快扣 (FAST) 2018 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fastenal Company Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

女士們、先生們，大家好，歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2018 年第三季收益業績電話會議。（操作員說明）提醒各位，本次電話會議正在錄音。

I would now like to turn the call over to Ellen Stolts with Investor Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.

現在我將把電話轉交給投資者關係部的艾倫·斯托爾茨。女士，您可以開始了。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2018 Third 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 will 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 2018 年第三季財報電話會議。本次電話會議將由我們的總裁兼執行長丹·弗洛內斯和我們的財務長霍爾頓·劉易斯主持。電話會議將持續最多 1 小時，首先將對我們的季度業績和營運情況進行總體概述，剩餘時間將用於提問和解答。

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 homepage, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until December 1, 2018 at midnight Central Time.

今天的電話會議是 Fastenal 的專有演示，並由 Fastenal 進行錄音。未經 Fastenal 同意，不得對今天的通話進行任何錄音、複製、傳輸或分發。本次電話會議將透過 Fastenal 投資者關係主頁 investor.fastenal.com 在網路上進行音訊同步直播。網路直播的回放將在網站上提供，直至2018年12月1日中部時間午夜。

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.

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

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

現在我將把電話交給丹‧弗洛內斯先生。

Thank you, Ellen. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining the third quarter earnings conference call for Fastenal Company. I'll start the discussion with -- before I get to the flipbook, just recap a few things going on in our business and to add some transparencies to some things that are going on in the business.

謝謝你，艾倫。各位早安，感謝各位參加 Fastenal 公司第三季財報電話會議。在開始講解翻頁書之前，我先回顧一下我們公司正在發生的一些事情，並讓公司正在發生的一些事情更加透明。

Had a call earlier this morning with our regional leadership and our -- around the planet. Holden ran through a bunch of the financial aspects and discussed the release in general, talked about some of the points that we will be focusing on in the earnings call today to have that group be really well informed of what's happening in the business, and that's something we do every quarter.

今天早些時候，我與我們的區域領導以及全球各地的同事進行了通話。霍爾頓詳細介紹了財務方面的情況，並總體討論了此次發布，還談到了我們今天將在財報電話會議上重點關注的一些要點，以便讓相關人員充分了解公司業務的進展情況，而這是我們每個季度都會做的事情。

I started my comments with a simple message to the group. September was a big month. Coming into the month, we had an aggressive goal and January caused us to just miss our internal sales goal earlier in the year. Since then, we've been in excess of goal every month, very similar to what we experienced in 2017 from the standpoint of good solid top line growth, hitting our internal goals, which gives us the confidence to invest in the business.

我首先向群組發送了一條簡單的訊息。九月是個重要的月份。本月伊始，我們設定了一個雄心勃勃的目標，但一月份的業績卻讓我們未能實現年初的內部銷售目標。從那以後，我們每個月都超額完成了目標，這與我們在 2017 年的經驗非常相似，從穩健的營收成長來看，我們實現了內部目標，這讓我們有信心投資於這項業務。

Year-to-date, we're at 100.7% of goal. When I look at the numbers on last Saturday, a week ago Saturday, we were at 99.9%. Not all the numbers were in yet, so I thought, okay, we have a good shot of hitting goal. We came in at 100.0% of goal in September. Proud of what we accomplished as an organization from the standpoint of establishing a goal and going out and getting it.

今年迄今為止，我們已完成目標的 100.7%。當我查看上週六（也就是一週前的星期六）的數據時，我們的數據是 99.9%。當時還沒有所有數據都統計出來，所以我想，好吧，我們很有可能會實現目標。9月我們完成了100.0%的目標。為我們作為一個組織所取得的成就感到自豪，從設定目標並努力實現目標來看，我們感到非常自豪。

In the last 2 days, we had our typical board meetings. And the evening before our board meeting is typically a session where we introduce a topic that we delve deeper into. In past quarters, we've talked about some of the acquisitions we've done. We've talked about some business development opportunities. We'll talk specifically about our Onsite business, our vending business, our e-commerce business, our construction business, just to shed additional insight for our Board of Directors for their own knowledge and engagement as a director of our organization, but also to solicit input from a very talented group. Our meeting on Monday evening, I typically don't cover that session. I covered that session and talked a bit about the company and I just want to share some of the things we talked about.

過去兩天，我們照常召開了董事會。通常，在董事會會議的前一天晚上，我們會舉行專題研討會，深入探討某個主題。在過去的幾個季度裡，我們已經討論過我們進行的一些收購。我們已經討論了一些業務拓展機會。我們將具體談談我們的現場業務、自動販賣機業務、電子商務業務和建築業務，以便為董事會提供更多見解，增進他們作為我們組織董事的知識和參與，同時也為了徵求我們這個才華橫溢的團隊的意見。我們週一晚上的會議，我通常不會報道那場會議。我主持了那次會議，也簡單介紹了一下公司狀況，我想和大家分享我們討論的一些內容。

As we did at last year's annual meeting, we talked about Fastenal, what we looked like when we were a $2 billion company, which was roughly 11 years ago in 2007. We talked a bit at that time of what we will look like as a $4 billion company. And this year, as we prepare for our internal discussions in December and our annual meeting next year, we get to talk about Fastenal as a $5 billion company and we talked about how that -- more of how we've evolved over the last 10, 11 years.

就像我們在去年的年度股東大會上所做的那樣，我們談到了 Fastenal，談到了我們是一家市值 20 億美元的公司時的情形，那大約是 11 年前的 2007 年。當時我們稍微討論了一下，作為一家市值 40 億美元的公司，我們會是什麼樣子。今年，在我們為 12 月的內部討論和明年的年度股東大會做準備之際，我們有機會談論 Fastenal 作為一家市值 50 億美元的公司，我們也談到了這一點——更多地談到了我們在過去 10 年、11 年裡的發展歷程。

We also had a pretty lengthy discussion about what we look like when we're a $10 billion company. And we focused on 4 aspects of the business. One was the products we sell. If you look at it, fasteners and now safety products combined make up roughly half of our business. I wasn't -- fasteners may have half our business a decade ago, but as the other businesses have grown, especially safety has grown, it's morphed a little bit.

我們也針對公司市值達到 100 億美元時會是什麼樣子進行了相當長時間的討論。我們重點關注了業務的四個方面。其中之一是我們銷售的產品。如果你仔細觀察，你會發現緊固件和現在的安全產品加起來大約占我們業務的一半。我不是——十年前緊固件業務可能占我們業務的一半，但隨著其他業務的成長，尤其是安全業務的成長，它已經發生了一些變化。

We talked about our selling channels, our branch, our Onsite, integrated supply, a relatively small business that's kind of tucked away into the Onsite business. And our channel extender in everything that we do, a little thing called vending and in-stock.

我們討論了我們的銷售管道、我們的分店、我們的現場整合供應，這是一個相對較小的業務，它有點​​隱藏在現場業務中。而我們的通路擴展器，在我們所做的每一件事中，都包含著一種叫做自動販賣機和庫存管理的小功能。

We talked about the definition of our customer, who it is -- who it was 10 years ago, who it is today, who do we believe it's going to be 10 years -- or excuse me, when we're a $10 billion company. And there we talked about the manufacturing customer, a little bit of some of the subsets, the construction customer, our government customer and all the others.

我們討論了客戶的定義，客戶是誰——10 年前的客戶是誰，現在的客戶是誰，我們認為 10 年後的客戶會是誰——或者更確切地說，當我們成為一家市值 100 億美元的公司時的客戶會是誰。在那裡，我們談到了製造業客戶、一些子行業客戶、建築業客戶、政府客戶以及所有其他客戶。

We talked at length about the request mode and what I mean by that is how that's changed over time in how our customers are ordering. A big swath of our request mode is vending where the customer doesn't request it. Our supply chain delivers it to them at point of use at time of use and the -- and it's a -- we measure our fulfillment in the context of minutes, not hours, not days, but minutes. In our branch network, we measure it in the context of minutes and hours. In our distribution network, we measure it in the context of 8 hours away. But impressive supply chain and how customers' ordering patterns and how that's morphing can play really into the strengths of Fastenal.

我們詳細討論了請求模式，我的意思是，隨著時間的推移，我們的客戶訂購方式發生了怎樣的變化。我們請求模式中很大一部分是顧客沒有提出要求就進行的自動售貨。我們的供應鏈會在使用時將產品送到客戶手中，而且－我們衡量履行情況是以分鐘為單位，而不是小時或天，而是以分鐘為單位。在我們的分公司網絡中，我們以分鐘和小時為單位進行衡量。在我們的配送網路中，我們以 8 小時車程為基準進行衡量。但令人印象深刻的供應鏈，以及客戶的訂購模式及其變化，都可以真正成為 Fastenal 的優勢。

Four things I highlighted just for additional discussion, some that were tangential to this discussion, was our branch economics. We started talking about what we call pathway to profit 10, 12 years ago. Pathway to profit is still alive and well within Fastenal when I think of our branch network and understanding how that branch network funds our ability to migrate the business into an -- our Onsite world.

我特意強調了四點，以供進一步討論，其中一些與本次討論略有偏離，其中包括我們的分支機構經濟狀況。我們早在 10 到 12 年前就開始討論我們所謂的獲利之路。當我想到我們的分支機構網絡，並了解該分支機構網絡如何為我們將業務遷移到我們的現場服務世界提供資金時，Fastenal 的盈利之路仍然充滿活力。

The continuing traction we're seeing in the e-commerce web, I mentioned to the board that night. I said, "Last quarter was kind of fun to casually mention on the call that we now have $100 million web business within Fastenal." That's ignoring EDI, that's ignoring the electronic orders that are coming in from vending, that's just looking at where people hop on the web. And we've rebranded that mostly to what we call Fastenal Express, but it's a $100 million business within Fastenal growing handsomely. To that extent, 3 months later, I could look at that and say that $100 million business is now a $110 million business. You can do the math on what that means as far as growth, but it's seeing substantial growth.

當晚，我向董事會提到了我們在電子商務領域看到的持續成長動能。我說：「上個季度在電話會議上隨意提及Fastenal的網路業務額達到1億美元，這挺有趣的。」這還沒算上EDI，也沒算上自動販賣機收到的電子訂單，這只是人們上網的管道。我們已經將其重新命名為 Fastenal Express，它是 Fastenal 旗下價值 1 億美元的業務，並且發展迅速。從這個意義上講，3 個月後，我可以這樣看待這件事，然後說這家價值 1 億美元的企業現在變成了價值 1.1 億美元的企業。你可以自己計算一下這意味著多少成長，但它的確實現了顯著成長。

And interestingly enough, we're seeing the growth not just in our branch network. We're actually seeing faster growth in our Onsite network. It's a more efficient way of ordering. So not only does it help us grow faster, it helps us be more efficient. And a critical part of our success as we morph from a $5 billion to a $10 billion company is managing the operating expense within the organization, and you've seen some of that shine through as we go quarter-to-quarter.

有趣的是，我們看到的成長不僅體現在我們的分支機構網絡中。實際上，我們的現場服務網路成長速度更快。這是一種更有效率的訂購方式。所以它不僅能幫助我們更快發展，還能幫助我們提高效率。從一家 50 億美元公司轉型為 100 億美元公司，我們成功的關鍵在於管理公司內部的營運費用，而隨著我們每季業績的提升，你們也看到了這方面的一些成效。

We did a bit of a recap on how we communicate and learn internally, how we define the message and our focus and how our emphasis is always on what is special about Fastenal and how does that something special benefit our customer? And let's make investments to grow there and differentiate ourselves in the market and be something special for the customer. We also touched on people development and some leader development aspects we have in place from 2018 and how that's changing us going into 2019.

我們回顧了公司內部的溝通和學習方式，我們如何定義資訊和重點，以及我們如何始終強調 Fastenal 的獨特之處以及這種獨特之處如何使我們的客戶受益？讓我們進行投資，在那裡發展壯大，在市場上脫穎而出，為客戶帶來特別的體驗。我們也談到了人員發展和一些我們從 2018 年開始實施的領導力發展措施，以及這些措施將如何改變我們進入 2019 年。

That transitioned from Monday night into Tuesday and we had a pretty lengthy discussion on tariffs and inflation in general. We started that discussion to make sure everybody's on the same page as awareness to what we're talking about because there's a lot of terms that get thrown around in the media. There's a lot of terms that get thrown around in the press in general. There's a lot of terms that get thrown around in our organization.

從週一晚上到週二，我們進行了相當長時間的討論，主要內容是關稅和通貨膨脹。我們發起這場討論是為了確保每個人都對我們所談論的內容有相同的認識，因為媒體上經常出現許多術語。在媒體報道中，常常會用到很多用語。我們公司經常會用到很多術語。

Since they emanate from a government source terminology, you know darn well they're never going to be intuitive. So we walked through and tried to make some intuitiveness to it. We talked at length about the 232 steel tariffs that took place early in the year, a 25% tariff that frankly had limited impact -- direct impact on Fastenal, but does create a step-up in the introduction of inflation in the marketplace.

由於這些術語源自政府機構，所以你很清楚它們永遠不會是直觀的。於是我們仔細研究了一遍，並試著讓它變得直觀易懂。我們詳細討論了今年年初實施的 232 項鋼鐵關稅，這項 25% 的關稅坦率地說影響有限——雖然對 Fastenal 有直接影響，但確實在市場引入通貨膨脹方面起到了推波助瀾的作用。

We talked about the 232 auto tariffs, a minimal impact -- first off, they haven't been implemented; but secondly, even when they are, the focus for us is really understanding what that means to demand aspects of the North American marketplace. We also operate a pretty sizable fleet. We have 6,500 Dodge Ram pickups parked in front of our branches, delivering product and making sales calls every day. We have a distribution infrastructure, about 500 vehicles between semis and straight trucks supporting our customers every day and anything that impacts that category of our cost pool, we have to be mindful of.

我們討論了 232 項汽車關稅，其影響微乎其微——首先，這些關稅尚未實施；其次，即使實施了，我們的重點也在於真正了解這對北美市場的需求方面意味著什麼。我們也經營著一支規模相當大的車隊。我們有 6500 輛道奇 Ram 皮卡停放在各分店前，每天運送產品和進行銷售拜訪。我們擁有配送基礎設施，每天有大約 500 輛半拖車和廂型車為我們的客戶提供支持，任何影響我們成本池中這一類別的因素，我們都必須注意。

We talked at length about Section 301 because here's where it starts to change. Back in July, for lack of a better definition, our folks described it as list 1, I'm not sure if that's an official name or just our name, but list 1 came out in July and it involved about $34 billion in North American spend going into China, 25% tariff on that. As we've talked about in previous discussions, that's pretty limited for us. There are some impacts. Again, it's about the element of inflation it's introducing into the economy.

我們詳細討論了第 301 條款，因為從這裡開始情況就發生了變化。早在 7 月份，由於缺乏更好的定義，我們的人將其描述為清單 1，我不確定這是官方名稱還是只是我們自己的稱呼，但清單 1 於 7 月份公佈，涉及約 340 億美元的北美對華消費，並對這些消費徵收 25% 的關稅。正如我們之前討論過的，這對我們來說非常有限。會產生一些影響。再說一遍，問題在於它帶給經濟的通膨因素。

On August 23, a second list, list number 2 came out that impacted about $16 billion worth of imports, again, was a 25% tariff. While there were some impacts to Fastenal, it was relatively limited in how it played out in our business.

8 月 23 日，第二份清單（清單編號 2）出爐，影響了價值約 160 億美元的進口商品，同樣徵收 25% 的關稅。雖然對 Fastenal 造成了一些影響，但對我們的業務影響相對有限。

List 3 was announced on September 17. It became effective September 24. So starting a number of weeks ago, it's directly impacting the North American supply chain for our customers. We are an important component of that North American supply chain for our customers in the marketplace in general. Therefore, it has an impact on our business.

第三批名單於9月17日公佈。該規定於9月24日生效。因此，從幾週前開始，它直接影響了我們客戶的北美供應鏈。對於我們遍布全球的客戶而言，我們是北美供應鏈的重要組成部分。因此，這會對我們的業務產生影響。

If I -- an added piece to that is that meaningful impact that kicked in place a number of weeks ago is scheduled to go from 10% to 25% on January 1. Only time will tell what actually happens. It wasn't too long ago, it looked like NAFTA could easily fall apart into instead of a trilateral relationship, a couple of bilateral relationships. At the 11th hour, calmer heads prevailed. And while everything isn't a done deal yet, it appears that the differences that existed between the respective governments, respective countries have been largely resolved. And time will tell if the 2 sides of the Pacific Ocean will have a similar coming of the minds and anybody's guess on this call is good as, if not better, than mine on how that will play out.

如果我——還有一點需要補充的是，幾週前開始實施的具有實質影響的措施計劃於1月1日從10%提高到25%。最終結果如何，只有時間才能證明。不久前，北美自由貿易協定似乎很容易瓦解，不再是三邊關係，而是幾個雙邊關係。到了最後一刻，冷靜的頭腦最終佔了上風。雖然一切尚未塵埃落定，但相關政府和國家之間存在的分歧似乎已基本解決。太平洋兩岸是否也會出現類似的思想碰撞，時間會給出答案。至於誰能預測事態將如何發展，恐怕比我的預測還要準確。

Our commitment is to our customer and our employee. Every day, we balance this commitment with 4 overriding aspects of our covenant with our customer. One is a reliable supply to support their business, whether that is OEM fasteners, MRO fasteners, MRO non-fasteners, product going through our branch, our Onsite, our vending, it doesn't matter. A reliable supply that consists of quantity and quality. One of the challenges with redirecting your supply chain or making changes to your supply chain. You can interrupt both of those and it impedes your ability to move quickly.

我們始終致力於服務客戶和員工。每天，我們都在努力平衡這項承諾與我們和客戶之間的 4 個首要契約面向之間的關係。一是可靠的供應，以支援他們的業務，無論是 OEM 緊固件、MRO 緊固件、MRO 非緊固件，還是透過我們分公司、現場、自動販賣機的產品，都無關緊要。數量和品質都可靠的供應。調整供應鏈或對供應鏈進行更改所面臨的挑戰之一。你可以打斷這兩項操作，這會妨礙你快速行動的能力。

The second is value. We're all about total cost of ownership for our customer. That means time, that means price. We are managing through this.

第二點是價值。我們一切都以客戶的整體擁有成本為中心。這意味著時間，也意味著價格。我們正在努力克服困難。

The third is ideas, solutions and alternatives. One aspect of our approach with our customer is suggesting alternatives to their supply chain to minimize the impact. Again, that's our covenant with our customer.

第三部分是想法、解決方案和替代方案。我們對待客戶的方式之一是建議他們更換供應鏈方案，以最大限度地減少影響。再次強調，這是我們與客戶的約定。

Finally, the health of our supply chain. That dictates everyday where we push and how hard we push on our supplier base because, ultimately, a supplier that is not able to invest in their business is not a great long-term supplier in our supply chain.

最後，我們也要關注供應鏈的健康狀況。這決定了我們每天在供應商方面投入多少精力，因為歸根究底，一個無法投資自身業務的供應商，就不是我們供應鏈中優秀的長期供應商。

Our step started 3 to 4 months ago, an active resourcing effort. The reality of it is, and this isn't unique to Fastenal's business, this is true of the North American supply chain, a lot of categories are directly impacted by the Section 301 and their meaningful spend if I look at the business in North America. Some categories of ours that really jump out that have big impacts: Power transmission, electronics and batteries, plumbing, machinery, welding, paint supplies, material handling. These are items that actually have a really big impact. For us, they're a relatively small part of our business so that's more of an issue for a supply chain that's going through other sources, generally speaking, than Fastenal because they're all, as a percentage of our business, single digits.

我們的行動始於 3 到 4 個月前，這是一項積極的資源調配工作。事實是，這並非 Fastenal 獨有的業務，北美供應鏈也是如此，許多類別都直接受到第 301 條的影響，如果我觀察北美的業務，就會發現它們在支出方面意義重大。我們有一些類別非常突出，影響巨大：電力傳輸、電子和電池、管道、機械、焊接、油漆用品、物料搬運。這些都是確實會產生很大影響的因素。對我們來說，它們在我們業務中所佔比例相對較小，因此，一般來說，這對於透過其他管道供貨的供應鏈來說是一個更大的問題，而不是對於 Fastenal 來說，因為它們在我們業務中所佔的比例都是個位數。

Number 11 on my list here of categories that are impacted, the thing that's near and dear to our heart, called fasteners. It's a meaningful impact of that group and that group is a big percentage of our spend. And as we've talked in the past, a large part of the North American supply chain and Fastenal's supply chain comes through sources outside the United States and -- or sources outside North America, excuse me. And a big -- a high percentage of that source, and this data is publicly available as far as where we import from, a good piece of that has come from China and that's true in our business as well. If I go a little deeper down the list, I see safety products, another one that's a meaningful component of our business because of our vending platform.

在我列出的受影響類別中，排名第 11 的是我們非常珍惜的東西——緊固件。該群體的影響意義重大，而且該群體在我們支出中所佔比例很大。正如我們過去所討論過的，北美供應鏈和 Fastenal 的供應鏈很大一部分來自美國以外的供應商，或者更準確地說，是來自北美以外的供應商。而且，很大一部分進口商品來自中國，而且這些數據是公開的，這反映了我們的進口來源，這種情況在我們的業務中也是如此。如果我再往下看一遍，就會看到安全產品，由於我們的自動販賣平台，這也是我們業務的重要組成部分。

One of the things that we have to help manage through it better than in the past is we have a great National Account team and a great Onsite team, a great implementation team, a great engineering team and a great supply chain support infrastructure for that piece of our business. Those discussions have been going on in earnest. They continue to go in earnest. And we are shedding light to the supply chain of those customers and having discussions about prices and options.

為了更好地應對這種情況，我們需要比以往做得更好的一點是，我們擁有一支優秀的全國客戶團隊、一支優秀的現場團隊、一支優秀的實施團隊、一支優秀的工程團隊以及一個優秀的供應鏈支持基礎設施，來支持我們業務的這一部分。這些討論一直在認真進行。他們繼續認真地前進。我們正在深入了解這些客戶的供應鏈，並就價格和方案進行討論。

Another piece is, and we talked about this not in great detail in the July call, but we talked about it in meaningful detail in the April call, about on our local pricing. Our tools for managing that weren't as sophisticated and, frankly, a lot of the tools we had for managing that disappeared in -- over the last 3, 4, 5 years as we were plugging up back doors to our point-of-sale system for changing prices in an effort to improve our security. In July, we rolled out a new means to manage local contract pricing and local pricing. Holden mentioned in our release that we got some improvement in our price-cost inflation during the third quarter and we kept pace with the third quarter. That is a true and accurate statement for the third quarter.

還有一點，我們在 7 月的電話會議上沒有詳細討論，但在 4 月的電話會議上進行了更詳細的討論，那就是關於我們本地定價的問題。我們用於管理這些的工具並不那麼先進，坦白說，在過去的 3、4、5 年裡，隨著我們為了提高安全性而堵住銷售點系統更改價格的後門，我們用於管理這些工具的許多工具都消失了。7 月，我們推出了一種管理本地合約定價和本地定價的新方法。霍頓在我們的新聞稿中提到，第三季的價格成本通膨情況有所改善，我們與第三季保持了同步。這是對第三季情況的真實準確描述。

One point I'd make is we started this in July and really got traction in August. While the third quarter, we kept pace with the current inflation and we didn't get back any of the inflation we lost in the first 2 quarters of the year, in the month of September, if I look at our local pricing, we did achieve a very good clawback into that first and second quarter. And so we exited the quarter at a much better position than we entered the quarter or in what the quarter experienced. And that's a positive from our business, from our standpoint, to be an efficient supply chain, to manage the inflation dynamics in the marketplace and to manage the relative gross margin of each component of our business. But it was really shining through in September, not in July, August and September.

我想指出的一點是，我們在七月啟動了這個項目，八月才真正取得了進展。雖然第三季度我們與當前的通貨膨脹率保持同步，但並沒有彌補今年前兩個季度失去的通貨膨脹，不過，如果我看一下我們當地的定價，9 月份我們確實很好地彌補了第一季度和第二季度的損失。因此，我們本季末的處境比季度初或本季實際經歷的狀況要好得多。從我們的角度來看，這對我們的業務來說是一件好事，可以建立高效的供應鏈，管理市場上的通貨膨脹動態，並管理我們業務中每個組成部分的相對毛利率。但這種現像在九月才真正顯現出來，而不是在七月、八月和九月。

With that, I'm going to switch over to the flipbook and then I'll transition over to Holden. If I look at the quarter, a very good quarter. 13% sales growth in the third quarter of '18. That's our sixth straight quarter of sales growth greater than 10%.

接下來，我要切換到翻頁書，然後再切換到霍爾頓。如果只看本季度，那是一個非常好的季度。2018年第三季銷售額成長13%。這是我們連續第六個季度銷售額成長超過 10%。

Excellent leverage in the business. As we've talked about in the past, our big challenge as we were -- as our growth was expanding was the incentive compensation component of our cost pool. At the branch, at the district, at the region, at the distribution center and the support functions throughout the organization, as our growth came back in 2017 and in 2018 and our earnings growth improved, we reloaded up on the incentive comp and we saw meaningful inflation because the incentive comp was expanding, a very typical thing I would expect to see in the Fastenal business. We've anniversaried that now and you see it shining through in our ability to get operating leverage at the operating expense line.

在業務上擁有極佳的槓桿作用。正如我們過去所討論過的，隨著業務的成長，我們面臨的最大挑戰是成本池中的激勵性薪酬部分。在分公司、地區、區域、配送中心以及整個組織的各個支援部門，隨著我們在 2017 年和 2018 年的成長恢復，我們的獲利成長也得到改善，我們增加了激勵薪酬，並且由於激勵薪酬的擴大，我們看到了顯著的通貨膨脹，這是我在 Fastenal 業務中預期會看到的非常典型的事情。現在我們已經慶祝了這一里程碑，您可以看到我們在營運費用方面獲得營運槓桿的能力，這充分體現了這一點。

The earnings per share grew 38.3%, obviously aided by tax reform. Absent this, on 13% sales growth, we grew our earnings 15%. That's the fastest rate so far in the cycle. We're very pleased with that and we're proud of what our teams did. As Holden's point here, incremental pricing was realized in the third quarter, largely offset incremental cost increases in the period, we exited the quarter in a much different place.

每股盈餘成長了38.3%，這顯然得益於稅制改革。如果沒有這部分成長，在銷售額成長 13% 的情況下，我們的利潤成長了 15%。這是該週期迄今最快的增速。我們對此非常滿意，並為我們團隊的表現感到自豪。正如霍爾頓在這裡指出的那樣，第三季度實現了增量定價，基本上抵消了該季度增量成本的增長，因此我們本季末的情況已經大不相同了。

Flipping over to Page 2. We signed 88 Onsites in the third quarter. We've talked in the past about participation and the importance of participation in our business. Last year through 9 months of the year, 64% of our district managers had signed an Onsite. We hang out for our district managers. If we can get to 80% participation in anything we do, we will be successful. Our goal is to hit 80% for the year. Through 9 months of 2018, that 64% has grown to 72%.

翻到第 2 頁。第三季我們簽訂了 88 份現場服務合約。我們過去曾討論過參與以及參與在我們業務中的重要性。去年前 9 個月，我們 64% 的區域經理簽署了現場考察協議。我們經常和區域經理們待在一起。如果我們做任何事情都能達到 80% 的參與率，我們就會成功。我們的目標是今年達到 80% 的完成率。截至 2018 年前 9 個月，這一比例已從 64% 增長到 72%。

Onsite is part of Fastenal. It's not a subset within Fastenal. It's part of our business now. And you're seeing it shine through in the numbers. We've signed 269 Onsites year-to-date. Last year, we signed 270 for the year.

Onsite是Fastenal的一部分。它不是 Fastenal 的子集。這現在是我們業務的一部分了。這一點從數據就能看出來。今年迄今為止，我們已經簽署了 269 份現場服務合約。去年，我們簽了270份年度合約。

Switching to vending, also part of our business now like Onsite. We signed 5,877 vending devices in the quarter. There's 63 days in the quarter so we're signing 93 devices per day, not too far from hitting 100 devices signed each and every business day of the year.

轉向自動販賣機，現在也成為我們業務的一部分，就像 Onsite 一樣。本季我們簽約了 5877 台自動販賣機。本季有 63 天，所以我們每天簽約 93 台設備，距離全年每個工作日簽約 100 台設備的目標不遠了。

Our revenue in that is growing well. Our installed base is growing well. And we feel very good about -- in both of those, Onsite is probably going to be at the lower end of that range based on our run rate and well into the range in case of vending signings. We are taking market share here and there's something special about Fastenal that our competitors cannot bring to the marketplace in the same way we can.

我們在該領域的收入成長良好。我們的用戶基數成長良好。我們感覺非常好——在這兩方面，根據我們的運行速度，現場服務可能會處於該範圍的較低水平，而如果是自動售貨機簽約，則會遠遠達到該範圍。我們正在搶佔市場份額，Fastenal 有一些特別之處，是我們的競爭對手無法以我們能做到的方式帶入市場的。

Total in-market locations, 3,089. If you look at it, we're up 116 year-over-year, which is about a 4% increase. Branches are down 157, which is about a 6.5% decrease, but Onsites are up 273, almost a 50% increase. A lot of numbers flying around here. What it means is as our business is morphing, our need for people is always important because we are a service organization and that's what we represent for our customer, but it allows us to manage the business a little bit more efficiency from -- efficiently from a headcount perspective and you're seeing that shine through in our numbers.

市場內門市總數為 3,089 家。從數據來看，我們比去年同期成長了 116，增幅約為 4%。分行數量減少了 157 家，降幅約 6.5%；但現場服務數量增加了 273 家，增幅接近 50%。這裡到處都是數字。這意味著，隨著我們業務的轉型，我們對人才的需求始終很重要，因為我們是一家服務型企業，這也是我們對客戶的承諾。但從人員配置的角度來看，這使我們能夠更有效率地管理業務，而這也反映在我們的業績數據中。

National Accounts grew 18% in the quarter. Impressive team, both the sales team, the implementation team as well as our service teams in our branches and Onsite.

本季度國民帳戶成長了18%。團隊非常出色，包括銷售團隊、實施團隊以及我們分支機構和現場的服務團隊。

Non-U. S. daily sales, which are about 15% of our business, grew 20% in the quarter despite some pretty extensive foreign exchange headwinds, and that shined through in our gross margin a bit as well.

非美國。儘管受到相當大的外匯不利因素影響，但占我們業務約 15% 的美國每日銷售額在本季度仍增長了 20%，這在我們的毛利率中也有所體現。

With that, I will turn it over to Holden.

這樣，我就把事情交給霍爾頓了。

Great. Thanks, Dan.

偉大的。謝謝你，丹。

Flipping over to Slide 5. I've covered -- total and daily sales were up 13% in the third quarter, which is consistent with the growth of the first half. This runs our monthly streak of 10-plus percent growth to 16 months, but perhaps as notable to say that adjusting for acquisitions and foreign exchange, our August and September daily sales rate actually hit 14%. What that means is that nearly 1 in 3 quarters of -- into the current year's -- into the current expansionary cycle, we're still posting new highs for organic growth. We also estimate that pricing contributed between 120 and 170 basis points in the period, an increase from the first half when we did 50 to 100 basis points.

翻到第 5 張投影片。我已經介紹過——第三季總銷售額和日銷售額成長了 13%，這與上半年的成長一致。這使我們連續16個月維持10%以上的每月成長率，但值得注意的是，如果扣除收購和外匯因素，我們8月和9月的日銷售額實際上達到了14%。這意味著，在當前擴張週期中，近三分之二的時間裡，我們仍在不斷刷新有機成長的新高。我們也估計，在此期間，定價因素貢獻了 120 至 170 個基點，比上半年的 50 至 100 個基點增加。

In addition to contribution from our growth drivers, as Dan discussed, this growth is supported by healthy macro conditions. The PMI averaged 59.7 in the third quarter and industrial production continues to expand at a low to mid-single-digit rate.

正如丹所討論的，除了成長動力帶來的貢獻外，健康的宏觀環境也支撐了這一成長。第三季採購經理人指數 (PMI) 平均為 59.7，工業生產繼續以個位數低至中等的速度擴張。

From a market standpoint, nonresidential construction grew 16.2% and manufacturing grew 13%, in both cases consistent with the prior quarter's growth. From a product standpoint, fasteners were up 10.8% and non-fasteners were up 14.9%, again, in both cases in line with the second quarter levels.

從市場角度來看，非住宅建築業成長了 16.2%，製造業成長了 13%，這兩個產業都與上一季的成長一致。從產品角度來看，緊固件增長了 10.8%，非緊固件增長了 14.9%，同樣，這兩種增長都與第二季度的水平持平。

Lastly, from a customer standpoint, National Accounts were up 18% in the quarter with 79 of our top 100 accounts growing and non-National Accounts grew mid to high single digits with nearly 67% of our branches growing. In terms of market tone, sentiment in the field remains constructive and we would characterize conditions being stable at high levels.

最後，從客戶的角度來看，全國性客戶在本季度增長了 18%，我們前 100 名客戶中有 79 名實現了增長；非全國性客戶實現了中高個位數增長，我們近 67% 的分支機構實現了增長。就市場基調而言，市場情緒依然積極，我們認為市場狀況穩定且處於高位。

Now sliding over to Slide 6. Our gross margin was 48.1% in the third quarter, down 100 basis points from the third quarter last year. This was a larger decline than we expected, especially as the improved price realization largely neutralized incremental product cost increases we continued to experience in the quarter. Roughly 80 basis points of this decline was from product and customer mix, higher branch freight expenses and higher growth allowances that are attributable to the sustained strong growth we are experiencing with our largest customers. The remainder was a function of foreign exchange and other organizational factors. Sequentially, we believe the lion's share of our 60 basis points decline is due to seasonality, foreign exchange and branch freight costs.

現在切換到第 6 張投影片。我們第三季的毛利率為 48.1%，比去年第三季下降了 100 個基點。這一降幅比我們預期的要大，尤其是考慮到價格實現的改善在很大程度上抵消了我們在本季度持續經歷的產品成本增加。此次下降約有 80 個基點是由於產品和客戶組合、分公司貨運費用增加以及由於我們與最大客戶持續強勁增長而產生的成長補貼增加所致。其餘部分則取決於外匯和其他組織因素。從環比來看，我們認為 60 個基點的下降主要歸因於季節性因素、外匯波動和分公司的運費成本。

As it relates to the outlook for price-cost, we think that being able to neutralize the impact of inflation in the third quarter speaks to a rebuilding of pricing muscle memory in the organization and the effectiveness of the tools we've introduced. These will be helpful as the situation with tariffs play out. Still, the latter likely means we have not seen the end of product cost increases and until greater clarity comes to the market, it's difficult to know how price-cost will play out in the upcoming quarters.

就價格成本前景而言，我們認為能夠在第三季度抵消通貨膨脹的影響，表明公司在定價方面已經重建了肌肉記憶，也證明了我們引入的工具的有效性。隨著關稅情勢的發展，這些措施將有所幫助。不過，後者可能意味著產品成本上漲的趨勢尚未結束，在市場情況更加明朗之前，很難知道未來幾季的價格成本走勢會如何。

Our operating margin was 20.5% in the third quarter, up 30 basis points year-over-year. Strong volumes drove 130 basis points of cost leverage and generated an incremental margin of 23.1%. Looking at the pieces, we achieved 50 basis points of leverage over employee-related costs, gross and incentive compensation outpaced sales and profits, but it did moderate versus where we were last year. Occupancy-related costs were up 2.3%, generating 50 basis points of leverage. Lower branch costs were offset by higher cost related to non-branch facilities, with the increase deriving from higher vending expenses to support the growth in our installed base. We realized an additional 40 basis points of leverage from general corporate expenses.

第三季我們的營業利益率為 20.5%，較去年同期成長 30 個基點。強勁的銷售量推動成本槓桿率提高了 130 個基點，並產生了 23.1% 的增量利潤率。從各項數據來看，我們在員工相關成本方面實現了 50 個基點的槓桿效應，總薪酬和激勵性薪酬超過了銷售額和利潤，但與去年相比有所放緩。與入住率相關的成本上漲了 2.3%，產生了 50 個基點的槓桿效應。分公司成本的降低被非分公司設施相關成本的增加所抵消，而成本的增加則源於為支持我們已安裝設備數量的增長而增加的自動售貨機費用。我們從一般公司費用中獲得了額外的 40 個基點槓桿率。

Putting it all together, the third quarter of 2018 EPS were $0.69. Though excluding a discrete tax item, this would have been $0.68 or up 37% from the third quarter of 2017. In the absence of tax reform and the lower rate that it provides to us, EPS would have been $0.57 and growth would have been 15%. We continue to anticipate a tax rate of 24.5% to 25% absent refinements in the application of or discrete events arising from the recent tax reform.

綜合來看，2018 年第三季每股收益為 0.69 美元。如果排除一項單獨的稅收項目，這將為 0.68 美元，比 2017 年第三季成長 37%。如果沒有稅收改革及其帶來的較低稅率，每股收益將為 0.57 美元，成長率將為 15%。我們仍預期稅率為 24.5% 至 25%，除非最近的稅務改革在適用方面有所改善或出現特殊情況。

Flipping to Page 7. We generated $185 million in operating cash in the third quarter, which is 93% of net income. This is a lower conversion rate than we might typically see in third quarters, which relates to working capital, and I'll cover that in a moment. Net capital spending in the third quarter was $35 million, bringing our year-to-date outlays to $89 million, an increase of 16% over the first 9 months of 2017.

翻到第 7 頁。第三季我們產生了 1.85 億美元的經營現金，佔淨收入的 93%。這比我們通常在第三季看到的轉換率要低，這與營運資本有關，我稍後會詳細介紹。第三季淨資本支出為 3,500 萬美元，使我們今年迄今的支出達到 8,900 萬美元，比 2017 年前 9 個月增長了 16%。

The timing of outlays is such that we do expect higher spending in the fourth quarter for expansions and upgrades at our properties as well as IT assets than we have seen in any of the first 3 quarters of 2018. However, given the rate of spending to this point in the year, we are reducing our 2018 capital spending projection to $152 million from our previous $158 million.

由於支出時間安排，我們預計第四季度在物業擴建和升級以及 IT 資產方面的支出將高於 2018 年前三個季度的任何一個季度。然而，鑑於今年到目前為止的支出速度，我們將 2018 年的資本支出預測從先前的 1.58 億美元下調至 1.52 億美元。

The increased funds paid out in dividends to shareholders by 25% to $115 million and we finished the quarter with debt at 14.4% of total capital below last year and last quarter and at levels that provide ample liquidity to take advantage of opportunities to invest in our business.

增加的資金用於向股東支付股息，成長了 25%，達到 1.15 億美元。本季末，我們的債務佔總資本的 14.4%，低於去年同期和上一季度，並且處於充足的流動性水平，可以抓住機會投資我們的業務。

The picture for working capital grew more challenging in the third quarter. Inventories were up 14.1% in the period, representing the first quarter where growth in inventory has outpaced growth in sales since the fourth quarter of 2016, and that's largely due to inflation beginning to ripple through our balance sheet.

第三季營運資金狀況變得更加嚴峻。本季庫存成長了 14.1%，這是自 2016 年第四季以來庫存成長首次超過銷售成長，這主要是由於通貨膨脹開始影響我們的資產負債表。

Receivables grew 22.2% in the third quarter. This continued to be affected by growth in our National Accounts and international businesses, both of which tend to have longer terms than our business as a whole, but the biggest factor continues to be customers pushing payments past quarter-end, a trend that we have seen since the fourth quarter of 2017. After that moderated last quarter, it intensified again in the third quarter, but fortunately, we have not seen any meaningful change in hard-to-collect balances. The quality of our receivables remains solid.

第三季應收帳款成長了22.2%。這繼續受到國內客戶和國際業務成長的影響，這兩項業務的付款期限往往比我們整體業務的付款期限要長，但最大的因素仍然是客戶將付款推遲到季度末之後，這是我們自 2017 年第四季以來一直看到的趨勢。上個季度有所緩和，第三季又加劇了，但幸運的是，我們沒有看到難以收回的款項餘額發生任何實質變化。我們的應收帳款品質依然穩健。

That's all for our formal presentation. And with that, operator, we'll move to questions.

我們的正式報告就到此為止。那麼，操作員，接下來我們將進入問答環節。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Ryan Cieslak with Northcoast Research.

（操作說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Northcoast Research 的 Ryan Cieslak。

Yes. I guess, the first question, just wanted to go back to the gross margin comments. Weaker than expected versus our model, it seemed like maybe below what you guys were expecting as well. Holden, maybe sequentially, it sounds like the freight component once again creeped up and was a big factor there. Can you just discuss maybe what changed this quarter versus last quarter? And do you view this more as transitory? Or how do we think about freight costs certainly for the balance of the year, but even as we get into next year?

是的。我想問的第一個問題，只是想回到毛利率的評論。與我們的模型相比，結果比預期弱，似乎也低於你們的預期。霍頓，或許是依序來說，聽起來貨運部分又悄悄上升，而且是其中一個重要因素。您能否簡要談談本季與上季相比有哪些變化？你認為這種情況比較是暫時的嗎？或者，我們應該如何考慮今年剩餘時間的貨運成本，甚至考慮明年的貨運成本？

Yes. I think that costs continue to go up from a freight standpoint. And I think we've talked about how we did a nice job offsetting some of that -- some of those issues in the second quarter. We talked a little bit about moving more product onto our own trucks, doing a better job sort of finding means of generating additional revenue. And we still worked through that in Q3, but pricing is still a challenge and I would say that, that is a part of the equation still.

是的。我認為從貨運角度來看，成本還會繼續上漲。我認為我們已經討論過，我們在第二季度是如何很好地抵消了其中一些問題。我們稍微討論了一下如何將更多產品運送到我們自己的卡車上，如何更好地尋找增加收入的途徑。我們在第三季度仍然努力解決這個問題，但定價仍然是一個挑戰，我認為這仍然是需要考慮的因素之一。

Now, the impact from freight was more meaningful on a year-over-year basis than it was on a sequential basis, make no mistake, right? But I think if you look from a sequential standpoint, I think that you're looking at seasonality played a role. I think foreign exchange certainly played a role. And then, you do get into some drag from branch freight and some of the customer allowances, but they're relatively smaller. So I think that the impact on -- from freight was more annual than it was sequential.

毫無疑問，貨運的影響以同比計算比環比計算更有意義，對吧？但我認為，從時間順序的角度來看，季節性因素發揮了作用。我認為外匯波動肯定起了一定作用。然後，分公司的貨運和一些客戶的補貼也會造成一些拖累，但這些拖累相對較小。所以我認為，貨運方面的影響比較是年度性的，而不是連續性的。

Sequential -- one thing we're seeing, and it's been our mantra all year, is fuel prices are what they are, whether that's diesel going into our semi fleet or gasoline going into our pickup fleet. The real mantra is charge freight where it's appropriate and we've been -- we've seen a pretty consistent level of that and use our trucks. The challenge to our branch employees, our Onsite employees, use our trucks, a challenge to our supply chain, use our trucks because it's a lower cost and we've seen some success in that as we've gone through the year.

Sequential－我們看到的一件事，也是我們全年的口頭禪，就是燃油價格就是這樣，無論是我們半掛車隊使用的柴油，還是我們皮卡車隊使用的汽油。真正的原則是，在適當的時候收取運費，而我們一直以來都做到了這一點，並且一直在使用我們的卡車。我們為分公司員工、現場員工帶來的挑戰是：使用我們自己的卡車；我們為供應鏈帶來的挑戰也是：使用我們自己的卡車，因為這樣成本更低。在過去一年中，我們已經看到了一些成功。

Okay. So it doesn't sound like there's anything unusual or onetime in nature as it relates to freight here in the quarter. So I know you guys aren't big on getting quarterly guidance on gross margins, but directionally, is the 48.1% that you put up a good starting point and should we be thinking about just normal sequential progression into the fourth quarter? Or is there something that we should be thinking about where you see it maybe playing out better than that going into the fourth quarter?

好的。所以聽起來，就本地區的貨運而言，並沒有什麼不尋常或一次性的情況發生。我知道你們不太喜歡按季度給出毛利率指引，但從方向來看，你們給的 48.1% 是一個好的起點嗎？我們是否應該考慮第四季正常的環比成長？或者，我們應該考慮一些其他因素，例如你認為在第四節比賽中情況可能會比現在更好？

Yes. As it relates to the freight side of it, no, I don't think there's anything unusual there. Honestly, I have to say it's been fairly impressive, the degree to which the field has been able to move some product off of third parties onto our own fleet and other things of that nature. As Dan said, fuel was a big issue. So as it relates to branch freight or freight generally, I don't think there's anything unusual there.

是的。至於貨運方面，不，我認為沒有什麼不尋常之處。說實話，我不得不說，這個領域已經取得了相當不錯的成績，它能夠將一些產品從第三方轉移到我們自己的車隊以及其他類似的事情上。正如丹所說，燃料是個大問題。所以就分公司貨運或一般貨運而言，我認為這裡沒有什麼不尋常之處。

As it relates to gross margin more broadly, yes, I think thinking about typical seasonality is not unreasonable here. There are certainly some comp give and takes as we move into Q4, freight being one of those. It was in Q4 last year that we began to see a lot of these costs really beginning to move up, right? So I mean, that's one where that might be some easier comps, but there's some other items in there that might be less favorable comps. So I think if you think about the gives or takes, I feel like you should probably think about the seasonality. And the one perhaps caution I'll give there is seasonality is usually maybe 20 to 40 basis points lower in fourth quarter than third quarter. It also tends to be a much more volatile quarter than is typical in terms of where that comes through. I think that we can find some gives and takes that move us to the high end of that and that's what we're going to strive to do, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think in terms of normal seasonality at this point.

就毛利率而言，我認為考慮典型的季節性因素並非不合理。進入第四季度，各行業之間肯定會有一些競爭上的利弊調整，貨運就是其中之一。去年第四季度，我們開始看到這些成本大幅上漲，對吧？所以我的意思是，這裡面可能有一些比較容易搭配的裝備，但也有一些裝備搭配可能不太理想。所以我覺得，如果你要考慮得失，你應該考慮季節性因素。我或許要提醒大家的是，第四季的季節性波動通常比第三季低 20 到 40 個基點。而且，就其影響範圍而言，這一季度往往比通常情況下波動更大。我認為我們可以找到一些妥協和讓步，使我們達到更高的目標，這也是我們將要努力的方向，但我認為在目前這個階段，從正常的季節性角度來考慮問題也並非不合理。

I'll just -- I'll chime with a couple positives when I think about going into the fourth quarter. We exited the quarter in a better position than we entered the quarter from the standpoint of our pricing in general because of things we put in place in July and August, point number one.

我只想說——在展望第四節比賽時，我想補充幾點積極的方面。從整體定價的角度來看，由於我們在 7 月和 8 月採取了一些措施（第一點），我們本季末的處境比本季初要好。

Point number two, one of our hard presses on our folks as it relates to all the noise, the term that's going on right now is be engaged with your customer from the standpoint of product substitution. That tends over -- historically to help us from a gross margin perspective. And so when I look at that, there's some built-in lifts to it and -- but we'll continue to have the impact that we've seen in the mix of our business. That's not a new thing.

第二點，我們向員工強調，在當前各種喧囂中，要從產品替代的角度與顧客互動。從歷史經驗來看，這往往對我們提高毛利率有所幫助。所以，當我審視這一點時，我發現它有一些內在的提升作用，而且——但我們將繼續在我們業務組合中看到的影響。這並非什麼新鮮事。

The last piece is one component of our gross margin centers on the volume allowances that either go to customers or come from suppliers. When I look at that, some years, you will have a bias towards what direction one or the other might go depending on the relative strength of that, of our overall growth for the year because a lot of those programs are calendar-based. As we've been seeing, as we've gone through the year, the customer side, strong growth in National Accounts. So there's a piece there, but nothing new as far as any kind of change sequentially. If I look at it on the supplier side, sometimes you can get an uptick or a downtick in the fourth quarter depending on when the programs come out. With our strong growth this year, the bias is toward up not down. So I would look at that and say, on the ledger, there's more things that are -- ignoring seasonality, more things that are biased up versus down.

最後一部分是我們毛利率中心的一個組成部分，即給予客戶的或來自供應商的銷售補貼。從我的角度來看，有些年份，你會對其中一個或另一個的發展方向產生偏好，這取決於該年度整體增長的相對強度，因為許多這類項目都是基於日曆的。正如我們今年所看到的，客戶方面，全國性客戶實現了強勁成長。所以這裡面確實有一些東西，但就順序上的任何變化而言，並沒有什麼新的東西。如果從供應商的角度來看，第四季有時會出現成長或下降，這取決於專案何時推出。今年我們實現了強勁成長，因此前景看漲而不是看跌。所以我會看看帳簿，然後說，忽略季節性因素，帳面上有更多向上而非向下的偏差。

Okay. That's helpful. And then just for my follow-up, last quarter, you guys gave sort of an initial estimate on what you think the direct exposure was to China from a sourcing standpoint as a percentage of your COGS. Any update there? Certainly, as you've gotten through -- some additional lists have come out, I'm sure you guys have done some additional work around that.

好的。那很有幫助。然後，為了跟進一下，上個季度，你們從採購角度初步估算了對中國的直接風險敞口佔銷售成本的百分比。那邊有任何進展嗎？當然，隨著工作的推進——一些額外的名單也隨之公佈，我相信你們也圍繞著這些名單做了一些額外的工作。

And then just how do we think about maybe just directionally going into next year? I know you guys have always talked about mix always being a net negative to your gross margins. Should we think about the tariff situation also being a net negative to your gross margins next year are there -- is it too early to tell at this point?

那麼，我們該如何考慮明年的發展方向呢？我知道你們一直都說混合銷售對毛利率來說是淨負面影響。我們是否應該考慮關稅情況也會對你們明年的毛利率產生負面影響──現在下結論是否為時過早？

I think for -- on that, there's a number of things punched into that question. So as you unwind it, from a tariff perspective, it's way too early to gauge because we don't know what the next leg is going to be, is there going to be a next leg? We don't know if we're going to be sitting here in March and 10 is at 25 or 10 is at 10 or 10 is at 0. We don't know if it's on the SKUs it's on today, if it's on an expanded list or a contracted list. So I don't think anybody could intelligently predict that today. I do know we have a really good plan for how we're approaching it.

我認為——關於這一點，有很多因素都涉及了這個問題。因此，從關稅角度來看，現在判斷還為時過早，因為我們不知道下一階段會是什麼，甚至不知道是否會有下一階段？我們不知道到了三月，10這個數字會變成25，還是10變成10，還是10變成0。我們也不知道它是否還在目前的SKU列表中，還是在擴展列表或縮減列表中。所以我覺得今天沒有人能夠準確地預測這一點。我知道我們已經制定了非常好的應對方案。

If I look at historically, we have talked about -- and I'm a big believer in transparency, I'm going to be a little bit opaque here because I don't want to put our field team in a bad position from this standpoint. If I sat down with 10 different customers, the percentage of what they're buying that's sourced in one country or another or in different parts of the world, in general, can vary dramatically depending on if it's a fastener. Fastener products have a very high content of imported products and a lot of that is coming out of China. So if you think about that 1/3 of our business, a big piece of that is sourced globally. And most of that had moved outside of North America, heck, before we even started in business back in the late '60s. And so on that 35% it's a pretty big piece. On the non-fasteners, it's also a quite large piece. And this isn't just a comment about Fastenal. This is a comment about supply chains in general. So I would suspect most companies you will find is that you're going to have over half of their business is sourced outside of North America and a meaningful piece of that half comes out of China and you'd see the same, but I don't want to get into specifics beyond that because one customer that might impact there, what, they're spending 10%, another customer might be 30%.

回顧歷史，我們討論過——我非常相信透明度，但我在這裡要稍微含糊其辭，因為我不想從這個角度讓我們的現場團隊處於不利地位。如果我與 10 位不同的顧客坐下來交談，他們購買的產品中，來自某個國家或世界各地不同地區的百分比，總體而言，可能會因產品是否為緊固件而發生巨大變化。緊固件產品中進口產品的比例非常高，其中許多都來自中國。所以，想想我們業務的三分之一，其中很大一部分都是從全球採購的。而且大部分業務早在 60 年代末我們開始創業之前就已經轉移到北美以外了。因此，這 35% 佔了相當大的比例。對於非緊固件部分，它也是一塊相當大的零件。這不僅僅是對 Fastenal 的評論。這是對供應鏈的一般性評論。所以我估計你會發現，大多數公司超過一半的業務都來自北美以外，而這其中很大一部分來自中國，你會看到同樣的情況，但我不想再深入討論具體細節，因為一個客戶可能會影響到他們的支出，比如他們支出 10%，而另一個客戶可能支出 30%。

But Ryan, I think, yes, just to touch on last call, you're right. I mean, I'd indicated at that call that we were looking at basically -- roughly 10% of our product is sourced from China and that there was a chunk of that where it was just a guess, right? It's just a guess because 1/4 of our total buys across the company are bought by the field rather than corporately and this local capability to buy is a big reason for our industry outgrowth, but it also reduces the visibility. And as you said, we sharpen our pencils on this and we are trying not to be overly specific about it, but I think it is fair to say that our number is north of that 10% range that I'd indicated earlier. So that is definitely a larger number that comes directly from China.

但是瑞安，我想，是的，關於最後一杯酒，你說得對。我的意思是，我在那次電話會議上已經指出，我們大約有 10% 的產品來自中國，其中一部分只是猜測，對吧？這只是我的猜測，因為公司總採購量的 1/4 是由第一線員工而不是公司統一採購的，這種本地採購能力是我們超越行業其他企業的一個重要原因，但也降低了透明度。正如你所說，我們對此進行了仔細的計算，並且盡量避免過於具體，但我認為可以公平地說，我們的數字高於我之前提到的 10% 的範圍。所以，這無疑是一個直接來自中國的較大數字。

In fairness to Holden, I felt he was answering a different question on that call or I would correct him on the spot. I thought he was talking about the first rounds being a single-digit, a low percentage impact and didn't realize the intent of his answer.

公平地說，我覺得霍爾頓在那通電話裡回答的是另一個問題，否則我會當場糾正他。我以為他指的是前幾輪的勝率是個位數，影響很小，而且沒有意識到他回答的真正意義。

Yes. And not all that 30% -- not all that amount is going to be captured in the first -- in this first round. So we'll see what happens going forward.

是的。而且，這 30% 的份額——並不是所有這筆款項都會在第一輪——第一輪中獲得。所以，讓我們拭目以待接下來的發展。

Our next question comes from Hamzah Mazari with Macquarie.

下一個問題來自麥考瑞大學的Hamzah Mazari。

My first question is -- just the first question is around working capital. It seems like it is a much bigger source of cash the first 3 quarters this year than the last number of years. Clearly, some of that is inventory, but a lot of that is AR. So, maybe just walk us through, are customers just paying later or just walk us through sort of how you think about that piece? Is that normalized? Or just any color, that would be great.

我的第一個問題是──第一個問題是關於營運資金的。今年前三個季度，這似乎比過去幾年都帶來了更大的現金流。顯然，其中一部分是庫存，但很多是擴增實境（AR）。所以，您能不能給我們詳細解釋一下，客戶會稍後付款，還是您能給我們講講您是如何看待這個問題的？這是標準化的結果嗎？或者任何顏色都可以，那就太好了。

Sure. I'll throw in a few pieces because I've got a few years under my belt that Holden doesn't have yet. If you think about our business, our local -- if you go back years ago, our days to collect would have been better because our business was primarily a local business. And if I look at our local business, which is roughly half our revenue, you would see that our stats for that business is largely unchanged from what it would have been 10, 15, 20 years ago. In the last 20 years, we have gone from 2%, 3% of our revenue being National Account to 52% of our revenue being National Account and we've gone from international being 2 locations in Southern Ontario to 15% of our revenue.

當然。我會補充一些內容，因為我比霍爾頓多了幾年的經驗。想想我們的業務，我們本地的業務——如果你回到幾年前，我們收款的日子會更好，因為我們的業務主要是一家本地企業。如果我看一下我們本地的業務，它大約占我們收入的一半，你會發現，我們這項業務的統計數據與 10 年前、15 年前、20 年前相比，基本上沒有變化。在過去的 20 年裡，我們的全國性客戶收入佔比從 2%、3% 成長到 52%，而國際業務收入佔比也從安大略省南部 2 個地點成長到 15%。

Two things I can tell you about National Account customers and international customers in general. They pay slower than our local customers. And so they've been attributing to 70% of our growth between Onsites and -- Onsite -- a lot of things we do Onsite spending, et cetera, are -- really go towards a larger key account in that local market, whether it's a National Account or not, but a larger customer. And oftentimes, their ability to negotiate terms that are linked to growing the business occur and so there are some structural aspects to it. The offset to that is that they also drive volume through our branch network and over time, allow us to continually drive down the days of inventory on hand because we're leveraging it across a bigger revenue base. So it's finding that balance, but it creates some challenges in the near term.

關於國內客戶和國際客戶，我可以告訴你兩件事。他們的付款速度比我們本地的客戶慢。因此，他們將我們 70% 的成長歸因於現場服務和——現場——我們所做的很多事情，例如現場支出等等，實際上都是為了當地市場中更大的重要客戶，無論它是否是全國性客戶，而是一個更大的客戶。而且，他們往往能夠協商出與業務成長相關的條款，因此其中存在一些結構性因素。但另一方面，它們也透過我們的分公司網路推動了銷量，隨著時間的推移，由於我們利用了更大的收入基礎，因此可以不斷減少庫存週轉天數。所以關鍵在於找到這種平衡，但這在短期內會帶來一些挑戰。

Great. And then just a follow-up question is sort of how do you think about sort of headcount growth going forward? I realize your sales have grown a lot faster, but at the same time, your business mix has shifted to more to Onsite. So is historically, the relationship between sales growth and headcount growth different now that the model's changed? Or just any thoughts on how you think about that piece would be great.

偉大的。那麼，接下來我想問的是，您如何看待未來員工人數的成長呢？我知道你們的銷售額成長得很快，但同時，你們的業務結構也更多地轉向了現場服務。那麼，隨著模式的改變，銷售成長與員工人數成長之間的關係是否與以往有所不同？或者，如果您對這件作品有任何想法，也歡迎分享。

Yes, Hamzah. So the -- it is -- I think it's fair to say, I believe, that the source of our headcount growth has diversified over the past few years, right? There was a time when we were heavily branch-oriented, where most of our headcount was going into the branches and we were adding branches and filling those out. As we have become as reliant on the Onsites and vending, National Account growth, then a lot of the headcount that we add is coming outside of the branches perhaps to a degree that was not true 10 years ago, let's say. And we should be able to build a fairly significant revenue base off of that headcount relative to what we've been able to achieve before. I think it's fair to say that in the past, we would have had to throw a lot of bodies and heads into growing the revenues and, today, I think that there's more leverage in the model for headcount growth than has been the case in the past.

是的，哈姆札。所以——我認為可以公平地說，我相信，過去幾年裡，我們員工人數成長的來源已經多元化了，對吧？曾經有一段時間，我們非常注重分支機構，我們的大部分員工都投入到分支機構中，我們不斷增加分支機構並充實這些分支機構。隨著我們對現場服務和自動販賣機、全國客戶成長的依賴程度越來越高，我們新增的大量員工可能來自分公司之外，這種情況在 10 年前可能並不常見。相對於我們先前所取得的成就，我們應該能夠憑藉目前的人員規模建立一個相當可觀的收入基礎。我認為可以公平地說，過去我們不得不投入大量人力物力來增加收入，而如今，我認為這種模式在人員成長方面比過去更有優勢。

That said, growing 13% does require investment in the business. And that investment is in the form of headcount, both in the branches as well as outside of the branches. And we began to see in August and September those numbers begin to tick up and we would expect to continue to add branches to support our growth going forward.

也就是說，13%的成長確實需要對企業進行投資。而這項投資體現在人員配備上，包括分公司內外的人員。8 月和 9 月，我們開始看到這些數字開始上升，我們預計未來將繼續增加分店以支持我們的成長。

One item I'd add. If you look at the table in the press release, we talk about absolute employee headcount at the -- and I'm talking about in market locations and then the FTE employee headcount in market locations. And you see the FTE growing a bit faster than absolute. I have challenged our team to add a little bit more absolute, but to build to our recruiting pool -- and the way we build staff in our branch is we aggressively go into 4-year state colleges, 2-year technical colleges and recruit and ask people to come work for us part-time while they're still in school. And those numbers need to be built a little bit and -- but if you add 1% to that number, for example, it doesn't translate into 1% FTE because there -- it translates into about a half and it's a less expensive FTE. And you don't do it for the cost. You do it for the recruiting pool of the future. And so you will see that pick up a little bit, but we'll be very, I believe, efficient at managing the expense of that component.

我還要補充一點。如果你看新聞稿中的表格，我們討論的是各個市場地點的絕對員工人數，以及各個市場地點的 FTE 員工人數。而且你會發現 FTE 的成長速度比絕對值成長速度略快。我已經要求我們的團隊增加一些絕對的因素，但要擴大我們的招聘範圍——我們分公司組建員工隊伍的方式是，我們積極進入四年制州立大學、兩年制技術學院，招聘並邀請學生在校期間來我們這裡兼職工作。這些數字需要稍微增加一些——但是，例如，如果你在這個數字上增加 1%，它並不等於 1% 的 FTE，因為——它只等於大約 0.5%，而且 FTE 的成本更低。你這樣做不是為了省錢。你這樣做是為了未來的人才儲備。因此，你會看到這種情況有所好轉，但我相信，我們會非常有效地控制這部分的成本。

Okay. And then just lastly, I'll turn it over, just to make sure we're consistent with how we are thinking about tariffs. At this moment, you're sort of not quantifying how much of your business is directly sourced in China or you're sort of not quantifying how much of the business is sourced in China that is impacted by tariffs because I realize those are 2 different numbers.

好的。最後，我再把它翻過來，以確保我們對關稅的看法是一致的。目前，你並沒有量化你的業務中有多少直接來自中國，也沒有量化你的業務中有多少來自中國但受到關稅影響，因為我意識到這是兩個不同的數字。

I could -- there's a subset of SKUs that we do import from China that are impacted. That subset is much larger in some of those categories I touched about earlier. In fasteners, it's about -- it's 10, 11 down the list as far as subcategories and so it hasn't been fully impacted. If you look at it on a lot of things data I've been looking at, the fact that it's about half of the imports coming in are of that $500 billion are now tariffed, that's not too far off the market to what we're seeing in our business, too.

我可以——我們從中國進口的部分 SKU 受到了影響。在我前面提到的某些類別中，這個子集要大得多。在緊固件領域，它在子類別清單中排在第 10 或 11 位，因此尚未受到全面影響。如果你看看我一直在研究的許多數據，你會發現，進口商品中大約有一半（價值 5000 億美元）現在都被徵收了關稅，這與我們公司業務中看到的情況也相差不遠。

Our next question comes from Adam Uhlman with Cleveland Research.

下一個問題來自克里夫蘭研究公司的亞當·烏爾曼。

Sticking with that theme, I guess, when you think about the strategy here in the medium term of your purchasing strategy, I guess, should we expect the company to be prebuying ahead of what potentially could be bigger price increases for those tariff-related products from China or are you looking to resource items from other countries more aggressively and not prebuy? I guess, I'm just trying to think through the inventory cadence here through the next quarter or 2.

延續這個主題，我想，當你考慮貴公司中期採購策略時，我們是否應該預期貴公司會提前購買可能因中國關稅而大幅上漲的產品，還是貴公司會更積極地從其他國家採購商品而不提前購買？我想，我只是想弄清楚未來一兩個季度的庫存節奏。

I'd say yes to each and every one of those to a certain degree and no to another. And that is we started some months ago in earnest looking at where we're sourcing and -- but you also have to look at it from the standpoint of what's the alternative source? Is there capacity available? Is the quality the same and what's the price point? I -- we could move some stuff out of China to another source if you add 5%, 6%, 7% and that 10% is there for the next 3 years, that's a good decision. If you add -- if you do that and you add 15% or 20% or 30% to the cost, it's a really bad idea. It becomes a less bad idea if 10% goes to 25% and it's fixed. So in an environment where there's political variability as opposed to economic variability, it makes it very challenging to plan. And the biggest thing is having a good, open dialogue with your customer, but also understanding, for a lot of our customers, what we spend is a relatively small part of their spend or what we sell is a relatively small part of their spend. So it's creating the least amount of disruption to their supply chain, but we have redirected some already.

對於其中每一個問題，我都會在某種程度上表示贊同，而對於另一些問題，我則會表示反對。幾個月前，我們開始認真研究我們的採購來源，但你也必須從替代來源的角度來看待這個問題。是否有空閒床位？品質一樣嗎？價格是多少？如果你們增加 5%、6%、7% 的份額，而這 10% 的份額在未來 3 年內保持不變，那麼我們可以把一些東西從中國轉移到其他來源，這是一個不錯的決定。如果你這樣做，成本增加 15%、20% 或 30%，那真是個糟糕的主意。如果比例從 10% 提高到 25%，而且固定不變，那麼這個想法就沒那麼糟了。因此，在政治多變而非經濟多變的環境下，制定計畫會變得非常具有挑戰性。最重要的是與客戶進行良好、開放的對話，但也要理解，對於我們的許多客戶來說，我們的支出或銷售額在他們的支出中只佔很小一部分。這樣對他們的供應鏈造成的干擾最小，但我們已經調整了一些供應鏈。

As far as buying ahead, the problem with that is the -- predicting exactly what's going to be needed where. And for some items, you can do it, but again, depending on what's going to happen because supply chains, when we order stuff today, it's not coming in next week or next month. It's coming in 3, 4 months from now. So you have some limited ability to do that, but to the extent we can redirect some, absolutely, we've been doing that.

至於提前採購，問題在於──很難準確預測哪裡需要什麼。對於某些商品，你可以這樣做，但同樣，這取決於供應鏈的情況，我們今天訂購的東西，下週或下個月可能不會到貨。大概三、四個月後就會來。所以你們在這方面有一定的能力，但就我們能夠重新分配的部分而言，我們絕對一直在這樣做。

But Adam, just to sort of flesh out the question, the inventory, I would not expect it to move meaningfully based on prebought volumes. Again, we've looked into it. There is tight capacity for products in a lot of places and we didn't have the ability to meaningfully ramp up the amount that we pre-purchased based on what is preexisting tight capacity.

但是亞當，為了更詳細地回答這個問題，關於庫存，根據預購量來看，我預計庫存不會有實質的變化。我們已經調查過了。很多地方的產品產能都很緊張，由於產能緊張，我們無法有效增加預購的數量。

Okay. And then just related to that, I guess, historically, what do you think the lag has been for your National Account customer price realization relative to your cost inflation and -- ever since you put in the place recently? It's good to see in September price-cost is covering what you had gotten hit with earlier in the year. I guess, should we expect that there's any difference as we start to think about 2019 in terms of your ability to pass along those higher costs to those big customers that pushed back so hard?

好的。然後，就此而言，我想，從歷史上看，您認為您的全國客戶價格實現相對於您的成本通膨存在多大的滯後？ ——自從您最近實施該措施以來？很高興看到九月份的價格成本已經彌補了年初遭受的損失。我想，當我們開始展望 2019 年時，你們能否將更高的成本轉嫁給那些強烈抵制的大客戶，我們是否應該期待情況會有所不同？

Well, the -- it's always going to be an intimate discussion with every customer and some of it is the willingness to peer into the supply chain flexibility on source supply. OEM fasteners has a different dynamic to it MRO fasteners, for example.

嗯，這始終是與每位客戶進行的深入討論，其中一些內容是願意深入了解供應鏈在供應來源方面的靈活性。OEM緊固件與MRO緊固件的動態特性有所不同，例如。

But historically, the pricing we saw in September, that's more on our local customer where your timeframe is different. And because it's so diffused, that was challenging us earlier in the year because we didn't have great tools to manage it.

但從歷史數據來看，我們在 9 月看到的定價更多是針對我們本地客戶的，因為他們的時間安排不同。正因為它的擴散性很強，所以今年早些時候我們面臨著很大的挑戰，因為我們沒有很好的工具來管理它。

I think our National Account relationships, most of that is historically on kind of a 6-month window that we can move pricing. And obviously, extreme -- certain commodities don't fall into that. If it's things like stainless, which has much more variability, we tighten that window up. In the case of something like this where it's a political event, you do have the ability to accelerate that, as does our supply base, to accelerate that window because the stuff we're buying last summer that -- or last fall that came in on September 20 doesn't have a tariff. If it came in 4 days later, it does. So it's not about when you ordered it, it's about when it crossed the border. And so it's being very mindful of that. And sometimes -- and that can change the timing window, but historically, it would have been about a 6-month window.

我認為我們與全國客戶的關係，從歷史上看，大部分關係都處於大約 6 個月的調整期內，在此期間我們可以調整價格。當然，極端情況──某些商品並不屬於這種情況。如果是像不銹鋼這樣變化較大的材料，我們會收緊選擇範圍。如果是像這樣的政治事件，你和我們的供應鏈都有能力加快這一進程，因為我們去年夏天或去年秋天購買的、9 月 20 日到貨的商品沒有關稅。如果4天後才到，那就對了。所以關鍵不在於何時下單，而是它何時過境。所以，這一點需要格外注意。有時——這可能會改變時間窗口，但從歷史上看，時間窗口大約是 6 個月。

Our next question comes from Evelyn Chow with Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的 Evelyn Chow。

So I guess, first question I have for you is just kind of thinking about inflationary impact on your inventory. Is there any meaningful difference in your turns on the fastener versus non-fastener pieces of your portfolio? And then how do we start thinking about the impact of some of this inflation on your buy, noting that prebuy has been challenging for you?

所以我想問你的第一個問題就是，通貨膨脹對你庫存的影響是什麼。在您的投資組合中，緊固件類產品和非緊固件類產品的使用頻率是否有任何實質差異？那麼，我們該如何考慮通貨膨脹對您購買的影響呢？考慮到購買前階段對您來說一直很困難。

The turns on the fasteners will be somewhat slower than the turns on the non-fastener simply because we source a much greater proportion of fasteners from overseas than we do non-fasteners, not just from China, but from other countries as well. I don't think it's -- would be unexpected to suggest that the vast majority of our fasteners spend is from outside the U.S. and significantly in Asia. And so you're going to have a longer turn on fasteners than you will on non-fasteners.

由於我們從海外採購的緊固件比例遠高於非緊固件，因此緊固件的旋轉速度會比非緊固件的旋轉速度慢一些，這不僅是因為我們從中國採購緊固件，還因為我們從其他國家採購緊固件。我不認為——如果說我們絕大多數的緊固件支出都來自美國以外，而且很大一部分來自亞洲，那將是一件出乎意料的事情。因此，使用緊固件時，旋轉時間會比不使用緊固件時更長。

Our non-fasteners also carry more of a branded component to them. That lends itself to we're sourcing it domestically. Now, it might have been manufactured offshore, but we're sourcing it domestically and, therefore, you have a tighter window too as far as turns.

我們的非緊固件產品也更具品牌特色。這就促使我們從國內採購。雖然它可能是在海外生產的，但我們是從國內採購的，因此，在交貨期限方面，你們的時間窗口也更窄了。

Right.

正確的。

Makes sense, yes. And then, I guess, maybe on a sort of related point to this, I appreciate that it's challenging to quantify right now exactly what the impact to your COGS might be from list 3 in particular. But just thinking sort of a lot of your fastener buys from outside the U.S., some proportion of your buy that's non-fasteners is also outside the U.S. Is there any thought as to maybe pulling back on how much the field is sort of permitted to dictate the buy and make that sort of more top-down in this challenging inflationary backdrop?

有道理，沒錯。然後，我想，也許與此相關的一點是，我理解現在很難量化清單 3 對您的銷售成本的具體影響。但考慮到你們從美國以外地區採購了大量緊固件，而且你們採購的非緊固件產品中也有一部分來自美國以外地區。在當前充滿挑戰的通膨環境下，你們是否考慮過限制產業對採購的決策權，使其更自上而下地進行？

I don't know if I'd phrase it as permitted to buy. I think, ultimately, our customer decides what supply channel is best for their business from the standpoint of their end customer and what they expect. We have domestic capabilities, too. We're -- from a distribution perspective, we have the largest -- when I look at our peers, we have the largest manufacturing of fasteners capability in our industry. And so we manufacture -- 35% of our revenue is fasteners. We manufacture about 5% of what we sell. So 5% of that 35%, we manufacture domestically for the most part. We have some operations in Europe and Asia as well, but most of our operations are domestic. And there's a customer base that wants that. The reality of it is for fasteners and for non-fasteners, there's not capacity to handle it domestically. If we -- even if we wanted to move more domestically, the capacity doesn't exist because the fastener capacity that's retained in this country, we're a meaningful piece of it because of what we've done, but much of it has moved offshore, again, a lot of that back in the '50s, '60s and '70s.

我不知道用「允許購買」來表達是否合適。我認為，最終，我們的客戶將從最終客戶的角度以及他們的期望出發，決定哪種供應管道最適合他們的業務。我們也具備國內生產能力。從分銷的角度來看，我們擁有最大的——當我審視我們的同行時，我們擁有業內最大的緊固件製造能力。因此，我們生產緊固件——我們收入的 35% 來自緊固件。我們生產的商品約占我們銷售商品的5%。因此，這 35% 中的 5% 大部分是我們國內生產的。我們在歐洲和亞洲也有一些業務，但我們的大部分業務都在國內。而且確實有一部分客戶想要這樣的產品。現實情況是，無論是緊固件還是非緊固件，國內都沒有能力處理。即使我們想更多地在國內生產，也沒有足夠的產能，因為在這個國家保留下來的緊固件產能，由於我們所做的工作，我們是其中重要的一部分，但很多產能已經轉移到海外，這在 20 世紀 50 年代、60 年代和 70 年代就已經發生了。

Yes. And Evelyn, you have to also remember that the ability of our folks in the field to make decisions about what their customers need is a real important piece to how we service the customer and how we achieve the kind of outgrowth that we do. Now, we've obviously encouraged the field to, wherever possible, maybe use exclusive brands as sort of a product substitution, look for product within our network as opposed to having to go outside of our network because, obviously, where we have scale and purchasing, we can do -- we can address the issues of inflation more greatly, but I think it would be a mistake to take something which has served us so well culturally and in terms of growth over such a long period of time and begin to uproot those kinds of things. I think we're far better off taking the relationships that those local sales folks have, have those conversations, use the tools that have never been better, use the experience they have in sort of having these conversations, which, again, has never been better, and continue to service the customer in that way.

是的。伊芙琳，你也要記住，我們第一線員工能否根據客戶的需求做出決策，對於我們如何服務客戶以及我們如何實現目前的成長至關重要。現在，我們顯然鼓勵業內人士盡可能使用獨家品牌作為產品替代品，在我們的網絡內尋找產品，而不是到網絡外採購，因為很明顯，在我們擁有規模和採購能力的地方，我們可以更好地應對通貨膨脹問題，但我認為，如果把長期以來在文化和增長方面對我們如此有益的東西徹底顛覆，那就大錯特錯了。我認為，我們最好還是利用當地銷售人員建立的關係，與他們進行溝通，使用前所未有的好工具，利用他們在這方面積累的經驗（同樣，現在的溝通方式也前所未有地好），繼續以這種方式為客戶提供服務。

Understood. And then, maybe if I can just sneak in one on Onsites. I think you noted that you're tracking a little closer to the lower end of the range for the year. I guess, what are some of the drivers of that expectation? And then, do we still think about a 360 to 385 type run rate into next year?

明白了。然後，也許我可以偷偷地在現​​場活動中安排一次。我想你已經注意到，你的業績目前更接近今年預期範圍的下限。我想，造成這種期望的驅動因素有哪些呢？那麼，我們明年是否仍然考慮保持 360 到 385 這樣的運行率？

Well, I think the expectation, simply look at the first 3 quarters, we divide by 3, multiply by 4 and it gets you to the math, right? The -- how fourth quarter plays out, we'll see. It's entirely possible that we'll sign enough to be inside that range. And so it's really just math, Evelyn.

嗯，我認為預期結果很簡單，只要看看前三個季度，我們除以 3，乘以 4，就能得出結果，對吧？第四節比賽會如何發展，我們拭目以待。我們完全有可能簽下足夠多的球員，使總簽約人數達到那個範圍。所以說，這其實就是數學問題，伊芙琳。

The -- I will say this. If we come in at the low end of the range, around the low end of the range, that will be as an effective job that we've done in any year of actually hitting that range. And let's not lose sight of the fact that whether it's 360 or 355 or 365, that's up from 270 last year and represents significant sort of buy-in and execution on the part of the organization. So I would perhaps put that perspective.

我要說的是…如果我們最終的成績處於該範圍的低端，那將是我們多年來在該範圍內取得的最有效成績。我們不要忘記，無論是 360、355 還是 365，都比去年的 270 有所增加，這代表著組織方面相當大的支持和執行力。所以，我或許會從這個角度來看這個問題。

With respect to what our expectations are for next year, frankly, we haven't addressed that yet. I think we'll have more to say about that as we get into the fourth quarter, but we haven't set that range at this point.

至於我們對明年的預期，坦白說，我們還沒有討論過這個問題。我認為到了第四季度我們會對此有更多討論，但目前我們還沒有確定這個範圍。

Our next question comes from Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research.

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

This is Bhupender sitting in for Nigel here. So I just wanted to go through the third quarter. Pretty nice average daily sales growth here in the quarter and especially for September. And Holden, like you mentioned about the tariffs, which became effective September 24, just wanted to see if we can get some color. Did you see any kind of prebuy in the quarter before that deadline actually for the tariff went into effect?

這是 Bhupender 代替 Nigel 主持節目。所以我只想順利完成第三季。本季平均每日銷售額成長相當不錯，尤其是9月份。霍爾頓，就像你提到的關稅一樣，該關稅已於 9 月 24 日生效，我們只是想看看能否得到一些細節。在關稅生效前的那個季度，你是否看到任何形式的預購行為？

Are you talking about from a customer perspective or our supply perspective?

您是從客戶角度還是從我們的供應角度來談？

I mean, if we can give color from a customer perspective, that would be good, too.

我的意思是，如果我們能從客戶的角度來描述，那也很好。

Yes, I'll chime in on that. If you think of what we do, we provide real-time supply chain for our customer, and that's our value. When the customer needs something, they walk over and they push a button on the vending machine and they instantly have what they need, a pair of safety glasses, a pair of gloves, et cetera. When they are producing something, they reach over and they grab a bin and grab the fastener they need to assemble the item they are producing. If they're doing maintenance, they go to a bin and grab it. So the value we bring is the sourcing of products we supply. There is no sourcing cost. It's available when I need it so it doesn't really lend itself to prebuying. So I would say there's no prebuying in our numbers from this -- from the context of any of our revenue numbers in the third quarter or earlier in the year for that matter.

是的，我也要補充一點。想想我們所做的工作，我們為客戶提供即時供應鏈，這就是我們的價值所在。當顧客需要東西時，他們走過去，按下自動販賣機上的一個按鈕，就能立即得到他們需要的東西，例如一副安全眼鏡、一副手套等等。當他們生產某件東西時，他們會伸手去夠箱子，然後從中取出組裝該物品所需的緊固件。如果他們正在進行維護工作，他們會去垃圾箱裡拿東西。因此，我們所創造的價值在於我們所供應產品的採購。沒有採購成本。我需要的時候就能拿到，所以不太適合提前購買。因此，我認為從我們第三季或今年稍早的任何收入數據來看，我們的數據中都沒有預購的跡象。

And I'm asked that question specifically of the RVPs every month in the last couple of quarters, and the feedback from them is very much the same. They have not seen any indication that our products are being prebought and stockpiled, if you will, ahead of these sorts of things. Now, I can't tell you that's not happening somewhere else in the supply chain, but as it relates to our products and our supply chain, it's not something that any of our RVPs or corporations are seeing.

在過去的幾個季度裡，我每個月都會被問到區域副總裁們的這個問題，而他們的回饋也幾乎完全相同。他們沒有看到任何跡象表明我們的產品被提前購買和囤積，以應對此類情況。現在，我不能保證供應鏈的其他地方沒有發生這種情況，但就我們的產品和供應鏈而言，我們的任何區域副總裁或公司都沒有發現這種情況。

I'm going to close up the call with just 2 quick thoughts. Last 2 quarters, I touched on something that we've never touched on as a company, that is the traction we're seeing in the ease of ordering for our customer through what we call Fastenal Express, our web. I personally have been making use of the system and I've been -- I'm probably wearing our team out a little bit with things to make it easier, to make it more intuitive as a buy.

最後，我只想簡單說兩點。在過去的兩個季度裡，我談到了我們公司從未涉及過的事情，那就是我們透過我們稱之為 Fastenal Express 的網站，讓客戶更容易下單，我們看到了這種趨勢。我個人一直在使用這個系統，而且——我可能有點讓我們的團隊疲憊了，因為我一直在做一些事情，讓購買過程更輕鬆、更直觀。

And I was sharing with our board the other day, I said, "Yes, a couple of weeks ago, I bought a case of filters. I sent the order in, a little after 2, a little after 3, I got a reply, order is ready to pick up. And I stopped over there a little after 4 and picked it up." Last night, as I was leaving, it was after 5:00, I ordered a couple of rolls of Talon duct tape, that's our brand, in case anybody's curious, as well as a Fastenal Jobber drill bit set, I ordered that late in the day. At 8:02 this morning, I had an e-mail from Fastenal, my order is ready to pick up. That's measuring fulfillment of any type of order, whether it's a vending machine, a bin, an e-commerce order in minutes and hours, not in days. And that transaction is a more efficient transaction for us and that freight is part of our normal shipping network because what we're finding is between 93% and 94% of the time, our customers buy online. They're picking it up at the Onsite or at the branch. They want certainty of supply and they want great availability.

前幾天我跟董事會分享這件事時說：“是的，幾週前我買了一箱過濾器。”我下了訂單，兩點剛過，三點剛過，就收到了回复，訂單已準備好取貨。我四點剛過就過去取貨了。 「昨晚我離開的時候，已經五點多了，我訂購了幾卷Talon牌的膠帶，這是我們自己的牌子，以防有人好奇，我還訂購了一套Fastenal牌的麻花鑽頭，那是我當天晚些時候訂的。今天早上 8 點 02 分，我收到 Fastenal 的電子郵件，我的訂單已經準備好取貨了。這是以分鐘和小時為單位來衡量任何類型訂單的完成情況，無論是自動販賣機、垃圾箱還是電子商務訂單，而不是以天為單位。而且，這筆交易對我們來說效率更高，這批貨物也屬於我們正常的運輸網絡，因為我們發現，93%到94%的情況下，我們的客戶都是在線上購買的。他們可以選擇在現場或分行取貨。他們希望供應穩定，產品供應充足。

Second item I will touch on is we recently had Hurricane Florence hit the southeastern part of the United States. I'm thankful to say that Fastenal and our Fastenal employees and our customers came through it largely undamaged. I love hearing the stories from customers and employees of like about fellow Fastenal Blue Team members stepping in to support them. We are hours away from Hurricane Michael hitting the panhandle of Florida. I believe Panama City is dead in its sights. Our best wishes and thoughts and prayers are with our team and our customers and the folks in that area.

我要談的第二件事是，最近颶風「佛羅倫斯」襲擊了美國東南部。值得慶幸的是，Fastenal 公司、我們的員工和客戶基本上毫髮無損地度過了難關。我喜歡聽客戶和員工講述 Fastenal Blue Team 的其他成員如何挺身而出支持他們的故事。距離颶風「邁克爾」襲擊佛羅裡達州狹長地帶還有幾個小時。我認為巴拿馬城已經落入其魔爪。我們向我們的團隊、客戶以及該地區的民眾致以最美好的祝愿和祈禱。

Thanks, everybody. Have a good day.

謝謝大家。祝你有美好的一天。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，今天的會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。祝您有美好的一天。