。現在，我將把電話交給投資者關係部的 Ellen Stolts，請開始。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2022 First 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.

歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2022 年第一季財報電話會議。本次會議將由公司總裁兼執行長 Dan Florness 和財務長 Holden Lewis 主持。會議時長約為 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。

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 June 1, 2022 at midnight Central Time.

今天的電話會議內容為Fastenal專有訊息，並由Fastenal進行錄音。未經Fastenal同意，禁止本次電話會議進行任何錄音、複製、傳輸或散佈。本次電話會議將透過Fastenal投資者關係首頁（investor.fastenal.com）進行網路直播。網路直播回放將於美國中部時間2022年6月1日午夜前在該網站上提供。

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. 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.

再次提醒，今天的電話會議可能包含有關公司未來計劃和前景的聲明。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。需要注意的是，公司的實際業績可能與預期業績有重大差異。可能導致實際業績與預期業績有差異的因素已列於本公司最新的獲利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。

Thank you, Ellen, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining our Q1 earnings call. Before I start, I thought I'd just share a few tidbits from a conversation I had this morning with our regional business unit leaders, our regional vice presidents and our VPs of the business. And I started that by sharing last evening -- or late yesterday afternoon, my wife and daughter returned from a week long band trip to Florida, marching band. And as with most high school trips, it involved a -- well, if you're coming from Winona that is, it involved a 26-hour bus ride down last Wednesday and a 26-hour bus ride back. And I saw a bunch of haggard kids and a handful of haggard adults get off the bus yesterday about 4:00.

謝謝艾倫，大家早安，謝謝各位參加我們第一季財報電話會議。在正式開始之前，我想先分享一下今天早上我和各區域業務部門負責人、區域副總裁以及業務副總裁們的一些談話內容。首先，我想說的是，昨晚——或者說昨天下午晚些時候——我的妻子和女兒結束了為期一周的佛羅裡達行進樂隊之旅。和大多數高中旅行一樣，這次旅行也相當漫長——嗯，如果你是從威諾納出發的話——這意味著她們週三要坐26個小時的大巴去，然後再坐26個小時的大巴回來。昨天下午4點左右，我看到一群疲憊不堪的孩子和幾個同樣疲憊不堪的大人下了車。

And when we got home that evening, I was watching the video -- I don't like to watch myself on video, but it's a necessary evil to make sure you present as good a message you can and present it in a style that isn't too painful to watch. And my wife commented on it, and I think she probably was commenting partly, in fact, she was kind of tired from the bus ride. She thought it was a pretty under-inspiring video. And she had no problem telling me that.

那天晚上到家後，我看了那段視頻——我不喜歡看自己的視頻，但為了盡可能傳遞出最好的信息，並以一種讓人不覺得尷尬的方式呈現，這是必要的。我妻子也看了視頻，我覺得她評論的部分原因可能是坐公車有點累了。她覺得那段影片很沒勁，而且她毫不掩飾地告訴我了這一點。

And she said, "For the last 2 years, you come home, you talk about things that people are doing at Fastenal. Things you see from the leaders and everybody within the organization and how impressed you are. And in your video, you just had a great quarter and your video doesn't speak to that at all. It sounds like you're in the middle of COVID, and it's kind of disappointing."

她說：“過去兩年，你回到家，都會談論Fastenal的同事們正在做的事情。你會談到領導層和公司裡每個人的所作所為，以及你對此有多麼印象深刻。但在你的視頻裡，明明你們剛剛經歷了一個業績斐然的季度，卻完全沒有提及這一點。聽起來你們好像正處於新冠疫情期間，這有點令人失望。”

And after brushing my pride off, I got in this morning and I let our regional -- our leadership know just how damn proud I am of the quarter they just put out. But more important than that of what they've done in the last 2 years and all the hard work as we transition from tariffs to COVID and worrying about our own human safety and the safety of others to the surge in demand for products, that pivoted into a supply chain globally that completely fell apart and how did we manage through that to support our customers and their needs, and more recently, managing through the chaos that is inflation.

放下心中的驕傲，我今天早上到了公司，向我們區域的領導層表達了我對他們剛剛發布的季度業績的由衷自豪。但更重要的是，我要讚揚他們在過去兩年裡所做的一切，以及我們從關稅到新冠疫情，從擔憂自身和他人的安全到產品需求激增，再到全球供應鏈徹底崩潰，我們是如何應對這些挑戰，支持客戶並滿足他們的需求，以及最近如何應對通貨膨脹帶來的混亂局面。

Frankly, the first bullet on the flip book says that -- has the statement good execution, there's a typo there. That should say great execution. I think the Fastenal Blue Team did an unbelievable job in the last 2 years, and I think that extended into this quarter, and I'm really proud to be associated with them.

坦白說，翻頁手冊上的第一條內容——「執行良好」——有個錯字，應該是「執行出色」。我認為Fastenal藍隊在過去兩年裡做得非常出色，而且我認為這種出色表現延續到了本季度，我為能與他們共事而感到無比自豪。

Even yesterday in our Audit Committee call, we were picking on Holden a little bit because he's been kind of crabby lately. And it's kind of refreshing when you have a really good quarter and your CFO is kind of crabby and he was talking about our cash flow. And he wasn't pleased with it, and I said to him, I said, "Holden, take a look at the last 6 years, and look at our growth and look at what our operating cash flow to earnings was in our strongest year." I think it was at 93%. I think that was first quarter of 2018, might have been '17. And it costs money to grow a distribution business, and that money is spent in working capital. And that gets amplified when you have heavy inflation like we're seeing right now. So I'm glad you're irritated and irritable. I can't imagine being [at ease] right now when you come home from work. But thanks to what you're doing, but don't be too hard on everybody.

昨天在審計委員會電話會議上，我們還稍微「調侃」了一下霍爾頓，因為他最近有點脾氣暴躁。當你的季度業績非常好，而你的財務長卻有點脾氣暴躁，這倒也挺讓人耳目一新的。他當時正在談論我們的現金流，顯然他對現金流很不滿意。我對他說：「霍爾頓，看看過去六年，看看我們的成長情況，看看我們業績最好的那一年，我們的經營現金流與收益之比是多少。」我記得是93%。我想那是2018年第一季，也可能是2017年。發展分銷業務需要資金，而這些資金都投入了營運資本。在像我們現在看到的這種高通膨環境下，這種情況會被放大。所以我很高興你感到惱火和煩躁。我無法想像你下班回家後還能保持輕鬆的心情。不過，感謝你的付出，但也不要對每個人都太苛刻。

So flipping to the book here. The net sales grew 20.3% in the first quarter. Our pretax profit grew 28%. There was some amplifying effects. Last year's weather in the Texas and Oklahoma area in February hurt our sales hurt the economy, quite frankly. And then we had a mask write-down. And -- but adjusting for those, this is our strongest top and bottom line growth that we've experienced in a decade. It's really been since we were recovering from the '08, '09 in the 2011, 2012 time frame that we saw the growth that we're seeing right now. So really pleased with the performance.

現在讓我們來看看業績。第一季淨銷售額成長了20.3%，稅前利潤成長了28%。這其中存在一些疊加效應。坦白說，去年二月德州和俄克拉荷馬州的惡劣天氣對我們的銷售造成了影響，也對經濟造成了衝擊。此外，我們也提列了口罩減損損失。但即便如此，這也是我們十年來營收和利潤成長最強勁的一次。自2011-2012年我們從2008-2009年的金融危機中復甦以來，我們才再次看到如此強勁的成長。因此，我對目前的業績非常滿意。

And in the last 2 years, so since the pandemic started, we've put in a lot of energy to deploy technologies and strategies to just improve our efficiency. And that served us really well because the environment has restrained our ability to add labor, add energy into the organization, but it hasn't hurt our ability to grow sales and also to continue the branch consolidation process that we started 6, 7, 8 years ago. So very strong performance there.

過去兩年，也就是疫情爆發以來，我們投入了大量精力來部署各種技術和策略，以提高效率。這些努力卓有成效，因為疫情環境限制了我們增加勞動力和為公司注入更多活力，但這並沒有影響我們的銷售成長，也沒有阻礙我們繼續推進六、七年前就開始的分公司整合進程。因此，我們在這方面取得了非常強勁的成績。

The supply chains and labor markets remain tight. However, conditions have stabilized. We're getting more product on the shelf to support the needs, which makes the business less chaotic. And we are seeing an uptick in applications coming in. And I'm hearing it mostly anecdotally from our regional leaders, but they're seeing more and more people willing to come back into the workforce and apply for jobs. Part of that is probably a function of our #1 recruiting area is 4-year state colleges and 2-year technical colleges. As they have come back in full force, that group of people are looking for opportunities for their future.

供應鏈和勞動市場依然緊張。然而，情況已經趨於穩定。我們能夠獲得更多產品上架以滿足需求，這使得業務運作不再那麼混亂。我們也看到求職申請數量增加。我從區域負責人那裡了解到，越來越多的人願意重返職場併申請工作。這部分原因可能在於，我們最大的招募區域是四年制州立大學和兩年制技術學院。隨著這些院校全面復課，這部分學生正在尋找未來發展的機會。

Our international business reached a milestone. In the month of March, we broke -- we exceeded $100 million in sales for the first time. And next week marks 2 steps towards normalcy in our world. One is our customer expo, our selling event, is returning to an in-person format after 2 years of not occurring in person. And that will be Tuesday, Wednesday next week. And then next Saturday, we'll hold our annual meeting in person after 2 years of the sanitized video or on-air version, which is, frankly, less than satisfying in a community like this where we get a good local turnout at the event.

我們的國際業務迎來了一個里程碑。三月份，我們的銷售額首度突破1億美元大關。下週，我們將邁向業務恢復正常的兩個重要階段。首先，我們的客戶博覽會（我們的銷售活動）將在中斷兩年後恢復線下舉辦。博覽會將於下週二和週三舉行。其次，下週六，我們將舉行年度股東大會，此前兩年我們一直採用線上視訊或廣播的形式，坦白說，對於像我們這樣本地客戶經常到場的社區來說，線上會議遠不能令人滿意。

Flipping to Page 4 of the book to comparison of the 2020 to 2022 period, and this will be the last quarter that we put this table in because, obviously, as we exit this quarter and enter the new quarter, our 2-year comparison falls square into the COVID period, so it becomes less than meaningful. But we thought we'd continue it as we've done the last 3 quarters. I think the only thing that should jump out on here is -- at least jumps out for me is the fact that our operating and administrative expenses have dropped from 26.7% of sales 2 years ago to 25.5% of sales today as we've worked to make the organization more efficient. And I'm really proud we were able to accomplish this during the distraction of the last 2 years.

翻到本書第四頁，查看2020年至2022年期間的比較數據。這將是我們最後一次在季度末製作這張表格，因為很顯然，隨著本季結束、新季度開始，我們兩年的對比數據正好落在新冠疫情期間，意義不大。但我們決定像過去三個季度一樣，繼續製作這份表格。我認為最值得關注的一點——至少對我而言——是我們的營運和管理費用佔銷售額的比例從兩年前的26.7%下降到如今的25.5%，這得益於我們努力提高組織效率。我為我們能在過去兩年各種紛擾的情況下取得這樣的成績感到非常自豪。

One item that's probably a little bit misleading in here, it shows our gross profit is actually flat in that 2-year period. It's actually down slightly. January and February of 2020 were a bit higher. And as we entered the COVID period in March of 2020, we started selling bulk quantities of masks and things like that at a lower margin and it actually pulled our margin down to 46.6%, just trying to express full disclosure there.

這裡有一項數據可能有點誤導人，它顯示我們這兩年的毛利實際上持平，甚至略有下降。 2020年1月和2月的毛利略高一些。隨著2020年3月新冠疫情的爆發，我們開始以較低的利潤率批量銷售口罩等產品，這實際上將我們的毛利率拉低至46.6%，我只是想在此如實說明情況。

Flipping to Page 5. When people get more confident of where we are today and there's less chaos in the world, and you're more comfortable engaging with others, we always felt that our growth drivers would see an uptick and we had to just get through this COVID period. Well, our Onsite saw that uptick. We signed 106 in the quarter, finishing with 1,440. So we're up 12% from the number of active sites we had a year ago. And we continue to do the healthy business thing, and that is, just like we've done with our branches over the last decade, you challenge every business unit. Is that Onsite performing to what you need it to be for both our customer and for us?

翻到第5頁。當人們對我們目前的處境更有信心，世界不再那麼混亂，人們也更樂於與他人交流時，我們始終認為我們的成長動力將會提升，而我們只需要度過這段新冠疫情時期。我們的現場服務業務確實實現了成長。本季我們新增了106個服務點，總數達到1440個。因此，我們的活躍服務點數量比一年前增加了12%。我們將繼續秉持穩健的業務策略，就像過去十年我們對分公司所做的那樣，對每個業務部門進行嚴格審查。現場服務是否達到了我們和客戶都期望的水平？

Sometimes, we run into situations where we take a customer that was doing $25,000 or $30,000 a month of sales in a branch and we double that, and maybe we even triple that. But we get to the point where we kind of get stuck at a number, let's say it's $70,000, $80,000 a month. We always have to evaluate what is the best solution there for the customer and for our ability to serve that business. And sometimes it's pulling it back into the brand. Sometimes it's the case, the customer runs out of space for us. Sometimes, and we've seen this in the last 6 months, particularly, we have some customers that are consolidating some of their operations, and we've had a few Onsites that have closed but we pick it up somewhere else or it consolidates with an Onsite we have somewhere else. And -- but we think it's a great business, and we're really pleased at what we saw in the first quarter with signings, and we're excited about that customer event next week and what it means to keep this thing going.

有時，我們會遇到這樣的情況：某個客戶原本在分行每月銷售額為 25,000 美元或 30,000 美元，我們將其翻倍，甚至可能翻三倍。但有時，我們會遇到瓶頸，比如說，銷售額達到每月 7 萬或 8 萬美元。我們必須始終評估哪種方案對客戶以及我們服務該業務的能力是最佳選擇。有時，這意味著將業務重新納入品牌體系。有時，客戶沒有足夠的空間容納我們。有時，尤其是在過去的六個月裡，我們看到一些客戶正在整合部分業務，有些門市關閉了，但我們會將業務轉移到其他地方，或與我們在其他地方的門市合併。但我們認為這是一項很棒的業務，我們對第一季的簽約情況非常滿意，我們對下週的客戶活動以及它對保持這項業務發展的意義感到興奮。

FMI technology, it's about bringing better visualization and service ability to the point of use. It started with vending a decade plus ago, and we've expanded with a bunch of other technologies. A year ago, we were signing 74 a day. This quarter, we signed 83 a day. We ended the quarter stronger than we started the quarter. And for Onsites and for FMI, our plans, our goals for the year remain unchanged. So the FMI technology now represents 35.5% of sales. A year ago, it was 28.7% and 2 years ago, it was 26.4%. We're going to keep driving that.

FMI 技術旨在為使用者提供更佳的視覺化和服務體驗。這項技術起源於十多年前的自動販賣機，之後我們又拓展到其他多種科技領域。一年前，我們每天簽約 74 家供應商。本季度，我們每天簽約 83 家。季度末的業績比季度初更加強勁。對於現場服務和 FMI 技術，我們今年的計劃和目標保持不變。目前，FMI 技術佔總銷售額的 35.5%。一年前，這一比例為 28.7%，兩年前為 26.4%。我們將繼續保持這一成長勢頭。

eCommerce, 55.6% growth in the first quarter of '22. And like our international group, our eCommerce team also hit a milestone. In March, we exceeded $100 million in revenue for the first time. It's not too many years ago, I think it was 2011, when we pointed out the fact that international was now 10% of the company but still a relatively small piece. And eCommerce was something we dabbled in, but it really wasn't a thing. Times have changed in the last decade and now both of them are $100 million a month businesses.

2022年第一季度，電子商務業務成長了55.6%。與我們的國際業務團隊一樣，我們的電子商務團隊也取得了里程碑式的成就。 3月份，我們的營收首度突破1億美元大關。就在幾年前，大概是2011年，我們曾指出國際業務雖然占公司總業務的10%，但仍相對較小。當時我們對電子商務也只是略有涉足，並未真正發展起來。過去十年間，時代發生了翻天覆地的變化，如今國際業務和電子商務都已成為每月營收超過1億美元的業務。

Finally, if you roll up our FMI Technology and our eCommerce, we talk about our digital footprint. We hit 47% of sales in the quarter, 39.1% a year ago, 34.9% 2 years ago. Our goal is to hit 55% of sales at some point later in the year. And we still believe that long term, that has the potential to be 85% of sales, and we're gearing our supply chain and have been gearing our supply chains to support that kind of business in the future.

最後，如果我們把FMI技術和電子商務結合起來，就不得不談到我們的數位化佈局。本季我們的線上銷售額佔比達47%，去年同期為39.1%，兩年前為34.9%。我們的目標是在今年稍後將線上銷售額佔比提升至55%。我們仍然相信，從長遠來看，線上銷售額佔比預計達到85%，為此，我們正在調整供應鏈，並一直在為此努力，以支持未來這種規模的業務發展。

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 I'll be starting on Slide 6. Total sales increased 20.3% in the first quarter of 2022. If you adjust for the extra selling day in the period, sales increased by 18.4%. Both periods were impacted by adverse weather and the net effect contributed 50 to 100 basis points to the growth in the period. I'm not going to recite all the numbers that are on this page because we basically experienced consistent growth across all major product categories, our large and our small customers in most end markets. The main exception to this broad-based strength were government customers, which fell 6.2% year-over-year, but I would point out that they were up nearly 50% from pre-pandemic levels. And I think that really reflects sustained share gains across that customer set. So as always, our business does not carry a lot of forward visibility, but our field sales force continues to maintain a very positive outlook about their markets.

好的，謝謝丹。那我從第6張投影片開始講。 2022年第一季總銷售額成長了20.3%。如果考慮到該季度多出的銷售日，銷售額成長了18.4%。這兩個時期都受到了惡劣天氣的影響，淨影響使當期增長率下降了50到100個基點。我不會把這頁上的所有數字都一一列舉，因為我們基本上在所有主要產品類別、大型和小型客戶以及大多數終端市場都實現了持續增長。這種整體強勁成長的主要例外是政府客戶，其銷售額年減了6.2%，但我要指出的是，與疫情前相比，他們的銷售額成長了近50%。我認為這確實反映了我們在該客戶群中持續的市場份額成長。所以，和以往一樣，我們的業務未來發展前景並不明朗，但我們的銷售團隊仍然對各自的市場保持著非常樂觀的展望。

Pricing contributed 580 to 610 basis points to growth in the first quarter of 2022, reflecting actions taken over the last 9 months to offset inflation. Input costs have mostly stabilized at high levels with a few notable exceptions. For instance, higher nickel prices will flow through to stainless steel fasteners while higher oil prices will affect the cost of fuel for our captive vehicle fleet and the cost of overseas shipping services. As described on this page, this is -- these are relatively smaller pieces of our business, which we believe we can address through targeted pricing on stainless steel fasteners and surcharges for transportation-related increases. Price contribution should remain high in the second quarter of 2022 before running into tougher comparisons in the second half of 2022.

2022年第一季度，價格因素對成長貢獻了580至610個基點，這反映了過去9個月為抵銷通膨而採取的措施。除少數例外情況外，投入成本大多已穩定在高點。例如，鎳價上漲將傳導至不銹鋼緊固件，而油價上漲將影響我們自有車隊的燃油成本和海外運輸服務成本。如本頁所述，這些因素在我們業務中所佔比例相對較小，我們相信可以透過對不銹鋼緊固件進行定向定價以及對運輸相關成本上漲收取附加費來應對。預計2022年第二季價格因素對成長的貢獻將維持在較高水平，但在2022年下半年將面臨更嚴峻的年比基數效應。

The last thing I'll say about the marketplace is, it is still grappling with supply chain and labor constraints as well as high prices for inputs and products. What is changing is we and our customers are more effectively managing this environment. This is reflected in higher growth driver signings and improving internal supply chain and relatively strong FTE additions in February and March. So while these disruptions persist, the chaos surrounding them has receded, resulting in a more predictable business environment.

關於市場，我最後要說的是，它仍然面臨著供應鏈和勞動力短缺以及原材料和產品價格高企的挑戰。但正在改變的是，我們和我們的客戶正在更有效地應對這種環境。這體現在更高的成長驅動型簽約量、不斷改善的內部供應鏈以及二月和三月相對強勁的全職員工成長。因此，儘管這些幹擾依然存在，但圍繞著它們的混亂局面已經消退，從而形成了一個更可預測的商業環境。

Now to Slide 7. Operating margin in the first quarter of 2022 was 21%, up from 19.8% in the first quarter of 2021 and good for an incremental margin of 27.1%. While the absence of last year's write-down of masks favorably impacted the year-over-year compare, even adjusting for this, our incremental margin was a solid 24.4%.

現在來看第7張投影片。 2022年第一季的營業利益率為21%，高於2021年第一季的19.8%，增量利潤率為27.1%。雖然去年口罩減損的影響被取消，對年比數據產生了有利影響，但即使考慮到這一點，我們的增量利潤率仍然達到了穩健的24.4%。

Gross margin was 46.6% in the first quarter of 2022, up 120 basis points versus the first quarter of 2021. Half of this increase relates to the absence of last year's mask write-down. The next largest contributor was safety product margin, which increased significantly even excluding the effect of the write-down. In the year earlier period, we were still supplying COVID-related supplies to key customers under supply commitments that we had entered into at the start of the pandemic, which had lower margins. Those commitments have since expired and COVID-related product margins have returned to pre-pandemic levels. A smaller contributor was a narrower loss on freight service to our branches as strong daily sales growth and freight sales of 37% provided improved cost leverage.

2022年第一季毛利率為46.6%，較2021年第一季成長120個基點。其中一半成長源自於去年口罩減損損失的取消。另一個大貢獻因素是安全產品毛利率，即使不計入減損損失的影響，此毛利率也顯著成長。去年同期，我們仍在根據疫情初期簽訂的供應承諾向主要客戶供應新冠疫情相關物資，這些物資的毛利率較低。這些承諾現已到期，新冠疫情相關產品的毛利率也已恢復至疫情前水準。此外，強勁的日銷售額成長和37%的貨運銷售額提升了成本槓桿，從而收窄了分行的貨運服務虧損，這也是毛利率成長的一個小部分貢獻因素。

Our price/cost remained largely neutral to gross margin in the quarter. Product and customer mix was a roughly 10 basis points negative impact to gross margin with a drag produced by strong Onsite and national account sales having a slightly greater impact than the positive effect of favorable fastener mix. Our operating leverage was modest in the first quarter of 2022, with an operating expense to sales ratio being 10 basis points better at 25.5%. We achieved 60 basis points of leverage over occupancy expenses 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 installed base.

本季度，我們的價格/成本對毛利率的影響基本上保持中性。產品和客戶組合對毛利率產生了約10個基點的負面影響，其中強勁的現場銷售和全國性客戶銷售帶來的拖累略大於有利的緊固件組合帶來的正面影響。 2022年第一季，我們的營運槓桿較為溫和，營業費用與銷售額之比為25.5%，較上年同期提高了10個基點。由於傳統分公司數量減少了10%，以及迄今為止自動販賣機裝機量增長相對緩慢，我們實現了60個基點的營業費用槓桿。

We also achieved good leverage over employee base pay. While we are encouraged by the February and March growth in our FTE employee base, the tight labor market continues to produce FTE growth that is lagging sales. These areas were mostly offset by strong employee incentive payouts, higher profit-sharing expenses, higher health care costs, higher travel expenses and, to a lesser degree, rising fuel costs. If you put it all together, we reported first quarter 2022 EPS of $0.47, up 27.8% from $0.37 in the first quarter of 2021.

我們也有效地控制了員工基本薪資。儘管我們對2月和3月全職員工人數的成長感到鼓舞，但勞動力市場持續緊張，導致全職員工人數成長落後於銷售成長。這些不利因素主要被強勁的員工激勵支出、更高的利潤分成支出、更高的醫療保健成本、更高的差旅費用以及（程度較輕的）燃油成本上漲所抵消。綜合所有因素，我們公佈的2022年第一季每股收益為0.47美元，較2021年第一季的0.37美元增長27.8%。

Now turning to Slide 8. We generated $230 million in operating cash in the first quarter of 2022, which is roughly 85% of our net income in the period. Traditionally, first quarter conversion rates exceed net income. However, a combination of robust customer demand supply chain constraints and high inflation put a premium on product availability and investment in working capital. As a result, we view the lower conversion rate as reflecting our commitment to supporting our customers. As supply chain constraints and inflation rates ease, we expect to see improved conversion rates as we go through the year.

現在來看幻燈片8。我們在2022年第一季產生了2.3億美元的營運現金流，約佔當期淨利的85%。通常情況下，第一季的轉換率會高於淨利。然而，強勁的客戶需求、供應鏈限制以及高通膨共同作用，使得產品供應和營運資金投資變得尤為重要。因此，我們認為較低的轉換率反映了我們對客戶的承諾。隨著供應鏈限制和通膨率的緩解，我們預計全年轉換率將有所提高。

Year-over-year, accounts receivable was up 25.9%. This reflects strong customer demand and an increase in the mix of traditional manufacturing and construction customers, which tend to have longer terms versus the prior year period.

與上年同期相比，應收帳款成長了 25.9%。這反映出強勁的客戶需求，以及傳統製造業和建築業客戶佔比的增加，這些客戶的付款期限往往比去年同期更長。

Inventories were up 22.6%. Inflation accounted for roughly 2/3 of the total increase. That's significant, but it is a decline from the fourth quarter of 2021 when inflation accounted for roughly 80% of the rising inventory and that is the result of an accelerating flow of physical products into our hubs, which is improving product availability and fulfillment rates.

庫存成長了22.6%。通貨膨脹約佔總成長的三分之二。雖然增幅顯著，但較2021年第四季有所下降。當時通貨膨脹約佔庫存成長的80%，而2021年第四季通貨膨脹的貢獻率較低，這得益於實體產品加速流入我們的物流中心，從而提高了產品供應和訂單履行率。

Net capital spending in the first quarter of 2022 was $33 million, up from $30 million in the first quarter of 2021, with increased spending for FMI equipment, hub automation and upgrades and IT equipment. Quarterly capital spending level should pick up through the balance of the year as vehicle availability improves and hub projects advance. As a result, we continue to anticipate 2022 net capital spending in a range of $180 million to $200 million, which is unchanged from the prior quarter. We returned cash to shareholders in the quarter in the form of $178 million in dividends. And from a liquidity standpoint, we finished the first quarter of 2022 with debt at 10.4% of total capital, down from 12.7% in the year ago period and 11.4% versus the fourth quarter of 2021. Our revolver remains available for use.

2022年第一季淨資本支出為3,300萬美元，高於2021年第一季的3000萬美元，主要支出用於FMI設備、樞紐自動化和升級以及IT設備。隨著車輛可用性的提高和樞紐項目的推進，預計本年度剩餘時間的季度資本支出水準將持續上升。因此，我們繼續預期2022年淨資本支出將在1.8億美元至2億美元之間，與上一季持平。本季我們以股利的形式向股東返還了1.78億美元的現金。從流動性角度來看，2022年第一季末，我們的債務佔總資本的10.4%，低於去年同期的12.7%和2021年第四季的11.4%。我們的循環信貸額度仍然可用。

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

好了，操作員，接下來我們將進入問答環節。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is coming from Chris Snyder from UBS.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自瑞銀集團的克里斯·史奈德。

Congratulations on the strong quarter. My question is on price/cost going forward. The company noted that I think the [prime market] costs are high but stable and they're seeing inflation on a select few product lines where it seems like there's opportunity for incremental pricing. So I guess my question is, should we assume relatively unchanged price/cost over the rest of '22 relative to Q1 levels?

恭喜貴公司本季業績強勁。我的問題是關於未來的價格/成本關係。公司指出，我認為[主要市場]成本雖然高但穩定，而且部分產品線出現了通膨，這些產品線似乎存在增值空間。所以我想問的是，我們是否應該假設2022年剩餘時間的價格/成本與第一季相比基本上保持不變？

We continue to assume that we're going to be price/cost neutral over the course of the year. If your question is what is the level of pricing we expected, bear in mind that to some degree as we move into Q2, but particularly as we get into Q3 and Q4, we're going to begin to comp against much higher pricing from a year-over-year standpoint. And so I think my expectation is that we will still be north of 5% on price in the second quarter, but that you'll begin to see that pricing contribution drop fairly sharply in the Q3 and Q4 period, as our own pricing actions remain fairly stable and runs into last year's tougher comparisons.

我們仍然預計全年價格/成本將保持中性。如果您想知道我們預期的定價水平，請記住，進入第二季度，尤其是第三和第四季度，我們將面臨同比大幅上漲的市場競爭。因此，我預計第二季價格仍將高於5%，但隨著我們自身定價策略的保持相對穩定，以及去年同期較高的基數，價格因素在第三季和第四季將顯著下降。

I appreciate that. And then for the follow-up, I wanted to ask around the Onsite model into a potential macro slowdown. I know the company has spoken to Onsite revenue targets per location. I was just wondering, is there any sort of volume commitments that accompany these Onsite agreements that can maybe give the company a naturally higher wallet share of customer spend as their activity declines?

我很感激。接下來，我想就線上銷售模式在潛在的宏觀經濟放緩環境下的表現詢問一下。我知道公司已經訂定了各門市的線上銷售收入目標。我只是想知道，這些線上銷售協議是否包含任何銷售承諾，以便在客戶活躍度下降的情況下，公司能夠自然而然地獲得更高的客戶消費份額？

When we sign an Onsite, we will have discussions about targets for that facility. And based on the customers' information about their spend, our information about their spend and sometimes you can do some napkin calculations based on how many employees are there, what types of activities, OEM faster demand, et cetera. There isn't a hard and fast rule that says, hey, you need to be at this number. But it's really about -- it's a partnership. And that partnership says let's work together to grow the footprint.

當我們簽署現場考察協議時，我們會討論該設施的目標。我們會根據客戶提供的支出資訊、我們掌握的客戶支出信息，有時還會根據員工人數、業務類型、OEM廠商的快速需求等因素進行一些粗略的估算。並沒有硬性規定說「你必須達到這個數字」。關鍵在於合作。這種合作意味著讓我們攜手努力，擴大業務規模。

What I often see when I visit Onsites is I find a very motivated customer to add wallet share to Fastenal because what does an Onsite represent to them? It represents Fastenal putting personnel and inventory into their business to support their business, which frees up their need to add personnel, frees up their need to add working capital. So it's a great program for our customer and it's a way for them to have resources. Resources that we normally would have had working in a branch now are bringing product right to the point of use or doing different things and actively managing, and it frees up resources for them. That's ultimately what gives us our footprint. It isn't a contractual obligation that says you must do this or else.

我經常在拜訪客戶時發現，他們都非常積極地想要增加與 Fastenal 的合作份額，因為對他們來說，現場服務意味著什麼？它代表 Fastenal 將人員和庫存投入到他們的業務中，為他們提供支持，讓他們無需再增加人員和營運資金。因此，這對我們的客戶來說是一個非常棒的項目，也是他們獲得資源的一種方式。我們通常需要投入到分公司的資源，現在能夠直接將產品送到客戶使用地點，或開展其他業務並進行積極管理，這為他們釋放了資源。最終，這才是我們業務覆蓋範圍的真正來源。這不是合約義務，規定你必須這樣做，否則就會受到懲罰。

Same thing with our vending program and our Onsite program. What we say to the customer is this is what it's about, and we're not going to hold you to a contract. But if you demonstrate that you don't -- 6 months into it that you really aren't bought into it, we reserve the right to take our ball and go home. And that's what drives the wallet share ultimately of the business.

我們的自動販賣機專案和現場服務項目也是如此。我們會告訴客戶，這就是我們專案的宗旨，我們不會強迫您簽訂合約。但如果您六個月後仍然沒有真正接受我們的項目，我們保留終止合作的權利。而這最終決定了我們的市場佔有率。

So Chris, I don't believe the Onsite model necessarily diminishes our cyclicality. I mean we do have a tamp down cyclicality versus any industrials with our MRO exposure and that sort of thing. But I don't think the Onsites does anything in that regard. But the Onsite is a great platform, as Dan indicated, to gain market share whether we're in a period where we're growing or a period where the marketplace is contracting. We can gain market share in either environment, but we'll still maintain a cyclical profile.

所以克里斯，我不認為現場營運模式必然會降低我們的週期性波動。我的意思是，比起其他工業企業，由於我們涉足維護、維修和營運（MRO）等領域，我們的周期性波動確實有所降低。但我認為現場營運模式本身並不能起到任何作用。正如丹所指出的，無論市場處於成長期或萎縮期，現場營運模式都是一個獲取市場份額的絕佳平台。我們可以在任何環境下獲得市場份額，但我們仍然會保持週期性波動的特徵。

I'll add to that. We have relatively low market share. We're always growing. It's just that sometimes it doesn't shine through in the numbers because there's a lot of headwinds.

我還要補充一點。我們的市場佔有率相對較低，但我們一直在成長。只是有時候，由於面臨許多不利因素，這種成長無法在數據中反映出來。

Next question is coming from David Manthey from Baird.

下一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 David Manthey。

First off, could you discuss your expectations for FTE growth needed to fuel revenue growth this year? And then Dan, maybe longer-term expectations for labor requirements versus historical trends, especially in light of these automation tools that you've deployed and you will continue to deploy across the company, and that's both customer-facing and internal type technologies.

首先，您能否談談您對今年推動營收成長所需的全職員工人數成長的預期？然後，丹，您能否談談您對勞動力需求與歷史趨勢的長期預期，尤其是在您已經部署並將繼續在公司範圍內部署這些自動化工具的情況下，這些工具既包括面向客戶的技術，也包括內部技術。

I hesitate to throw out a percentage only from the standpoint of while we've seen a tick up in applications, we still are operating, quite frankly, with fewer employees than we'd like to see. Even if you look at -- if I was going to peek through the quarter and point out some positives, some negatives, one negative that would jump out is we didn't implement as many of the Onsites as I'd like to have seen in the first quarter. And I know part of that holdback, sometimes it's just the transition process. But sometimes it's a case of do we have the staffing.

我猶豫是否要給出具體的百分比，因為雖然我們看到申請人數有所增長，但坦白說，我們目前的員工人數仍然低於預期。即使我回顧一下本季度，指出一些積極的方面和消極的方面，一個顯而易見的消極因素是，我們在第一季度實施的現場培訓項目數量沒有達到我的預期。我知道部分原因是過渡期的問題，但有時也取決於我們的人員配置。

And because when we have the individual ready to step into that new Onsite, but we have an individual back in the branch, ready to step into their spot in the branch. And that will -- we add, let's say, we signed and add 100 Onsites a quarter, that pulls employees with it. And we need to have -- I said I wasn't going to say percentages. We need to have better than low single-digit percentage growth in that environment when our sales are growing double digit and beyond. And -- but we'll see how that plays out as we move into the second and third quarter.

因為當我們有合適的人選準備接手新的現場服務職位時，我們分行也有人選隨時可以頂替他們的職位。假設我們每季新增100個現場服務職位，那麼就會帶動其他員工的加入。我們需要——我說過我不會給出具體的百分比——在這種情況下，我們需要實現高於個位數百分比的增長，尤其是在銷售額實現兩位數甚至更高增長的情況下。 ——但我們會觀察第二季和第三季的情況如何發展。

And 1 nuance about that, Dave, is we tend to look at it less about the FTE and more about what the total labor dollars that we commit. And when we talk about being more productive with labor, we tend to think about are we driving more gross profit dollars for every dollar of labor that we produce in our business? And that's how we tend to think about it.

戴夫，關於這一點，還有一點要注意：我們往往不太關注全職員工人數，而更關注我們投入的總勞動成本。當我們談到提高勞動生產力時，我們通常會思考，我們每投入一美元的勞動成本，是否就能帶來更高的毛利？我們通常就是這樣思考的。

And to Dan's point, I'm not sure that we have an exact percentage that we would communicate here, it managed very well by the field. But I think that as an organization, we understand that the growth in our labor dollars on our pathway from where we are today, that $10 billion company and beyond, has to come with labor dollars growing at a slower rate than gross profit dollars. And as an organization, I think, pretty uniform in that objective.

正如丹所說，我不確定我們能否在此公佈一個確切的百分比，這方面由業務部門負責。但我認為，作為一個組織，我們都明白，從我們目前的規模（一家市值100億美元的公司）到更高目標，我們勞動成本的成長速度必須低於毛利的成長速度。我認為，我們整個組織在這一點上是高度一致的。

And maybe we could drill down on that a little bit because in the first quarter, I know it's just 1 quarter, but OpEx growth and revenue growth were pretty identical at 20% and you did have this 6% price. So SG&A growth kind of outpaced your unit volume growth by quite a bit. And the question is, should we assume that based on what you just said that despite the fact that in the generalized inflationary environment, your cost stack is going to be elevated. As we go forward here, you should see better leverage on your OpEx in future quarters?

或許我們可以更深入地探討這個問題，因為在第一季（我知道這只是一個季度），營運支出成長和收入成長幾乎相同，均為 20%，而價格卻上漲了 6%。因此，銷售、管理及行政費用 (SG&A) 的成長速度遠超銷售成長。問題是，根據您剛才所說的，儘管在普遍的通膨環境下，您的成本結構將會上升，但我們是否應該假設，隨著業績的推進，您在未來幾季的營運支出槓桿率會有所提高？

That is the expectation. And here's how I think the setup plays for the rest of the year. If I think about incentive pay, for instance, in the first quarter, it was up about 60% versus the prior year. Again, that's a great thing to be able to talk about because it reflects the performance of the business. I just don't believe that you're going to see that rate of growth as you move into the second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter, partly because of the comps from the prior year, where we really begin to ramp in terms of our performance in the back half of last year coming out of the pandemic. And so I wouldn't be surprised if the rate of growth in incentive pay as you get those comps is half in Q2 what it was in Q1, for instance.

這就是預期。以下是我對今年剩餘時間業績走向的預測。以激勵薪酬為例，第一季的薪酬比去年同期成長了約 60%。這當然是好事，因為它反映了公司的表現。但我認為，進入第二、三、四季後，這種成長速度不會再像去年同期那麼強勁，部分原因是由於去年同期業績的影響，我們在去年下半年疫情結束後業績開始顯著提升。因此，如果第二季激勵薪酬的成長率只有第一季的一半，我也不會感到驚訝。

And I think you have very similar dynamics with health care costs and general insurance costs where the drag that they contributed in Q1, I don't think you're going to see anywhere near that same order of magnitude of drag as you get into Q2, Q3, Q4. Travel and supplies, something which really sort of came down as the pandemic settled in, that was up 50% in the first quarter.

我認為醫療保健成本和一般保險成本的動態變化非常相似，它們在第一季造成的拖累，我認為在第二、三、第四季不會再有同樣程度的拖累。旅遊和物資供應，隨著疫情穩定下來，這部分支出確實下降，而第一季則增加了 50%。

I think that's going to be up less than 20% in the second quarter. It could be flat in the back half. So I think a lot of the lack of leverage that you saw in the first quarter reflects on some levels, the comparison versus the prior year. And as we go into the balance of this year and second quarter, third quarter, our volumes should be higher just seasonally, I don't think you're going to have the same degree of cost drag in a lot of areas that we experienced in the first quarter. So my expectation is that for the balance of the year, we're going to leverage SG&A. Occupancy, I think, will continue to leverage based on what we're doing on sort of the branch strategies and things of that nature. So yes, my expectation is we leverage SG&A in the balance of the year.

我認為第二季增幅不會超過20%。下半年可能持平。所以，我認為第一季槓桿作用不足的部分原因在於與去年同期相比。隨著今年剩餘時間、第二季和第三季的到來，我們的業務量應該會因季節性因素而成長，我認為不會像第一季那樣在很多方面都面臨成本拖累。因此，我預計今年剩餘時間裡，我們將有效利用銷售、管理及行政費用（SG&A）。我認為，入住率也會繼續發揮作用，這取決於我們在分行策略等方面所採取的措施。所以，是的，我預計今年剩餘時間裡，我們將有效利用銷售、管理及行政費用（SG&A）。

Dave, I'll just throw a little tidbit in. In prior conversations, you've talked about the shock absorbers in our operating expenses. If you think of what happened a year ago because I talked about some of the amplifying effects earlier that the weather changed and then the inventory write down a year ago. There were 2 things going on in the first quarter of 2021 that didn't occur in the first quarter of 2022.

戴夫，我補充一點。在之前的談話中，你提到過我們營運費用中的「減震器」。想想一年前發生的事情，因為我之前提到過一些放大效應，例如天氣變化和一年前的庫存減損。 2021年第一季發生了兩件事，而這兩件事在2022年第一季並沒有發生。

In the first quarter of 2021, 55% of our branches were growing. By the second quarter, that has expanded to 70%, and it's kind of hung at that 70-ish number in the second, third and fourth quarter. In the first quarter, 75% of our branches and Onsites were growing. That has a massive impact on the incentive comp paid locally to our branch and on-site employees because we believe it's harder to grow than it is to maintain and there's a premium for growth. So that was part of that 60% expansion in incentive comp that we saw from a year ago.

2021年第一季度，我們55%的分公司實現了成長。到第二季度，這一比例上升至70%，並在第二、三、四季度基本維持在70%左右。第一季度，我們75%的分公司和現場服務點都實現了成長。這對我們分公司和現場服務點員工的本地激勵薪酬產生了巨大影響，因為我們認為成長比維持現有水準更難，而且成長會帶來更高的溢價。因此，這也是我們激勵薪酬較去年同期成長60%的部分原因。

The other thing that happens is we have a big chunk of people that are paid off of incentive -- of earnings growth. Earnings the rate of just raw earnings and earnings growth, that $8 million write-down a year ago hammered those programs. But a year later, it amplifies those programs. So when I look at the 60% increase over first quarter last year in the incentive comp, it's amplified by those 2 hammering events. In fact, from Q1 to Q2, our incentive comp increased 32%. And so that changes the comp picture dramatically. And that was 130 basis points of operating expense decrement Q1 to Q1. Probably got way into the weeds there, but I thought I'd just share a little insight on that.

另一件事是，我們很大一部分的員工薪酬是基於獲利成長激勵的。獲利成長主要取決於原始獲利和獲利成長率，而一年前那800萬美元的減記對這些激勵計畫造成了沉重打擊。但一年後，這些計劃受到的影響卻被放大了。所以，當我看到激勵薪酬比去年第一季成長了60%時，這其中就包含了這兩件重創事件的影響。事實上，從第一季到第二季度，我們的激勵薪資成長了32%。這大大改變了薪資格局。而且，第一季到第二季度，營運費用減少了130個基點。我可能有點離題了，但我只是想分享我的一些見解。

Yes, the impact of that write-off actually is an important perspective to have.

是的，這種減記的影響確實是一個值得重視的視角。

Our next question is coming from Michael McGinn from Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的麥可‧麥金。

So I guess higher level, if you watch the news, a recession is imminent and it doesn't seem to be a case with almost 90% of your top 100 national accounts growing. I guess, of those top accounts, how many are growth constrained that maybe shape your outlook for sales given the tougher comps as we approach the back half of the year? And maybe any update on what you think your market share take rate is in an environment where fasteners are the fastest-growing category and it's been a while since we've seen that for you on a sustained basis.

所以，從更高的層次來看，如果你關注新聞，你會發現經濟衰退迫在眉睫，但你前100大全國性客戶中近90%都在成長，似乎並非如此。我想問的是，在這些大客戶中，有多少客戶的成長受到限制，考慮到下半年基數較高，這些限制可能會影響你的銷售預期？另外，在緊固件是成長最快的品類，而我們已經很久沒有看到你持續保持這種成長勢頭的情況下，你認為你的市佔率佔比是多少？

What do you mean by growth -- going back to question one, what do you mean by growth constraints in our largest customers?

你說的增長是什麼意思？回到第一個問題，你說的我們最大客戶的成長限制是什麼意思？

Yes, components where you're not necessarily playing right now and they're trying to deliver a longer cycle backlog-driven product but can't get it out the door for reasons that are beyond your control.

是的，有些組件你現在不一定參與其中，它們正在努力交付週期較長的積壓產品，但由於你無法控制的原因，無法將其推向市場。

So other supply chain disruption other than what we're supplying?

除了我們正在供應的產品之外，還有其他供應鏈中斷嗎？

That's correct.

沒錯。

Okay. Got it. I'll just fall back on some of the commentary from our regional vice presidents. And I'll say that in general, they believe that getting products is still a challenge, but easier than it was 6 months ago. And that's not just for our products, that's for other products within the supply chain. And so in general, I think that our customers are figuring out how to navigate that some.

好的，明白了。我再補充一些我們區域副總裁的評論。總的來說，他們認為產品供應仍然具有挑戰性，但比六個月前要容易一些。這不僅適用於我們自己的產品，也適用於供應鏈中的其他產品。所以總的來說，我認為我們的客戶正在逐漸找到應對之策。

So relative to 6 months ago, do I think that production rates have gotten better and the ability to navigate some of this disruption has improved? It feels that way to us, just again, based on some of that commentary. So I'm not going to tell you that there aren't issues around ships and things like that, that you hear about. But I think that for the most part, our customers are more successfully navigating those issues than was the case 6 months ago. And so perhaps that -- what you're concerned about in the marketplace probably is not as dramatic today as it was. That's all anecdotal, by the way.

所以，與六個月前相比，我認為生產效率是否有提高，應對部分市場波動的能力是否有增強？至少根據一些評論來看，我們是這麼覺得的。當然，我不會否認船舶運輸等方面仍然存在一些問題，例如您聽到的那些。但我認為，整體而言，我們的客戶比六個月前更能有效地應對這些問題。因此，或許您現在所擔心的市場問題，可能不像之前那麼嚴重了。順便說一句，以上都只是個案。

Got it.

知道了。

Does that answer the question?

這樣回答了這個問題嗎？

It does, yes. So I wanted to go back to kind of gross margin. I see the strong results here, and you mentioned price/cost neutral. It just feels like during -- when you're comparing that to pre-COVID levels, you should have seen some sort of national account mix erosion given your model, but that's -- it seems like something more is going right here for you guys. And I just wonder, I think flat or slightly down was the prior framework and understanding, everyone's a little gun shy to guide that line item. But I guess what's your outlook now on the gross margin side of the equation?

是的。所以我想回到毛利率這個主題。我看到了這裡強勁的業績，而且你也提到了價格/成本中立。感覺在疫情期間——當你把這個數據和疫情前的水平比較時，根據你的模型，你應該會看到一些國民賬戶組合的下滑，但現在看來，你們的情況似乎比疫情前更好。我只是想知道，之前大家的預期是持平或略有下降，所以現在大家對這個指標都有些猶豫。那麼，你現在對毛利率的看法是什麼呢？

Well, a couple of things to think about. One, the 46.6% in the first quarter of 2020 and the 46.6% in the first quarter of 2022 was a little bit misleading. As Dan alluded to, if you look at only January and February because in March, the back half of March, we already started to see a lot of low-margin product getting shipped deal with the pandemic. If you look just at January and February of 2020 versus 2022, the gross margin in January and February '20 was 47.1%, and in January and February of '22 was 46.5%, right? So that decline you would have expected to see, if you take out a month that was beginning to get affected by the pandemic, you would have seen it, okay? So that's 1 element.

嗯，有幾點要考慮。首先，2020年第一季和2022年第一季的46.6%這個數字有點誤導性。正如丹所提到的，如果你只看1月和2月的數據，因為3月下旬，我們已經開始看到許多低利潤產品因疫情影響而出貨。如果你只比較2020年和2022年的1月和2月，2020年1月和2月的毛利率是47.1%，而2022年1月和2月是46.5%，對吧？所以，如果你剔除開始受到疫情影響的月份，你會看到預期的下降，懂嗎？這是第一點。

The other thing I think you have to be a little bit careful of is there is more that drives our gross margin than just price/cost and product customer mix, right? And I think about things like [mix of the next]. When we talk about product and customer mix, we're really looking at large categories against one another. But within safety, there may be a mix of the next element where we're improving our margin on the COVID product specifically. That doesn't necessarily get captured in the customer product mix between categories.

我覺得還有一點要注意，影響毛利率的因素不僅僅是價格/成本和產品/客戶組合，對吧？比如“下一代產品組合”。當我們談論產品和客戶組合時，我們實際上是在比較各個大類產品。但在安全防護領域，可能存在「下一代產品組合」的問題，例如我們可能正在提高新冠相關產品的利潤率。而這未必能體現在類別間的顧客產品組合中。

There's also things like we've done a great job with exclusive brands over the course of the pandemic. If I look at the mix of exclusive brands and Onsites, 2 years ago, it was 10%; this quarter, it was 12%. Exclusive brands to vending, 2 years ago, it was 21.5%; this quarter, it's 24.5%. So that's something which can actually mitigate the product and cost impact to some degree that has happened.

此外，我們在疫情期間也大力發展獨家品牌。兩年前，獨家品牌和店內銷售管道的比例為10%；本季為12%。兩年前，獨家品牌和自動販賣機通路的比例為21.5%；本季為24.5%。因此，這在一定程度上緩解了疫情對產品和成本的影響。

And EBs are great because it's lower cost to our customers, and it's a higher margin to us. And then I would also point out that you're looking at over a 2-year period. All through last year, we talked about organizational leverage, which wasn't a big factor in Q1 but it was a bigger factor last year, and that's related to the cycle. So there's more than just those 2 pieces that affect our gross margin trend certainly over a multiyear period of time. That add some color to that?

而且，EB（擴展業務）很棒，因為它能降低客戶成本，並提高我們的利潤率。另外，我想指出的是，你們關注的是兩年的時間跨度。去年我們一直在討論組織槓桿，它在第一季影響不大，但去年影響更大，這與經濟週期有關。所以，影響我們多年毛利率趨勢的因素遠不止這兩個。這樣解釋是不是比較清楚？

It did. I appreciate the time.

確實如此。我很感激您抽出時間。

A couple of structural changes and Holden alluded to the EB component. And again, that's expanded nicely in our vending. Our vending offering, that subset of business has expanded nicely the exclusive brand component in the last 2 years as well as our preferred partner component in the last 2 years. And some of that, we believe, is going to continue to get amplified by things like our LIFT initiative, where we are picking and supporting the product needs for our vending platform out of a handful of facilities and our push to our branch to turn that on is you need to have a more standardized offering in the vending machine to make it work in that type of supply chain.

霍爾頓提到了一些結構性調整，也提到了EB組件。而且，這在我們的自動販賣機業務中得到了很好的拓展。過去兩年，我們的自動販賣產品，尤其是獨家品牌和優選合作夥伴業務，都顯著成長了。我們相信，部分成長將透過諸如LIFT計畫等措施持續加強。在LIFT計劃中，我們從少數設施中挑選並支援自動販賣機平台所需的產品，並敦促各分支機構啟用該計劃，因為自動販賣機需要更標準化的產品供應才能在這種供應鏈模式下有效運作。

The second one is we talk about the consolidation of branch locations and what it does for occupancy. What we never talk about is the consolidation of locations and what it does for our trucking network. If I'm going out to -- if it's 2 years ago and there's a bunch of trucks that are leaving at 8, 9, 10:00 at night, going out and delivering to branches throughout the night. And we're going to 1,800 locations, and 2 years later, we're going to 1,600 locations. But those 1,600 locations are doing more revenue than the 1,800 did 2 years ago, that's a more efficient network. And all those things come into play, and they keep -- the mix punches us in the gut and it affects our gross margin downward. And we have to keep clawing back up these little incremental gains, and we find them in places like that.

第二點是，我們經常討論分行的整合及其對入住率的影響。但我們從未討論過分公司整合對我們貨運網絡的影響。假設兩年前，有許多卡車在晚上8點、9點甚至10點出發，整晚為各分公司送貨。當時我們有1800個網點，兩年後減少到1600個。但這1,600個分行的收入卻比兩年前的1,800個分店更高，顯示網路效率更高。所有這些因素都會影響最終結果，導致毛利率下降。我們必須不斷努力，才能挽回這些微小的損失，而這些損失往往就隱藏在這些面向。

Our next question today is coming from Tommy Moll from Stephens.

今天的下一個問題來自史蒂芬斯大學的湯米·莫爾。

Dan, I wanted to start by going back to your introductory slide. You mentioned some technologies and strategies all around efficiency, talked about restraining labor adds without hurting sales, supporting gross margin, branch consolidation, et cetera. Can you give any more context on what some of those efficiency-driven measures have been and what inning we're in, in terms of the deployment there?

丹，我想先回到你開場白幻燈片的內容。你提到了一些圍繞著效率提升的技術和策略，談到如何在不影響銷售的情況下控制新增勞動力、提高毛利率、整合分行等等。你能否更詳細地介紹一下這些以效率為導向的措施具體是什麼，以及我們目前處於部署的哪個階段？

Okay. So we talked a bit about the digital footprint. And so within that digital footprint, we have -- if I went back 2 years ago when COVID had started, we probably had around 5%, 6% of our sales where we used -- it's an MC device, but it was to go out and scan bins. But we didn't really use that to be more efficient upstream in how we picked the product, how we supported that.

好的。我們剛才聊了聊數位化足跡。在這個數位化足跡中，如果我回顧兩年前新冠疫情剛開始的時候，我們大概有5%到6%的銷售額是透過MC設備實現的——那是一種行動終端設備，但當時我們只是用它來掃描貨架。我們並沒有真正利用它在上游環節（例如產品揀選和支援）來提高效率。

Today, that roughly 6% has expanded to about 12% of sales in the March month, that's gone through what we can now call FASTStock. That's our mobile technology on a platform that we have written that interfaces directly with our point-of-sale system and of equal importance with our distribution center network. And so not only are we gathering using technology twice as much of our sales, but we're using that upstream. Where in the past, that half, that doubling would have been -- we've been writing on yellow notepad and getting orders and pulling it in.

如今，3月份銷售額中約6%的份額已成長到約12%，這部分銷售額都透過我們現在稱為FASTStock的系統完成。 FASTStock是我們自主開發的行動技術平台，它可以直接與我們的銷售點系統對接，同樣重要的是，它還能與我們的配送中心網路對接。因此，我們不僅利用科技收集了兩倍於以往的銷售額，而且還在上游環節應用了這項技術。過去，這部分銷售額的一半，也就是現在的兩倍，都是透過我們自己用黃色記事本記錄訂單並手動匯入系統實現的。

And then those orders transmit earlier in the day. So when they transmit earlier in the day, our distribution center can start picking that product to support them at 10:00 in the morning when they scan the bin, not at 4:00 in the afternoon when they get back to the branch and they dock their MC device and transmit all that. And it allows us to think differently about how we operate.

這樣一來，這些訂單就能在當天早些時候傳輸。也就是說，如果訂單傳輸得早，我們的配送中心就可以在上午 10 點掃描貨位時就開始揀貨，而不是等到下午 4 點他們回到分店，用 MC 設備連接終端並傳輸所有信息之後才開始揀貨。這讓我們能夠以不同的方式思考我們的營運模式。

Same thing with our FASTBin and FASTVend platform. FASTBin is a relatively new thing, and that's where we put -- in an environment where you have OEM fasteners and there's a kanban system, somebody has to go out and get the bins. Somebody has to go out and figure out what we need for replenishment. What we do today is where we've implemented the bin technology. When that bin is empty, the person that emptied it puts the bin up above the shelf, and there's an RFID chip in it, and there's an RFID reader that's saying, hey, bin #242 is empty, it's hungry and needs to be fed. And that transmits right through our point-of-sale system to our distribution center.

我們的 FASTBin 和 FASTVend 平台也是如此。 FASTBin 是一個相對較新的技術，我們將其應用於——在擁有 OEM 緊固件和看板系統的環境中，以前需要有人去取貨箱，需要有人去確定補貨需求。而現在，我們已經應用了貨箱技術。當貨櫃空了，取貨的人會將貨箱放到貨架上方，貨箱內裝有 RFID 晶片，RFID 閱讀器會識別出 242 號貨箱已空，需要補貨。然後，資訊會直接透過我們的銷售點系統傳送到配送中心。

And that's where LIFT becomes important in the future because we'll support more and more of that, especially with standard product in a highly efficient distribution model, but even if it's done locally, where it's because it's more special for that OEM need, we're gathering the information, the need electronically when it occurs. You have fewer surprises, but you also remove the cost of that data collection. And then you can surface that information for your customer much more readily and you become a better supply chain partner. And so that as a percentage, when I start adding that up, just the FMI component has grown dramatically from 2 years ago, and that -- there's no data collection effort going on.

而這正是LIFT在未來變得至關重要的原因，因為我們將支援越來越多的此類業務，尤其是在高效分銷模式下的標準產品方面。即使是在地化生產，例如針對OEM的特殊需求，我們也會在需求出現時以電子方式收集資訊。這樣既能減少意外情況，又能省去資料收集的成本。然後，您可以更便捷地向客戶提供這些信息，從而成為更優秀的供應鏈合作夥伴。因此，當我開始匯總數據時，僅FMI（前端行銷資訊）部分就比兩年前增長了顯著，而且——這部分業務無需任何數據收集工作。

I would probably add to that. I mean if you see the growth in our web, for instance, right? I mean you're having better than 50% growth out of EDI within that. And that creates certain efficiencies for us when you're seeing that much growth there. The web component is also growing north of 50%, and that's allowing us to address certain types of customers in a much more efficient way for us. So I think the growth that you're seeing there also introduces some of that.

我可能還會補充一點。比如說，看看我們網站的成長情況，對吧？我的意思是，其中EDI的成長超過了50%。如此高的成長為我們帶來了效率的提升。網站部分的成長率也超過了50%，這使我們能夠以更有效率的方式服務特定類型的客戶。所以我認為，您看到的成長也帶來了這些好處。

And then some of the strategic things that we're doing, right, the LIFT is still a relatively small component, but it's -- we're getting aggressive with it and we're growing it faster, and we'll continue to do so. That's going to bring efficiencies into the field in terms of how they supply the vending and frankly, the FMI as well over time, right? And so that's going to bring efficiencies to how we use our time.

然後，我們正在採取一些策略性舉措，對吧？ LIFT 目前仍然是一個相對較小的組成部分，但我們正在積極推進，加快其發展速度，並且我們將繼續這樣做。這將提高現場的效率，包括自動販賣機的供應方式，坦白說，隨著時間的推移，FMI 的效率也會提高，對吧？因此，這將提高我們利用時間的效率。

And I would say the things we've talked about with regards to our branches also is trying to bring efficiencies and focus to how we prioritize there. So it's really a combination of the technologies Dan talked about and some of the strategies all of which are really aimed at what we talked about earlier, which is making sure that our labor productivity goes up over time.

我想說，我們之前討論過的關於分支機構的問題，也是為了提高效率，並明確我們的工作重點。所以，這實際上是丹提到的技術和一些策略的結合，所有這些都旨在實現我們之前討論的目標，那就是確保我們的勞動生產力隨著時間的推移而提高。

That's helpful. As a follow-up, I was looking through my notes from last quarter, and I think the framework that you laid out for the full year this year was gross margin may be down as much as 50 basis points for the full year versus full year last year, but incremental margins in the 20% to 25% range. You've come out of the gate pretty strong here in the first quarter. So really just to boil it all down. Is it fair to assume that both of those ranges that you talked about a quarter ago based on what you know now could be positively biased?

這很有幫助。作為後續，我翻閱了上個季度的筆記，我記得您當時對今年全年的預期是，毛利率可能會比去年同期下降50個基點，但增量利潤率會在20%到25%之間。你們第一季的開局非常強勁。所以，總結一下，根據您現在掌握的信息，您上個季度提到的這兩個區間是否可能存在樂觀偏差？

Now if memory serves, I think the 50 basis points might have related specifically to mix as opposed to the overall gross margin. But I think the expectation was that gross margin would sort of lean down over the course of the year. I would tend to agree with you that the first quarter was a good start to the year on gross margin. And would it surprise me if that improves the overall annual picture a little bit and pushes us closer to something that's flat for the year? Yes, that wouldn't surprise me.

如果我沒記錯的話，那50個基點可能指的是產品組合，而不是整體毛利率。但我認為當時的預期是毛利率會在年內逐漸下降。我比較同意你的看法，第一季的毛利率表現不錯，為今年開了個好頭。如果這能略微改善全年的整體情況，使全年毛利率趨於持平，我會感到驚訝嗎？是的，我不會感到驚訝。

And I want to give some credit because one of the reasons I think that we came out stronger this quarter really does relate to the job the field is doing on freight revenue. Freight revenue in the first quarter is up 37%. And it was at a dollar level that we haven't seen before. And that really allowed us to narrow the losses that we -- that I otherwise expected to see. I mean I expected the losses related to our branch freight to be about $3.5 million higher than they turned out to be. And I think that, that relates to real efforts on the part of the field and the strategies that we put in place to try to improve that freight profile and I expect it to sort of carry through for the rest of the year. So that's probably the piece that provided more upside relative to my expectations in the first quarter. And the good news is I think that that's going to sort of carry through for the rest of the year as well.

我想特別表揚一下，我認為我們本季業績表現強勁的原因之一，確實與第一線團隊在貨運收入方面的出色工作密切相關。第一季貨運收入成長了37%，達到了前所未有的水平。這確實幫助我們縮小了原本預期的虧損。我原本預計分公司貨運業務的虧損會比實際情況高出約350萬美元。我認為這與一線團隊的辛勤付出以及我們為改善貨運狀況而採取的策略密切相關，而且我預計這種勢頭將持續到今年下半年。因此，這可能是第一季業績超出預期的主要原因。好消息是，我認為這種勢頭也將持續到今年下半年。

Your next question today is coming from Chris Dankert from Loop Capital.

今天的下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Chris Dankert。

I guess, first off, and I know this question is going to be very difficult to parse so I appreciate that upfront. But I guess looking at the fastener growth, I mean it's pretty staggering. Is there any way to parse on a relative basis how much pricing versus restocking versus core demand is contributing there? I'm not looking for an exact number, but just can you give us a flavor for how those kind of 3 pieces might be contributing?

首先，我知道這個問題可能很難理解，所以我先說明一下。緊固件的成長速度確實驚人。有沒有辦法從相對角度分析一下，價格、補貨和核心需求這三者分別對成長的影響程度？我不需要精確的數字，只是想大致了解這三者各自的影響。

Yes. And actually, if I could just add 1 more thing to my prior question, I won't count it against you. I want to make sure that when I think about gross margin being flattish or in that ballpark for the year, make sure you're including the write-down from last year because I'm comparing against that number, including that number, just so we're all on the same bases.

是的。實際上，如果我能在先前的問題上再補充一點，我不會因此而對你不利。我想確認一下，當我考慮今年的毛利率是否持平或大致如此時，你是否已經把去年的減值損失算進去了，因為我會把這個數字和去年的數據進行比較，這樣我們才能在相同的基礎上進行分析。

To your question about fastener margin, yes, we haven't necessarily broken it out by product line in that fashion. What I would tell you is the inflation that exists in fasteners is probably twice or more that of what we're seeing in the non-fastener lines. And even though we might be a touch below neutral on the fastener line from a price/cost standpoint, in order to achieve that, it's fair to assume that the pricing component would be greater for fasteners than it is for the non-fastener piece. And so I think there's probably a bit more balance between product and price as it relates to the fastener side of the ledger.

關於您提出的緊固件利潤率問題，是的，我們目前還沒有按產品線進行細分。但我可以告訴您，緊固件的通膨率可能是非緊固件產品的兩倍甚至更高。雖然從價格/成本的角度來看，我們在緊固件產品線上的利潤率可能略低於中性，但為了達到這個目標，緊固件的定價成本必然高於非緊固件產品。因此，我認為在緊固件產品方面，產品和價格之間的平衡可能更加均衡。

Got it. That's really helpful. And I guess, kind of bigger picture zooming out a bit. As kind of supply chains start to normalize slowly here, how do we think about how some of these competitive dynamics shift, which certainly have been taking share by just having inventory availability? What changes on that front? And then I guess, how do we think about your inventory levels versus customer inventory levels? Or just any kind of big picture, how do we think about Fastenal in the context of a normalizing supply chain here?

明白了，這很有幫助。我想，從更宏觀的角度來看這個問題。隨著供應鏈逐漸恢復正常，我們該如何看待一些競爭格局的變化？這些競爭格局此前主要依靠庫存充足來搶佔市場份額。這方面會有哪些改變？另外，我們該如何看待自身庫存水準與客戶庫存水準之間的關係？或者說，從更宏觀的角度來看，在供應鏈逐漸恢復正常的背景下，我們該如何看待Fastenal？

I don't know if we know the answer to that on the competitive shift, Chris. The reality of it is we've performed well in the last 2 years because we figured out how to find product and we figured out how to get product. And sometimes that meant spending money that was painful for us. We're a pretty frugal organization. Sometimes that meant spending money to move stuff that was kind of expensive in our way of thinking and heck, even today, the cost of taking a container across the ocean is ridiculous. But that doesn't change that it is what it is.

克里斯，關於競爭格局的變化，我不知道我們是否找到了答案。但現實是，過去兩年我們業績不錯，是因為我們找到了尋找產品的方法，也找到了取得產品的方法。有時候，這意味著我們要花一些對我們來說很吃力的錢。我們是一家相當節儉的公司。有時候，這意味著我們要花錢運輸一些在我們看來成本很高的東西，而且說實話，即使是現在，跨洋運輸一個貨櫃的成本也高得離譜。但這改變不了事實。

But I think the memories sometimes are short, painful memories often aren't. And a lot of businesses that went through a really ugly period and they found a friend in Fastenal, I think they remember that because again, that's a painful memory. Holden has talked about on prior calls, the number of customers that didn't buy from us before COVID, that discovered who Fastenal was because of a pain point they had during COVID. And a lot of that is government and health care-centered organizations, but a lot of other businesses, too. But that's a $50 million a quarter business for us now.

但我認為，人們的記憶有時很短暫，而痛苦的記憶往往難以磨滅。許多經歷過艱難時期並在Fastenal找到幫助的企業，我認為他們會銘記於心，因為那段經歷對他們來說確實痛苦。霍爾頓在先前的電話會議中也提到過，許多在新冠疫情之前從未向我們購買過產品的客戶，都是因為疫情期間遇到的難題才了解到Fastenal。其中很多是政府機構和醫療機構，但也包括其他許多企業。如今，這為我們帶來了每季5000萬美元的收入。

So it's a $200 million business within Fastenal that didn't exist 2 years ago. And I don't think supply chain becoming a little bit less chaotic hurts that business. I think that's a customer segment and that it has realized what a lot of our traditional industrial construction customers have realized for years, that Fastenal does a pretty nice job supporting their supply chain needs.

所以，這是Fastenal旗下一個價值2億美元的業務，兩年前還不存在。我不認為供應鏈秩序的改善會對這項業務造成損害。我認為這類客戶群已經意識到，Fastenal在滿足他們的供應鏈需求方面做得相當出色，而我們許多傳統的工業建築客戶多年來也早已意識到這一點。

The other thing I might add to that is we've also talked in prior quarters about how we tend to get sort of obsessive about growth drivers Onsite, if those aren't going well, what's that mean for market share, et cetera. And what we've commented before is we meet the customer where they're at. And for the last couple of years, our Onsite signings have been relatively low, but we've been able to gain share through other means because customers are asking us for different things.

我還要補充一點，我們之前幾季也討論過，我們往往會過於關注現場銷售的成長驅動因素，如果這些因素進展不順，會對市場佔有率等等造成什麼影響。我們之前也說過，我們會根據客戶的實際需求來制定策略。過去幾年，我們的現場銷售簽約量相對較低，但我們透過其他途徑獲得了市場份額，因為客戶的需求發生了變化。

I think we should all be encouraged by the fact that as the environment does perhaps become a little less chaotic and therefore a little easier for everyone to navigate and maybe that changes the dynamics a little bit. By the same token, we just signed a record number of Onsites. And so if 1 element begins to normalize, I think that we're going to have coming up from behind, those Onsites growing in the mix at a faster rate, driving market share from our more traditional growth drivers at the same time. So one might normalize a bit, but I think the other one comes up.

我認為，隨著環境逐漸趨於穩定，大家更容易適應，這或許會讓我們感到鼓舞，並可能稍微改變市場格局。同時，我們剛剛簽署了創紀錄數量的線下項目。因此，如果其中一個因素開始趨於正常，我認為線下專案將會迎頭趕上，以更快的速度融入市場，同時蠶食我們傳統成長模式的市場份額。所以，一個因素可能會趨於穩定，但我認為另一個因素會崛起。

Your next question is coming from Jake Levinson from Melius Research.

下一個問題來自 Melius Research 的 Jake Levinson。

It certainly sounds like most of your end markets are firing on all cylinders here, but any particular positive or negative surprises you guys saw in the quarter as you look across the different verticals or just curious what you're hearing from the field.

聽起來你們的大部分終端市場都運作良好，但是，在你們審視各個垂直領域時，或者只是好奇你們從一線聽到了什麼，你們在本季度有沒有看到任何特別積極或消極的意外情況？

Not really. When 92% of your top 100 are growing, there's not many that's not. Even areas, I would say, like oil and gas and areas that have been a little bit sluggish, they're not necessarily where everything else is, but they're doing better. But I think the marketplace is pretty uniformly strong, Jake. It's hard for me to define many areas of significant weakness. And I'm not -- again, we don't have a lot of visibility into the future, but the field still remains pretty optimistic about how things are playing out.

其實不然。前100強企業中有92%都在成長，很少有企業不成長的。即使是像石油天然氣這樣成長稍顯緩慢的領域，雖然它們未必像其他領域那樣蓬勃發展，但它們的表現也比之前好得多。傑克，我認為整個市場整體表現相當強勁。我很難指出哪些領域有明顯的疲軟。而且，我們目前對未來發展趨勢的預測並不準確，但業內人士對未來的發展前景仍然相當樂觀。

The only thing I'd add to that is Europe is a relatively small piece of our business. The last few years, that business has been on fire. I mean, growing 40%, 50%, 55%. And right now, that business is growing in single digits because we have customers that are either impacted because of what's going on in Ukraine or they're impacted by -- it might be supply chain disruption, but it's probably linked to what's going on in Ukraine. And so that's impacted our business there.

我唯一要補充的是，歐洲在我們業務中所佔的份額相對較小。過去幾年，歐洲業務發展迅速，成長率高達40%、50%甚至55%。而現在，歐洲業務的成長率只有個位數，因為我們的一些客戶受到了烏克蘭局勢的影響，或受到了供應鏈中斷的影響——這很可能與烏克蘭局勢有關。因此，這影響了我們在歐洲的業務。

Just each week, I have about a half dozen conversations with district leaders within Fastenal, where they talk about their business. And in the last week, I had a conversation -- a couple of conversations with folks down in the Carolinas. And one of them was a Head of Customer that supplies a product that goes into packaging for medical products, where their -- one of their larger customers is in Russia. And that business is in a standstill right now. And so I've heard -- but that's really small anecdotes in the scheme of the business. Your comment about generally a robust environment is spot on.

我每週都會和Fastenal公司內部大約六位區域領導進行交流，了解他們的業務狀況。上週，我和卡羅萊納州的幾位同事進行了交談。其中一位是客戶主管，他負責一家為醫療產品包裝提供產品的供應商，他們的一個大客戶在俄羅斯。目前，這項業務完全停滯了。我聽到了一些這樣的情況——但這只是公司整體業務中的一些小例子。您對整體環境穩健的評論非常準確。

Our next question today is coming from Ken Newman from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

今天的下一個問題來自 KeyBanc Capital Markets 的 Ken Newman。

I just wanted to clarify the operating leverage comments you made earlier in the call, and sorry if I missed it, but I mean just given your comments on potentially flat gross margins inclusive of the mask write-down for the year, Holden, you were talking about expectations for better SG&A leverage through the remainder of the year. Should I just take all of that to mean that you expect incrementals could stay in this mid-20% range or higher for the remainder of the year?

我只是想澄清一下您在電話會議早些時候提到的營運槓桿問題。如果我錯過了您的發言，請見諒。我的意思是，鑑於您之前提到，考慮到口罩減損的影響，今年的毛利率可能持平。 Holden，您當時也提到，預計今年剩餘時間的銷售、管理及行政費用槓桿率將會有所改善。我是否可以理解為，您預計今年剩餘時間的增量利潤率將保持在20%左右或更高？

Our goal has always been to achieve a 20% to 25% and to expand our margin a little bit from where we are, and that remains our goal. I'll let you model it however you model it based on what you've heard so far. I think we've given you enough to play with. But we feel good about how the business is performing today. And we'll see how the macro environment plays out the rest of the year, but we feel pretty good about how things are playing out.

我們的目標始終是實現20%到25%的利潤率，並在現有基礎上略微提高利潤率，這仍然是我們的目標。至於你根據目前了解到的資訊如何建模，就交給你了。我想我們已經提供了足夠的資訊供你參考。但我們對公司目前的業績感到滿意。我們會密切關註今年剩餘時間的宏觀經濟環境，但我們對目前的情況相當樂觀。

Understood. And then for my follow-up, obviously, I think COVID is unfortunately a normal part of the operating environment now. But I'm curious if you could just talk through any of the impacts that you may or may not be seeing from the recent lockdowns in China. Particularly, I'm just curious about your ability to secure inventory or your outlook on the margin progression for the rest of the year as it relates to your suppliers within Asia.

明白了。接下來我想問的是，很顯然，我認為新冠疫情不幸地已成為當前營運環境的常態。但我很好奇您能否談談近期中國封鎖措施可能帶來的影響。特別是，我想了解您在確保庫存方面的能力，以及您對今年剩餘時間亞洲供應商利潤率走勢的預期。

Well, I do -- first off, so on the call this morning, 1 thing I didn't touch on, I didn't touch on the fact that our leaders in our -- both our sourcing operation and our sales operations in China, they're based in Shanghai, and obviously, they're experiencing a pretty ugly lockdown right now. And I first let them know that we are here to support and really impressed with what you're doing locally.

嗯，確實如此——首先，在今天早上的電話會議上，有一件事我沒提到，那就是我們中國採購和銷售部門的領導都在上海，顯然，他們現在正經歷著非常嚴峻的封鎖。我先告訴他們，我們會全力支持他們，並且對你們在當地所做的工作印象深刻。

Our team has become -- especially the sourcing side of it, but both sides have become quite agile of operating in a remote fashion. Fortunately, there was enough warning that they were able to set up that ability to do that again. And I feel better about it, the fact that we have more inventory on the shelf right now because there will be disruptions from this. There's no question. We're not immune to that nor is anybody else, but sometimes the old adage, "Possession is nine-tenths of the law." The fact that we have inventory on the shelf or inbound that's at a pretty high level, even though Holden doesn't like the cash flow impact of that, he does like the fact that's there to support our business. And -- but we have a sizable presence in Shanghai, and we're worried about our team.

我們的團隊，尤其是採購部門，已經變得非常靈活，能夠遠距辦公。幸運的是，預警時間夠長，他們能夠重新建立起這種能力。我感到欣慰的是，我們現在貨架上的庫存更多，因為疫情肯定會帶來一些幹擾。這點毋庸置疑。我們和其他公司一樣，都無法倖免，但有時俗話說得好，「擁有即擁有十分之九的法律」。儘管霍爾頓不喜歡這會對現金流造成的影響，但他很高興這些庫存能夠支撐我們的業務，因為我們目前擁有相當數量的在售或庫存庫存。而且—我們在上海也有相當規模的業務，我們很擔心我們的團隊。

And when we talked about the supply chain being fairly predictable at this point, there are components to that. What I will say is you are seeing -- the time it takes to get product from a port in China through to our hubs has actually begun to shorten. However, the time that it takes to sort of put in a PO with a manufacturer overseas and then get it to the port, that actually has begun to lengthen. And I suspect that's a little bit of what you're seeing the impact of COVID over there. So there's a little bit of a difference there. But as Dan indicated, I think the fact that we've been purchasing and floating over so much product over the past 6, 9 months, and that's now really beginning to hit the hubs nicely, that's going to provide us a fairly decent runway of insulation from some of that.

我們之前討論過供應鏈目前相當可預測，這其中包含一些因素。我想說的是，從中國港口到我們樞紐中心的運輸時間實際上已經開始縮短。然而，從向海外製造商下達採購訂單到貨物運抵港口所需的時間卻開始延長。我懷疑這在某種程度上受到了新冠疫情的影響。所以這方面確實存在一些差異。但正如丹所指出的，在過去六到九個月裡，我們一直在採購和調撥大量產品，而現在這些產品開始順利進入樞紐中心，這將為我們抵禦部分衝擊提供相當不錯的緩衝。

Thank you. I see we're coming up on the hour. And so I'll close with a philosophical thought for you. And that is, so a year ago -- Holden, was it $8 million that we wrote off on inventory?

謝謝。看來快到整點了。那麼，我最後想跟大家分享一個哲學思考。那就是，一年前——霍爾頓，我們是不是在庫存上註銷了800萬美元？

Yes.

是的。

We wrote off $8 million of inventory. And our leader of the supply chain team as well as quite a few members of the supply chain team, we're at pains when we wrote that off. And they were quite apologetic about it. And I looked at them and I said, I said, no, here's what we did. We made a conscious decision to stock up on product to support our customer needs and our new customers' needs. Even factoring that $8 million write-off in, if I had to do all over, I'd do it in a second. And I believe it will build a better business for us in the future. If we've never had gotten that business in the prior year, and let's just say we had an $8 million write-off a year ago. But that $8 million write-off would have translated into a $200 million business within Fastenal that now exists because we were willing to do that, that didn't exist before. We're not an acquisitive organization, but I would have spent $8 million in a second for $200 million of annual business within Fastenal. Thanks for your time today, everybody. Thank you.

我們註銷了價值 800 萬美元的庫存。我們的供應鏈團隊負責人以及許多團隊成員都對註銷這筆庫存感到非常懊悔，並深表歉意。我看著他們說，不，我們是這樣做的。我們當時有意識地決定儲備產品，以滿足現有客戶和新客戶的需求。即使考慮到這 800 萬美元的註銷，如果讓我重新來過，我也會毫不猶豫地這樣做。我相信這會為我們未來的業務發展奠定更好的基礎。假設我們去年沒有獲得這筆業務，假設我們去年註銷了 800 萬美元的庫存，但這 800 萬美元的註銷本可以為 Fastenal 帶來 2 億美元的業務，而這正是因為我們當初願意這樣做，這在以前是不存在的。我們不是那種熱衷於收購的公司，但如果能為Fastenal帶來2億美元的年業務，我會毫不猶豫地拿出800萬美元。感謝各位今天抽出時間。謝謝。

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。今天的電話會議和網路直播到此結束。您可以掛斷電話了，祝您有美好的一天。感謝您今天的參與。