快扣 (FAST) 2019 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fastenal Company First Quarter 2019 Earnings Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

各位女士、先生，大家好，歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2019 年第一季收益業績電話會議。（操作說明）再次提醒，本次會議正在錄音。

I would now like to hand the call over to Ms. Ellen Stolts. You may begin.

現在我將把電話交給艾倫·斯托爾茨女士。你可以開始了。

Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2019 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 will start with general overview of our quarterly results and operations with the remainder of the time being opened for questions and answers.

歡迎參加 Fastenal 公司 2019 年第一季財報電話會議。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。電話會議時長最多為 1 小時，首先會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 home page, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until June 1, 2019, 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2019年6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, and good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter earnings call.

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。

I'm going to -- before I step into Holden's flip-book, just going to touch on a few comments that I had with our leadership in our normal call at 7:00 this morning to talk about the quarter to give them a little insight about some things we'll be focusing on in the call as well as just some off-the-cuff comments I made to them.

在我正式開始講解霍爾頓的財務狀況之前，我想先談談今天早上 7 點我們例行電話會議上，我和領導層討論本季度情況時的一些看法，讓他們對我們在電話會議上將要重點討論的一些事項有所了解，以及我當時的一些即興評論。

My first comment to them this morning was a sincere thank you for a job well done. I think this is a really nice start to the year, and I'm pleased with the performance we're seeing across our business units throughout the planet and a very positive start to the year.

今天早上我對他們的第一句話就是真誠地感謝他們出色地完成了工作。我認為這是一個非常好的開年，我對我們在全球各個業務部門的表現感到滿意，今年開局非常積極。

I also mentioned to them about the challenge that comes when you get into the -- a multiyear improvement in business. So when I think back to stepping into this role back in late in 2015, we'd had a tough year. The economy had not been our friend that year. And when you're exposed to the industrial marketplace and it flips on you, it can cause some pain in the short term. But we kept focusing on what we focused on. That's our customer. We kept focusing on things to make our business better, and we really started to transition to a much more focused approach on some of our growth drivers, particularly breathing some new life into vending and challenging ourselves to look at Onsites as a -- as not a solution when there's not an alternative but as a means to grow faster and a new growth driver within our business because it's a wonderful way to extend what is the traditional Fastenal relationship but lower your cost structure at the same time. And I hope these numbers are all correct. I haven't proofed them through our screening process. This is just me jotting down some numbers. But what I shared with them was if I stack together multiple years, 5 of the last 7 months, if I look at it taking the 3 years, added together, and again, I hope I calculated it correctly, I believe 5 of the last 7 months, we've been 30% plus when you look at the cumulative impact of the last 3 years. And November and January, the only 2 months that didn't break that 30%, and they were at 29%. So a good number. And I believe for the last 14 months, if you looked at it on a 2-year basis and combined year 1 and year 2 growth, you're at a number that starts with 2. So north of 20%. But since August, I believe that number is north of 25%. So not only are we -- do we have great local plans to engage with our customer and grow our business, but we're able to stack it on top of some comps that are frankly challenging and really pleased with what the group is doing, and I'm really proud of the group and proud to be associated with them.

我還向他們提到了進入這個行業後所面臨的挑戰——多年的業務改進。所以，當我回想起2015年底我接任這個職位時，我們經歷了艱難的一年。那一年經濟情勢對我們不利。當你身處工業市場，而市場風雲突變時，短期內可能會造成一些痛苦。但我們始終專注於我們所關注的事情。那是我們的客戶。我們一直專注於讓業務變得更好的事情，並且真正開始轉向更加專注於一些增長驅動因素的方法，特別是為自動售貨機注入新的活力，並挑戰自己，將現場服務視為一種手段，而不是在沒有其他選擇時才考慮的解決方案，而是作為一種更快增長的手段和我們業務中新的增長驅動力，因為它是一種擴展傳統 Fastenal 關係同時降低成本結構的好方法。我希望這些數字都是正確的。我還沒有透過我們的篩選流程對它們進行驗證。我只是隨便記下一些數字。但我跟他們分享的是，如果我把多年數據加起來，例如過去 7 個月中的 5 個月，如果我把這 3 年的數據加起來，而且，我希望我的計算是正確的，我相信過去 7 個月中的 5 個月，當我們考慮過去 3 年的累積影響時，我們已經達到了 30% 以上。11 月和 1 月是僅有的兩個沒有突破 30% 的月份，分別為 29%。所以，數量還不錯。我相信，如果以兩年為單位來看，過去 14 個月的成長率加起來，第一年和第二年的成長率加起來，那麼這個數字是以 2 開頭的。所以，超過 20%。但自 8 月以來，我相信這個數字已經超過 25%。所以，我們不僅有很棒的本地計劃來與客戶互動並發展業務，而且我們還能在一些坦率地說具有挑戰性的競爭對手身上取得成功，我對團隊正在做的事情感到非常滿意，我為團隊感到非常自豪，也為能與他們合作而感到自豪。

The -- I also shared with them one of the blessings and curses of the Internet age, is it's easy for people to make comments. Sometimes you read through a newspaper, and some of the comments you see are kind of like, boy, that person just seems angry about something. It's not this article, but they're just angry or you can tell that person's -- maybe political view is driving their commentary and they're putting it into an article. But at 10:00 last night, I was reading a comment that came in from a customer. And every comment that comes into Fastenal, I'm on an e-mail distribution list, and I read through them. Sometimes I do it late at night before I go to bed. Sometimes I do it early in the morning. And I'm reading one last night. It was a fellow. He said I'm an older gentleman. I'm 61 years old. That pained me a little bit because I'm 55, and I hear somebody at 61 refer to themselves that old was a little troubling, but that's a different issue. But this individual was talking about where our branch, it was the San Antonio, Texas branch, but where our branch went above and beyond the call and really helped him solve a problem. And I floated it up to our regional leadership last night, and I said, "You know what, folks, this is what we're about. We're about solving people's problems because in today's world, sometimes it's hard to find people to help you solve a problem." And it was a fun one to share because sometimes you get in a few here and there that aren't as positive, and you assess them to understand what we can do to be better.

我也和他們分享了網路時代的好處和弊端之一，那就是人們很容易發表評論。有時你會瀏覽報紙，看到一些評論，你會覺得，哎，這個人好像對什麼事很生氣。問題不在於這篇文章，而是他們很生氣，或者你能看出那個人的——也許是政治觀點——影響了他們的評論，然後他們把這種觀點寫成了一篇文章。但昨晚 10 點，我看到一位顧客傳來的評論。Fastenal 收到的每一則評論，我都會透過電子郵件分發清單閱讀。有時我會在深夜睡覺前做這件事。有時我會在清晨做這件事。我昨晚正在讀最後一本。那是一個男人。他說我是一位年紀較大的紳士。我今年61歲。這讓我有點難過，因為我已經 55 歲了，聽到有人說自己 61 歲，這讓我有點不安，但這又是另一個問題了。但這個人說的是我們分行，也就是德州聖安東尼奧分行，我們分行盡力幫他解決了一個問題。昨晚我把這件事提請地區領導聽，我說：“夥計們，這就是我們的目標。”我們致力於解決人們的問題，因為在當今世界，有時很難找到人來幫助你解決問題。 「分享這個案例很有趣，因為有時你會遇到一些不太積極的案例，你會評估這些案例，以了解我們可以做些什麼來做得更好。

But now I'll flip to Holden's book here, and we grew -- we had 68% -- $0.68 of earnings -- nice start, Dan -- almost 12% earnings per share growth. Bottom line is we grew our earnings faster than our sales, and that's not an easy act in a quarter where weather was very impactful and with 1 less selling day. We were in the situation of -- with $20 million a day in revenue, there's a chunk of revenue, a chunk of gross profit dollars that aren't there, but the expenses typically are. So to pull off what we did when we're down a day is a pretty positive thing. Despite the challenging weather, our demand continued to be healthy. Our daily sales growth was 12.2% in the quarter, and I think Holden said it well, 2019 has started where 2018 left off.

但現在我要翻到霍爾頓的帳簿上，我們成長了——成長了 68%——獲利 0.68 美元——不錯的開始，丹——每股收益成長了近 12%。最終結果是，我們的獲利成長速度超過了銷售額成長速度，在一個受天氣影響很大且銷售日減少一天的季度裡，這並不容易做到。我們當時的情況是——每天 2000 萬美元的收入，其中一部分收入，一部分毛利，卻沒有到位，但支出卻照常進行。所以，在我們處於低潮的時候還能取得這樣的成績，是一件非常正面的事情。儘管天氣惡劣，但我們的需求仍然保持良好勢頭。本季我們的日均銷售額成長了 12.2%，我認為霍爾頓說得很好，2019 年的開局延續了 2018 年的良好勢頭。

Operating margin expanded 20 basis points, and our incremental margin was 21.7%. As we've talked about in prior calls, our growth drivers are changing the mix of our business. If we're successful with it, it's going to pull gross margins down. If we're successful with it, we should be able to leverage our operating expenses, and it should result in a great win for our customer, for our employee, for our supplier and for you, our shareholders. And I think you saw that in the first quarter here. But sequentially, we did hold gross margin flat, which was really a sign of some of the price increases that we put in late last year in the wake of tariffs and inflations, allowed us a low breathing room in the short term. But Holden will touch on that a little bit more in his comments.

營業利益率提高了 20 個基點，增量利潤率為 21.7%。正如我們在之前的電話會議中討論過的，我們的成長動力正在改變我們業務的組合。如果我們成功了，毛利率就會下降。如果我們成功做到這一點，我們應該能夠有效利用營運費用，這將為我們的客戶、員工、供應商以及你們——我們的股東——帶來巨大的好處。我想你們在第一節比賽中已經看到了這一點。但從季度來看，我們的毛利率保持穩定，這實際上表明，去年底我們為應對關稅和通貨膨脹而採取的一些提價措施，使我們在短期內擁有了一定的喘息空間。但霍爾頓將在評論中對此做更多闡述。

We've talked about this in the past. Our business as it continues to grow with larger customers and with international customers, sometimes we get caught in a situation where you have a customer that's doing some window dressing at the end of a year, end of a quarter, and they frankly stop paying with 2, 3, 4 weeks left in the quarter, and it makes for a challenging situation. Our solution here is to constantly be engaged in discussion with our customer about our value proposition to you is a better supply chain. We take inventory off your balance sheet -- don't do this to us at the end of the quarter. Because what it ultimately does, it puts us in a position where we can't fund the inventory because there's tradeoffs. If we know that we're going to have an extra $5 million in receivable, we have to squeeze that somewhere else, and that doesn't serve our customer, and we need to be engaged in that dialogue and challenge. If you want to do window dressing, do it with somebody else's payable, not with ours. And -- but we did produce a stronger cash flow in the quarter and allowed us to pay a higher dividend and reduce debt a little bit.

我們以前討論過這個問題。隨著我們業務的不斷發展，客戶數量不斷增加，國際客戶也越來越多，有時我們會遇到這樣的情況：一些客戶會在年末或季度末做一些表面功夫，然後在季度末還剩 2、3、4 週的時候停止付款，這會給我們帶來挑戰。我們的解決方案是不斷與客戶討論，闡明我們能為您提供的價值主張—更好的供應鏈。我們會從你們的資產負債表中移除庫存——請不要在季度末對我們這樣做。因為最終結果是，由於存在權衡取捨，我們無法為庫存提供資金。如果我們知道將有額外的 500 萬美元應收帳款，我們就必須從其他地方擠出這筆錢，但這不利於我們的客戶，我們需要參與這場對話來，並提出質疑。如果你想粉飾太平，那就用別人的應付帳款，別用我們的。但是——我們本季確實產生了更強勁的現金流，這使我們能夠支付更高的股息並稍微減少債務。

Onsites. I remember when -- years ago when we did CSP, and we really went through a change in our branch network. But at some point in time, we stopped talking about CSP because CSP became part of us. Now we're going to keep talking about Onsites from the standpoint, sharing with you our location count and our penetration to the market and where we're finding success. But we're going to break 1,000 Onsites some time here in the second quarter. I guess that's a forward-looking statement, but it's one I'm pretty safe in saying. But it's truly part of Fastenal now. We have Onsites throughout our region, throughout our districts. And so it's not something we're experimenting with or pushing people to change or even pushing customers to consider and change.

現場。我記得幾年前我們做CSP的時候，我們的分公司網路確實經歷了一次變革。但後來，我們不再談論 CSP，因為 CSP 已經成為我們的一部分。現在我們將繼續從現場服務的角度來談談，與您分享我們的地點數量、市場滲透率以及我們成功的領域。但我們將在第二季某個時候突破 1000 個現場服務點。我想這算是對未來的一種預測，但我可以相當肯定地說出這句話。但它現在確實是 Fastenal 的一部分了。我們在全區、各轄區都有現場服務點。因此，我們並沒有對此進行試驗，也沒有強迫人們改變，甚至沒有強迫客戶考慮和改變。

We're doing all of that, but we're doing that from a base of knowledge, similar to -- not too many years ago when we were talking to the industry about vending machines. But on Onsites, our goals are pretty simple this year. Let's sign 375 to 400. There's 52 weeks in the year. You got to take out a couple of those weeks because it's the holidays and not a lot of happens in those weeks. But if we can do 8 signings per week and do it 50 weeks of the year, that's 400. And so in the first quarter, we got off to a really nice start. We hit that number, and we signed 105, so very pleased. Our sales growth, removing the transferred sales. So if I have an existing customer and we go Onsite, we probably pull some revenue out of a branch and move it over there. But ignoring that, that business is growing north of 20%. Really pleased with what the team's doing.

我們正在做所有這些事情，但我們這樣做是基於一定的知識基礎，就像幾年前我們與業內人士談論自動販賣機時一樣。但是，今年我們在現場活動的目標非常簡單。讓我們簽署375到400份文件。一年有52週。你得把那幾週的時間空出來，因為那是假期，假期裡沒什麼事發生。但如果我們每週能完成 8 次簽約，一年 50 週都這樣做，那就是 400 次了。所以第一節比賽我們開局非常不錯。我們達到了目標數字，並且簽下了 105 份合同，非常高興。我們的銷售成長，剔除轉移銷售額。所以，如果我有一個現有客戶，而我們進行現場服務，我們可能會從分行提取一些收入並轉移到那裡。但撇開這一點不談，該業務的成長率超過 20%。非常滿意團隊的工作成果。

On vending, our goal is to do 23,000 or 25,000. So there's 254 business days in the year. We need to sign roughly 100 every day to get it to high end of that number. If we sign 90 every day, we're at the low end of that number. We were just shy of 90 in the first quarter. But the month of March, we rounded up to 100. We were at 99.6 per day. So we're off to, I think, a nice start. And again, it's just part of our extension into our customers' facilities.

在自動販賣機方面，我們的目標是達到 23,000 或 25,000 台。一年共有 254 個工作天。我們每天大約需要簽100份合約才能達到這個數字的上限。如果我們每天簽 90 份合同，那我們只能算這個數字的下限。第一季我們差一點就達到90分了。但三月份，我們向上取整到 100。我們當時的日均產量是99.6。所以，我認為我們開局不錯。再次強調，這只是我們向客戶設施延伸服務的一部分。

Speaking of vending, I had a new experience yesterday. So one of the things that we've struggled with is we've had a member a few years ago at Investor Day talked about the idea of having outdoor lockers or having lockers where we can do deliveries into. Frankly, we struggled to make the technology easy to use, and so we didn't get really much traction with it. And we have very few branches that have outdoor lockers. We have now built the interface between our point-of-sale system and our vending platform, which is a third-party software. And yesterday morning, I ordered something. We had turned on our Winona branch on Monday. So yesterday morning, I ordered something. Immediately had a confirmation of that order. And a couple of hours later, I got an e-mail: your order is ready to pick up. And I went over, and I punched in my 6-digit code and I pulled an item out of the locker. It was a really easy and seamless transaction. Now it doesn't mean we're going to be getting into the retail business anytime soon. But if I think of our Onsites, if I think of our customers that need something when they want to get in and out quickly or they're coming in after hours, it provides a great extension of our -- of the hours of our day and our ability to serve our customers. And I'm really excited about what that means, but really also proud of our technology team for developing that, and it worked really easily. And I've gotten in the habit in recent months of buying a lot of stuff online, and one of the companies I'm really impressed with, and I buy from them once a week to understand what they're changing. And I keep bringing comments to our folks as a result. I don't know if any of you have ever bought on Walmart online. They do a really nice job. Now again, we're not a retailer. But making it easy and making it efficient for your customer is an important part of the equation, and we finally have that working.

說到自動販賣機，我昨天有了新的體驗。所以我們一直努力解決的問題之一是，幾年前在投資者日上，一位成員談到了設置戶外儲物櫃或設置儲物櫃以便我們可以進行貨物交付的想法。坦白說，我們很難讓這項技術易於使用，因此它並沒有真正獲得太多關注。我們只有極少數分店設有室外儲物櫃。我們現在已經建立了銷售點系統和自動販賣機平台（第三方軟體）之間的介面。昨天早上，我訂了一些東西。我們位於威諾納的分公司已於週一啟用。昨天早上我訂了一些東西。立即收到了訂單確認訊息。幾個小時後，我收到一封電子郵件：您的訂單已準備好，可以取貨了。於是我走過去，輸入我的6位數密碼，然後從置物櫃拿出一件物品。整個交易過程非常輕鬆順暢。但這並不意味著我們很快就會涉足零售業。但是，如果我想到我們的現場服務，如果我想到我們的客戶需要在下班後快速進出或提供服務，這極大地延長了我們的營業時間和我們服務客戶的能力。我對此感到非常興奮，同時也為我們的技術團隊開發出這項技術而感到自豪，而且它運作起來非常容易。最近幾個月我養成了在網路上買很多東西的習慣，其中有一家公司給我留下了非常深刻的印象，我每週都會從他們那裡購買一次，以了解他們正在做出哪些改變。因此，我一直在向我們的同事提出意見。我不知道你們當中是否有人在沃爾瑪網上商店買過東西。他們做得非常出色。再次聲明，我們不是零售商。但讓客戶感到方便和有效率是成功的重要因素，而我們最終也做到了這一點。

National Accounts grew 17% in the first quarter. The team continues to do a great job of making promises to customers and our branch and Onsite network of -- along with everybody else that supports them does a great job of honoring those promises. So good quarter.

第一季國民帳戶增加了17%。團隊在履行對客戶的承諾方面做得非常出色，我們的分公司和現場網路以及所有其他支持他們的人員也都很好地履行了這些承諾。所以這個季度表現不錯。

Outside the U.S., exchange rate is [a full] right now. International is about 14% of our revenue, and we grew in the mid-teens. I believe the number was about 17%. And so continued to be really impressed with our teams there and our ability to extend the U.S. and Canadian relationships broadly around the planet. So excellent job to the team.

美國以外地區的匯率目前是[完全]。國際業務約占我們收入的 14%，並且我們實現了 15% 以上的成長。我認為這個數字大約是 17%。因此，我對我們在那裡的團隊以及我們拓展美國和加拿大與全球關係的能力感到非常滿意。團隊做得非常出色。

With that, I'm going to turn it over to Holden. But before I do that, when I read through his notes, one thing jumped out at me, and that was the PMI at 55.4. And I almost -- when I read stuff or even read his notes, it almost felt like that was kind of an eeeh number. And I've been here over 23 years, and I've never thought of 55.4 as an eeeh number. And I have seen that in some of the external reporting. So we're seeing a good tone in the marketplace. Holden is going to touch some oil and gas concerns. And being a farm kid, I know the agricultural side has had some tough time in the last year with commodity prices, and I'm sure there'll be some weakness there. But we're pretty bullish on what we're seeing. Holden?

接下來，我要把任務交給霍爾頓了。但在那之前，當我閱讀他的筆記時，有一件事引起了我的注意，那就是採購經理人指數 (PMI) 為 55.4。當我閱讀他的作品，甚至閱讀他的筆記時，我幾乎感覺到那是一個不太好的數字。我在這裡待了超過 23 年，從來沒有覺得 55.4 是個糟糕的數字。我在一些外部報道中也看到了這一點。所以我們看到市場氛圍良好。霍頓將涉足石油和天然氣領域。我從小在農場長大，知道去年農業方面由於大宗商品價格下跌而面臨一些困難，我相信農業領域也會出現一些疲軟。但我們對目前的情況相當樂觀。霍爾頓？

Great. Thank you very much. Good morning. So let's just jump on to Slide 5. Total sales, as Dan indicated, were up 10.4%. There was 1 fewer sales day in the first quarter versus last year. So on a same days basis, sales were up 12.2%. We estimate the severe weather in the northern U.S. and central Canada reduced sales by between 60 and 90 basis points. Though remember, last year, there was a weather issue as well, so net of last year's weather impact. So total effect was probably 20 to 30 basis points.

偉大的。非常感謝。早安.那我們就直接來看第 5 張投影片。正如丹所指出的，總銷售額成長了 10.4%。第一季銷售日比去年同期減少了1天。因此，以當日計算，銷售額成長了 12.2%。我們估計美國北部和加拿大中部地區的惡劣天氣導致銷售額下降了 60 至 90 個基點。不過要記住，去年也有天氣問題，要排除去年天氣的影響。所以總影響可能達到 20 到 30 個基點。

In March, our daily sales growth was 12.7%. Pricing in response to tariffs and general inflation contributed 90 to 120 basis points in the period. This is below the level of the fourth quarter of 2018, but incremental progress is being masked by the -- in the current period by having to grow over the price increases that began to benefit last year's 1Q. We do look at it and believe that sequentially our price realization was slightly higher.

3月份，我們的每日銷售額成長了12.7%。在此期間，關稅和總體通貨膨脹導致的價格上漲幅度為 90 至 120 個基點。雖然低於 2018 年第四季的水平，但由於必須彌補去年第一季開始受益的價格上漲，目前的進展被掩蓋了。我們確實對此進行了研究，並認為我們的實際售價環比略高。

From a macro standpoint, as Dan said, the PMI averaged 55.4 in the first quarter of 2019. This is the lowest level in 9 quarters, which is what is getting a lot of the print, but it does still constitute a healthy level as reflected in continued low to mid-single-digit growth in industrial production.

從宏觀角度來看，正如丹所說，2019 年第一季的 PMI 平均值為 55.4。這是九個季度以來的最低水平，這也是媒體的焦點，但從工業生產持續保持低至中等個位數成長來看，這仍然是一個健康的水平。

Relatedly, our manufacturing end markets were up 13.4% with recent trends remaining in force. Most sub-verticals that we track are healthy. The main exception being oil and gas, which remained soft. Construction was up 13.1% in the first quarter of 2019. The January comparison was easy, but February and March also continued to grow double digits as a result of healthy markets and strong internal selling energy.

同時，我們的製造業終端市場成長了 13.4%，近期的趨勢仍然有效。我們追蹤的大多數細分領域都發展良好。主要例外是石油和天然氣，它們的價格仍然疲軟。2019年第一季建築業成長了13.1%。1 月的比較很容易，但由於市場健康發展和強勁的內部銷售勢頭，2 月和 3 月也繼續保持兩位數的成長。

From a product standpoint, on a daily sales basis, fasteners were up 11.8%, and non-fasteners were up 12.7%. In March, fasteners outgrew non-fasteners. Fastener growth has been sustained at high levels while safety growth moderated to a mid-teens rate following what were 2 years of 20%-plus growth in that product vertical. This has served to narrow the growth gap between fasteners and other products. But overall, we remain pleased with the growth of our main product categories.

從產品角度來看，以日銷售額計算，緊固件銷售額成長了 11.8%，非緊固件銷售額成長了 12.7%。3月份，緊固件的數量超過了非緊固件。緊固件的成長一直保持在高位，而安全產品的成長在經歷了兩年 20% 以上的成長後，放緩至 15% 左右的成長速度。這有助於縮小緊固件與其他產品之間的成長差距。但總體而言，我們對主要產品類別的成長仍然感到滿意。

From a customer standpoint, National Accounts were up 16.9% in the quarter with 81 of our top 100 accounts growing. Growth to non-National Accounts was mid-single digits. Nearly 65% of our branches grew in the first quarter.

從客戶角度來看，本季全國性客戶的銷售額成長了 16.9%，前 100 名客戶中有 81 名實現了成長。非國民帳戶的成長率為個位數中段。第一季度，我們有近 65% 的分公司實現了成長。

In terms of market tone, regional leadership remains constructive on demand with the caution that was evident last November largely gone. The exception, as I mentioned, was oil and gas. We haven't seen the weakness in that market deepen, but we have seen it broaden across more of our regions. Still, on the whole, 2019 seems to be starting much as 2018 finished.

就市場基調而言，區域領導對需求仍持樂觀態度，去年 11 月顯現的謹慎情緒已基本消失。正如我之前提到的，石油和天然氣產業是個例外。我們沒有看到該市場的疲軟程度加深，但我們看到疲軟的程度已經蔓延到我們更多地區。不過總的來說，2019 年的開局似乎與 2018 年的結尾非常相似。

Now to Slide 6. Our gross margin was 47.7% in the first quarter of 2019, down 100 basis points from first quarter 2018, but flat on a sequential basis, something we haven't seen since the first quarter of 2015. On a year-over-year basis, the familiar variables played out. Customer and product mix pulled the margin down, which is expected, given that the National Accounts and Onsite continue to drive our growth. Freight remained a drag, though not to the same degree we experienced through 2018. Net rebates were a slight negative as well as a result of efforts to limit inventory growth. Our price/cost deficit in the first quarter of 2019 was 20 basis points, which is half of the deficit that we experienced in the fourth quarter of 2018, as a result of incremental progress with pricing in the period to address inflation and tariffs. We expect to make further progress towards eliminating this deficit in the second quarter of 2019 and over the course of the full year. Our operating margin was 20% in the first quarter of 2019, up 20 basis points year-over-year. Continued healthy growth drove 110 basis points of cost leverage and generated an incremental margin of 21.7%.

現在來看第 6 張投影片。 2019 年第一季度，我們的毛利率為 47.7%，比 2018 年第一季下降了 100 個基點，但環比持平，這是我們自 2015 年第一季以來從未見過的情況。與去年同期相比，那些熟悉的變數依然存在。客戶和產品組合拉低了利潤率，這是意料之中的，因為全國性客戶和現場服務仍然是我們成長的主要動力。貨運仍然是個問題，但程度沒有 2018 年那麼嚴重。由於限制庫存成長的措施，淨返利略為負。2019 年第一季度，我們的價格/成本赤字為 20 個基點，是 2018 年第四季度赤字的一半，這是由於在此期間價格方面取得了逐步進展，以應對通貨膨脹和關稅問題。我們預計在 2019 年第二季以及全年，在消除這一赤字方面將取得進一步進展。2019 年第一季度，我們的營業利潤率為 20%，較去年同期成長 20 個基點。持續健康的成長推動成本槓桿率提高了 110 個基點，並產生了 21.7% 的增量利潤率。

Looking at the pieces. We [exceed] 60 basis points of leverage over employee-related costs, which were up 7.1%. This leverage was generated because FTE headcount growth lagged sales at up 6.2% and due to our incentive compensation growing at a healthy, but moderated level versus last year. Occupancy-related costs were up 2.3%, generating 35 basis points of leverage. A decline in branch expense as we continue to rationalize sites and only modest increases in non-branch occupancy costs mitigated what was double-digit growth in vending costs as we continue to expand the installed base. We generated 20 basis points of leverage over other operating administrative expenses. The benefits of higher sales on this line was partly offset by relatively active quarter for legal settlements and a large net debt write-off. These generated probably $2 million to $2.5 million more in costs in this period than we would have otherwise expected. As described in the past, success with our growth drivers is likely to reduce gross margin over time but also provides the platform and volume that generates good operating expense leverage. That played out in the first quarter of 2019, and we expect it to continue to play out over time. So putting it all together, we reported first quarter '19 EPS of $0.68 versus $0.61 in the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 11.9%.

仔細觀察這些碎片。我們相對於員工相關成本的槓桿率超過 60 個基點，而員工相關成本則上漲了 7.1%。之所以能產生這種槓桿效應，是因為 FTE 員工人數成長落後於銷售額成長 6.2%，以及我們的激勵性薪資與去年相比維持了健康但適度的成長水準。與入住率相關的成本上漲了 2.3%，產生了 35 個基點的槓桿效應。隨著我們不斷優化選址，分行支出下降，非分公司佔用成本僅略有增加，這緩解了自動販賣機成本兩位數的成長，因為我們不斷擴大了安裝基礎。我們比其他營運管理費用獲得了 20 個基點的槓桿效應。該產品線銷售額成長帶來的好處部分被本季相對活躍的法律和解以及大額淨債務減免所抵銷。這些因素導致同期成本比我們預期的增加了 200 萬至 250 萬美元。正如過去所描述的那樣，我們成長動力的成功可能會隨著時間的推移降低毛利率，但同時也提供了平台和銷量，從而產生良好的營運費用槓桿作用。這種情況在 2019 年第一季已經出現，我們預計這種情況會隨著時間的推移繼續發生。綜上所述，我們公佈 2019 年第一季每股收益為 0.68 美元，而 2018 年第一季為 0.61 美元，成長了 11.9%。

Turning to Slide 7. Before jumping into the numbers, i just wanted to call your attention, a change in our balance sheet. This quarter, we adopted FASB's new standard for accounting for leases, which requires us to move operating leases on to the balance sheet. You will see these values on separate lines identified as right-of-use assets and current and long-term liabilities. The impact of adopting this standard on our income statement and cash flow was immaterial.

接下來請看第 7 張投影片。在深入探討具體數字之前，我想先提請大家注意一下我們資產負債表的變動。本季度，我們採用了 FASB 新的租賃會計準則，該準則要求我們將營業租賃移至資產負債表上。您將在單獨的行中看到這些值，分別標識為使用權資產和流動負債及長期負債。採用此準則對我們的損益表和現金流量的影響微乎其微。

Now looking at the cash flow statement. We generated $205 million in operating cash in the first quarter of 2019 or 106% of net income. This remains below the historical rates of conversion that we have experienced in first quarters, but is meaningfully above last year's 92% figure. The challenge remains working capital, which I will cover in a moment.

現在來看現金流量表。2019 年第一季度，我們產生了 2.05 億美元的營運現金流，佔淨利的 106%。雖然仍低於我們以往第一季的轉換率，但遠高於去年的 92%。目前的挑戰仍然是營運資金，我稍後會詳細介紹。

Net capital spending in the first quarter was $53 million, up from $29 million in the first quarter of 2018, but consistent with expectations. This reflects investments in hub property and equipment that are necessary to support our high service levels as well as investments in vending equipment to support growth in our installed base. Our 2018 range for total net capital spending is unchanged between $195 million and $225 million to invest in hub property and equipment and vehicles to support our growth and vending devices to support our rising success in this initiative. We increased funds paid out in dividends by 16% to $123 million and reduced debt. We finished the quarter with debt at 16.9% of total capital, above last year's 15.7%, but down sequentially and at a level that we believe provides ample liquidity to invest in our business and pay our dividend.

第一季淨資本支出為 5,300 萬美元，高於 2018 年第一季的 2,900 萬美元，但符合預期。這反映了我們對樞紐物業和設備的投資，這些投資對於支持我們高水準的服務至關重要；同時也反映了我們對自動販賣機設備的投資，以支持我們現有客戶群的成長。我們 2018 年的總淨資本支出範圍保持不變，在 1.95 億美元至 2.25 億美元之間，用於投資樞紐物業、設備和車輛以支持我們的增長，以及用於自動售貨設備以支持我們在這項計劃中不斷取得的成功。我們將股息支付金額增加了 16%，達到 1.23 億美元，並減少了債務。本季末，我們的債務佔總資本的 16.9%，高於去年的 15.7%，但環比下降，我們認為目前的水平足以提供充足的流動性，用於投資我們的業務和支付股息。

The working capital picture remains challenging but improved. Inventories were up 14% in the first quarter of 2019 with days on hand flat year-over-year. We continue to experience inflationary pressure on our inventories. However, during the period, we worked off the foreign sourced inventory that was accelerated into the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2018 and advanced several initiatives aimed at making us more efficient with inventory.

營運資金狀況依然嚴峻，但有所改善。2019 年第一季庫存成長 14%，庫存週轉天數與去年同期持平。我們的庫存持續面臨通膨壓力。然而，在此期間，我們消化了 2018 年第四季加速流入美國的海外庫存，並推進了幾項旨在提高庫存效率的措施。

AR grew 15.2% in the first quarter of 2019 with customers continuing to aggressively push payments out past quarter end. As has been the case in past quarters, we are not seeing any meaningful change in hard-to-collect balances. Reducing these annual growth rates will be an area on which to improve over the balance of the year. That is all for our formal presentation.

2019 年第一季 AR 成長了 15.2%，客戶繼續積極地將付款推遲到季度末之後。與過去幾季的情況一樣，我們沒有看到難以收回的款項餘額出現任何實質變化。降低這些年度成長率將是今年剩餘時間內需要改進的領域。我們的正式報告就到此為止。

So with that, operator, we'll take questions.

那麼，操作員，我們開始接受提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Robert Barry of Buckingham.

（操作說明）我們的第一個問題來自白金漢的羅伯特·巴里家族。

Congrats, a solid start to the year. So you mentioned in the slide deck that reminded us that Good Friday is in April this year versus in March last year. How much did that impact the March number? And adjusting for that is it you read that things may be decelerated a little bit in March?

恭喜，今年開局不錯。您在幻燈片中提到，今年的耶穌受難日是在四月，而去年是在三月。這對3月的數據產生了多大影響？考慮到這一點，您是否看到有報道稱，3月份增速可能會略有放緩？

Yes. So I think it's difficult to really burrow into what that number meant. I mean last year, Good Friday felt on -- or fell on the last day of the month, and it fell on a Friday. And so we have a lot of sort of month-end payments coming through. So was there a modest impact as a result of the timing of the holidays in the month? There probably was. But look, I guess the perspective that I would give to you, Rob, is this. If we're going to try to parse out the impact of a holiday, the impact of a special -- of days in the month, et cetera, we also should probably be talking about variables such as foreign exchange and weather and all these other things that impact our month. And if I look at -- if I try to adjust for all of these things, the fact is the growth that we experienced in the first quarter, if I adjust for acquisitions over the past 22 months, if I adjust for foreign exchange, if I adjust for weather events that we call out, we grew north of 13% adjusting for all of those things. If I look at the 6-month growth rate, it was a little over 13%. If I look at the 12-month growth rate, it was a little over 13%. So the question that you're trying to get at, at the end of the day is, if you take out one piece, does that suggest that we're growing more slowly. And the answer I would give you is that's not what we're experiencing in the market through March. I would say that if you try to adjust for all the pieces, our growth rate has been remarkably stable at a fairly high level. And I think that with the exception of oil and gas, it's reflective of a business environment that remains fairly healthy through March. So that's probably how I would characterize this. So no, I think you're right, but let's not lose sight of the fact that foreign exchange was as big of a drag on this quarter as we've seen since we began to grow. There's a lot of moving pieces that go into it. But generally speaking, the environment feels healthy to us.

是的。所以我覺得很難真正探究這個數字的意思。我的意思是，去年耶穌受難日感覺像是——或者說正好是——當月的最後一天，而且那天是星期五。因此，我們有很多月底到期的款項要支付。那麼，由於當月假期安排的原因，是否產生了一定的影響呢？很可能確實有。但是，羅布，我想給你的建議是這樣的。如果我們想要分析假日、特殊日子、月份中的天數等等的影響，我們也應該討論外匯、天氣以及所有其他影響我們月份的因素。如果我仔細觀察——如果我嘗試調整所有這些因素，事實是，如果我們調整過去 22 個月的收購、外匯波動以及我們預測的天氣事件，那麼我們第一季的成長率超過了 13%。如果看過去 6 個月的成長率，略高於 13%。如果看過去 12 個月的成長率，略高於 13%。所以，歸根究底，你想要表達的問題是，如果去掉其中一部分，這是否意味著我們的成長速度正在變慢。我的回答是，3月的市場並非如此。我認為，如果把所有因素都考慮進去，我們的成長率一直非常穩定，而且保持在相當高的水平。我認為，除了石油和天然氣產業之外，這反映出商業環境在三月仍然相當健康。所以，我大概會這樣描述這件事。所以，不，我認為你是對的，但我們不能忽視這樣一個事實：外匯波動對本季業績的拖累程度，是我們自公司開始發展以來遇到的最大拖累之一。這其中涉及很多環節。但總的來說，我們感覺環境很健康。

Rob, I'll throw in a little adder. Holden is dead-on right. He comes at it. I can always tell he worked in your world for many years because he thinks about stuff. I enjoy our conversations because he thinks about things fundamentally different. My answer probably would have been a little briefer. I'd probably have said, "You know what? I honestly don't know." If I ask 10 people, I'd get 14 answers. Historically, internally, I've always said to our team, you know what, when we pick up a day or lose a day or Good Friday comes into play, I usually throw in the joke that Easter is on a Sunday this year, and Good Friday is on a Friday. But I've always had in my head, it's probably 0.5 point. And when Holden asked me earlier about this question, I said yes. I said it helped us. Weather hurt us. This morning, my kids are at home driving my dogs crazy because we have a snowstorm in Winona, and it was thunder and lightning all night long. Weather impacted us. Good Friday impacted us. Good Friday will hurt us here in April. And if I were to put a number on it, probably 0.5%. But your underlying question is did the tone change? And I honestly don't think it did.

羅布，我再加個小附加數。霍爾頓說得完全正確。他來了。我總是能看出他曾在你們這個行業工作多年，因為他總是思考各種事情。我喜歡和他交談，因為他思考問題的方式與我截然不同。我的回答可能會更簡潔一些。我可能會說：“你知道嗎？”我真的不知道。如果我問10個人，我會得到14個答案。從歷史上看，在公司內部，我總是跟我們的團隊說，你知道嗎，當我們補休一天或減休一天，或者耶穌受難日到來時，我通常會開玩笑說，今年的復活節是星期日，而耶穌受難日是星期五。但我心裡一直覺得，大概是0.5分吧。霍爾頓之前問過我這個問題，我的答案是肯定的。我說這對我們有幫助。惡劣天氣給我們帶來了傷害。今天早上，我的孩子們在家把我的狗都快逼瘋了，因為威諾納下了暴風雪，而且昨晚雷電交加了一整夜。天氣對我們造成了影響。耶穌受難日對我們產生了影響。四月的耶穌受難日會帶給我們痛苦。如果要我給一個數字，大概是 0.5%。但你根本的問題是，語氣是否改變了？說實話，我不認為它做到了。

All right. Great, great. I guess my other question was just on seeing the FTEs grow just over 6%. And kind of looking at data from the [BLF], it looks like wage inflation and manufacturing is running 2%, 3%. So to see your employee-related expense up only 7% seems like a pretty noteworthy performance. And was just wondering if you can comment on kind of what's driving that and kind of how sustainable you think the ability to kind of leverage that line at this level is as we kind of look out over the next several quarters.

好的。太好了，太好了。我另一個問題是關於 FTE 增長略高於 6% 的情況。從[BLF]的數據來看，薪資通膨和製造業似乎在2%到3%之間。因此，員工相關支出僅成長 7%，這似乎是相當值得稱道的成績。我只是想問您，是什麼因素在推動這一趨勢，以及您認為在接下來的幾個季度裡，我們能否持續利用這一水平的業績。

I'll chime in on that, and Holden can add some nuance and some things that I might not be sharing or appreciating. And if you think of what was going on the last couple of years, we were seeing massive inflation in our numbers, not because of the marketplace, but because of our performance. We pay a lot of incentive comp. And so this morning, as an example, I was talking -- when I was -- when we were talking to the RVPs, our regional vice presidents, one of the things I said to them was I said, "Hey, folks, congratulations on the nice first quarter." But I gave a little bit of a cautious tone going into the second quarter. I said, "Second quarter this year is our most challenging year from a comp -- from a comparison standpoint -- an earnings, the incremental margin standpoint." Because last year, in the first quarter, we grew our earnings. I believe it was about $21 million. And then from Q1 to Q2, that number, that earnings growth number went to $30 million. And so our incentive comp expanded dramatically. And if you looked in our proxy, you could see from a leadership standpoint, and that proportion works out throughout the organization. We pay off earnings growth. And so I gave them a caution for Q2. But in answer to your question, are we seeing underlying inflation in labor rates, if I think of people that are working in our distribution centers that are -- throughout the organization? Yes, we're seeing inflation rates of the economy.

我也會對此發表一些看法，霍爾頓可以補充一些細微之處，以及一些我可能沒有分享或欣賞的東西。想想過去幾年發生的事情，我們的業績出現了大幅下滑，這不是市場因素造成的，而是我們自身業績造成的。我們支付很多激勵性薪酬。舉個例子，今天早上，我和區域副總裁們談話時，我說：「嘿，夥計們，恭喜你們第一季度業績不錯。」 但對於第二季度的業績，我的語氣稍微謹慎了一些。我說：「從可比性角度來看，今年第二季度是我們最具挑戰性的一年——無論是從盈利還是利潤率的角度來看。」因為去年第一季度，我們的利潤實現了成長。我記得大概是2100萬美元。然後從第一季到第二季度，這個數字，也就是獲利成長數字，達到了 3,000 萬美元。因此，我們的激勵薪酬大幅提高。如果你查看我們的代理數據，你會發現從領導的角度來看，這個比例在整個組織中都適用。我們透過支付獲利成長來彌補損失。因此，我給了他們第二季的警告。但要回答你的問題，如果我們考慮的是我們配送中心的員工——也就是整個組織的員工——我們是否看到了勞動成本的潛在通膨？是的，我們看到經濟中出現了通貨膨脹。

One of the things that's masking it a bit right now is the fact that our incentive comp isn't expanding at the pace it was the last couple of years. And that's why our incremental margin is shining through, things we talked about in the past, but it gives a buffer. And one of your peers described it really well years ago when he talked about the shock absorbers in our system. When we're getting great earnings growth, we share a chunk of it with our employees, and we take a little leverage out. In a weaker environment, everybody steps up to the plate and loses a little bit of pay because the incentive comp contracts. And so that's part of the dynamic you have going on there is, yes, is there underlying inflation in wage rates? Yes. We're employing the same base of people everybody else is from the standpoint where we draw from. But our incentive comp is at a high watermark a year ago, and it's at that high watermark now. But incrementally, it's not growing the same way.

目前掩蓋這個問題的一個因素是，我們的激勵性薪資成長速度不如過去幾年那麼快。這就是為什麼我們的增量利潤如此突出，這是我們過去討論過的事情，它提供了一個緩衝。幾年前，你的一位同行在談到我們系統中的避震器時，對此做了非常精闢的描述。當我們獲得良好的獲利成長時，我們會與員工分享一部分收益，並減少一些槓桿支出。在經濟環境較弱的情況下，每個人都會挺身而出，但同時也會因為激勵性薪資減少而損失一些收入。所以，這就是目前存在的動態因素之一，那就是，薪資水平是否有潛在的通貨膨脹？是的。從人員來源的角度來看，我們僱用的人員基礎與其他人相同。但是，我們的激勵薪酬水準在一年前達到了歷史最高點，現在仍然處於歷史最高點。但從長遠來看，它的成長方式並不相同。

That's right. And -- but yes, Rob, there definitely was a little bit of inflation as it relates to just sort of our base pay to our full-timers and our part-timers. But when you marry that up with the increase that we had in FTEs and headcount, we were still able to leverage that piece of our business. And then when you throw on top of that the incentive pay piece, we actually didn't leverage that because the good news is when we're growing like we're growing, incentive pay is a big piece, that shock absorber, if you will, when we're growing. We didn't leverage the incentive pay because the folks that are driving our business are being fairly successful. But that dynamic has been in place. I would expect a very similar dynamic going forward. We'll continue to expand our headcount. We're probably going to see some wage inflation in the market that's out there today, but this isn't the first quarter that dynamics has been in place. It existed for much or all of last year as well. And I think that the first quarter labor dynamics are very similar to what we experienced all last year, too. And I would anticipate experiencing much of the rest of this year as well. If we grow double digits, we should be able to leverage that.

這是正確的。是的，羅布，就我們全職員工和兼職員工的基本薪資而言，確實存在一些通貨膨脹。但是，當我們把這一點與我們 FTE 和員工人數的成長結合起來時，我們仍然能夠利用我們業務的這一部分。而且，再加上激勵性薪酬，我們實際上並沒有充分利用它，因為好消息是，當我們像現在這樣快速增長時，激勵性薪酬就成了一大助力，就像減震器一樣，在我們增長的過程中起到了作用。我們沒有利用激勵性薪酬，因為推動我們業務發展的員工都相當成功。但這種動態一直存在。我預計未來情況將非常相似。我們將持續擴大員工規模。我們可能會看到目前市場上的工資有所上漲，但這並非這種趨勢出現的第一個季度。去年大部分時間甚至全年它都存在。而且我認為第一季的勞動市場動態與去年全年的情況非常相似。而且我預計今年剩下的大部分時間也會如此。如果我們實現兩位數成長，我們應該能夠利用這一點。

Our next question is from the line of Evelyn Chow of Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的伊芙琳·週。

Dan, Holden, maybe just starting on price realization this quarter, fantastic job. And encouraging to see that price/cost gap narrow. I noticed on pricing specifically, I think your comps on a stand-alone basis continue to get even harder throughout the year. So would it be your expectation that though the price/cost gap turned positive, the actual stand-alone pricing level maybe is at its highest point in 1Q?

Dan，Holden，或許這季才剛開始達成價格目標，做得漂亮。令人鼓舞的是，價格/成本差距正在縮小。我注意到，尤其是在定價方面，我認為你們的獨立比較對像在這一年中變得越來越難找。所以，您是否預期，儘管價格/成本差距轉為正值，但實際的獨立定價水準可能在第一季達到最高點？

Well, you're right that in 1Q, what began to happen relative to 4Q was that we had to grow over price increases that we've put in essentially at the beginning of last year. And we'll have that dynamic in Q2, Q3, Q4 as well where we have to grow over those same price increases. And in Q2, they probably got a little bit better. So from a sequential standpoint, would I expect the fact that we grew pricing at 1%, a little better than 1%, in the quarter -- do I expect that necessarily to meaningfully increase? Perhaps not, given the comps. But all that said, we do believe that there is incremental sequential pricing to be had in the business over the next -- certainly over the next quarter or 2 as we continue to adjust to what the marketplace -- to the marketplace realities. And regardless of what sort of the year-over-year comp number looks like, as I said, I still believe there's opportunity for us to be constructive on pricing sequentially in the next quarter or 2. And that should allow us to continue to mitigate and eliminate the deficit. So I think what you're describing is kind of a comp issue, and I get it. But I think if you get to the substance of the matter, I don't see our ability to pursue price as being worse today than it was in the first quarter. And I don't see our ability to narrow that deficit on price/cost as being any more difficult today than it was in the first quarter or fourth quarter. So I guess hopefully that answers the question, Evelyn.

沒錯，你說得對，第一季相對於第四季的情況是，我們必須彌補去年年初以來實施的價格上漲所帶來的成長。第二季、第三季、第四季也將面臨同樣的情況，我們必須在價格上漲的情況下成長。到了第二季度，情況可能略有改善。因此，從季度環比來看，我們本季定價成長了 1%，略高於 1%，我是否預期價格必然會大幅上漲？考慮到同類產品，或許並非如此。但即便如此，我們仍然相信，在接下來的一個或兩個季度裡，隨著我們繼續調整以適應市場現實，業務定價將有逐步提高的空間。無論同比數據如何，正如我所說，我仍然相信我們有機會在接下來的一個或兩個季度中對價格進行環比調整。這將使我們能夠繼續減輕並最終消除虧損。所以我覺得你描述的情況有點像是競爭問題，我懂了。但我認為，如果深入分析問題的實質，我不認為我們今天在價格方面的能力比第一季更差。而且我認為，我們今天縮小價格/成本差距的能力，並不比第一季或第四季更難。所以，我想這應該可以回答你的問題了，伊芙琳。

That's very helpful, Holden. And then maybe just on Onsites. Obviously nice to see the pace of signings and the continued commitment there. I noticed you called out you had 66 activations and 15 closures this quarter. So is that about the level of attrition you would expect going forward?

這很有幫助，霍爾頓。然後或許只針對現場服務。顯然很高興看到簽約速度和球隊的持續投入。我注意到您提到本季有 66 個啟動案例和 15 個關閉案例。那麼，您認為未來人員流失率會維持在這個水準嗎？

Attrition regarding the closures you're talking about?

您指的是因人員流失而導致的停工嗎？

Yes, exactly.

是的，正是如此。

So that was a little bit higher this quarter than what we typically see. We will typically see some attrition, right? Looking into the reason behind those 15 closures, there was nothing unusual there. I would say that about half of them were simply because a plant closed or moved. I think that there was probably an equal number where, frankly, we went Onsite. We didn't get the kind of revenue that we anticipated getting, so we decided to leave or their business was off, right, or their business was off. But one way or the other, what made sense at the time didn't make sense today. And so we closed up that Onsite, and we'll service them from the branch as we always have. And there's I think there might be 1 or 2 in there where maybe we didn't deliver the performance we told him we would or another competitor sort of made some inroads and we left. But those things do happen every quarter. It was a little bit higher this quarter than normal, but I don't see that as a trend necessarily. And we didn't see any unusual reasons for the number. It seemed to be the usual stuff.

所以本季這個數字比我們通常看到的要高一些。通常情況下都會出現一些人員流失，對吧？調查這 15 家門市關閉的原因，發現並沒有什麼不尋常之處。我認為其中大約一半的損失只是因為工廠關閉或搬遷。坦白說，我認為我們選擇現場考察的案例可能也差不多有這麼多。我們沒有獲得預期的收入，所以我們決定離開，或者他們的生意不好，對吧，或者他們的生意不好。但無論如何，當時合情合理的事情，今天看來就不合情理了。因此，我們關閉了現場服務，我們將像往常一樣透過分行為他們提供服務。我認為其中可能有一兩件事，我們可能沒有達到我們向他承諾的業績，或者其他競爭對手取得了一些進展，所以我們退出了。但這類事情每季都會發生。本季略高於往年同期水平，但我認為這未必是一種趨勢。我們沒有發現這個數字有任何異常之處。看起來都是些老生常談的東西。

The -- I'll just throw a little tidbit in there, and I'll use vending as my example. When we started vending, and it really was ramping up 5, 6, 7 years ago, we didn't know what type of attrition there'd be because it was a new industry. And what we found when we got into 2014 and 2015 that a lot of those machines that we had signed in '11 and '12 and '13 were extremely successful. But there was a handful that we signed that were just either, oops, maybe we shouldn't put this one in there. And we were pulling out on -- going into a given year, I'd looked at what we had for installed base. And we were pulling out about -- and I don't have the stats in front of me. But my recollection, it's about 15% a year. But when we really looked at the underlying data, we saw that 5 of -- probably 1/3 of those were ones where, you know what? We need to continue to get better at how we make it easy for our branches to serve these machines because we thought we could lower that number to 10. What we've done in the last 3 years is we've lowered that number to about 11, and we think we still believe we can get it to 10. So if we have 80,000 machines out there, it would tell me we're probably going to pull out in a good year 8,000; in a less than good year, a 9,000 or 10,000. And the bottom line is we think that's a reasonable proposition because it helps us grow faster.

我——我就簡單介紹一下，並以自動販賣機為例。當我們開始做自動販賣機生意時，也就是 5、6、7 年前，這個產業發展迅速的時候，我們並不知道會有多少流失率，因為這是一個新興產業。到了 2014 年和 2015 年，我們發現我們在 2011 年、2012 年和 2013 年簽署的許多協議都非常成功。但我們簽下的幾份合同，要嘛就是，哎呀，也許我們不該把這份合約簽進去。而我們當時正在退出——進入某一年時，我查看了我們已安裝的用戶基數。我們當時正在撤退——但我手頭上沒有具體數據。但我印像中，大概是每年15%。但當我們真正查看底層數據時，我們發現其中 5 個——大概有三分之一——你知道嗎？我們需要繼續改進如何讓我們的分店更容易為這些機器提供服務，因為我們認為我們可以將這個數字減少到 10。過去三年，我們已經將這個數字降低到大約 11，我們仍然相信我們可以將其降低到 10。所以，如果我們有 80,000 台機器投入使用，這說明在好的年份我們可能會生產 8,000 台；在不太好的年份，可能會生產 9,000 台或 10,000 台。歸根結底，我們認為這是一個合理的提議，因為它有助於我們更快地發展。

In Onsites, if I looked at it historically, we've pulled out about 10 a year, but we had 200 of them. And so we didn't really know what it would be, and we still don't frankly know because it's still a newer animal. But signing those Onsites, we want to be mindful. We're really cautious about where we do it and where we don't do it because it's more expensive to pull out an Onsite than it is to pull out a vending machine. But I love the fact that we're engaging with our customers, and we're growing faster. But it's going to take some time to figure out what that number is. When we're at 1,000 Onsites, how many do we pull out a year because either the customer closed its facility or maybe the customer gets acquired and the acquiring company doesn't use Fastenal. There are a few of those out there, and we're trying to reduce that number every day.

從現場服務的角度來看，我們每年大約會淘汰 10 人，但我們曾經有 200 人。所以，我們當時並不知道它會是什麼樣子，坦白說，我們現在仍然不知道，因為它仍然是一種比較新的動物。但是簽署這些現場協議時，我們需要謹慎。我們對在哪裡開展這項服務以及在哪裡不開展這項服務都非常謹慎，因為部署現場服務比部署自動販賣機成本更高。但我很高興我們能夠與客戶互動，而且我們的成長速度也越來越快。但要弄清楚這個數字是多少，還需要一些時間。當我們擁有 1,000 個現場服務點時，每年會有多少個服務點因為客戶關閉了工廠，或者客戶被收購而收購公司不使用 Fastenal 服務而退出？這類案件確實存在一些，我們正在努力每天減少這類案件的數量。

Yes. And with regards to the new actives, new actives is a little bit lower in the quarter. We would expect to have a greater rate of active growth as you go through the rest of the year.

是的。至於新增活躍用戶，本季新增活躍用戶數量略有下降。我們預計，在今年剩餘的時間裡，活躍成長率將會更高。

Our next question is from the line of David Manthey of Baird.

我們的下一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 David Manthey。

First off, could you talk about the cost structure of the business today? And I'm wondering if you think that the model is more or less variable than it was 10 years ago in terms of costs? What I'm getting at here is if growth does moderate slightly, are you still going to be able to sustain 20% contribution margins in that environment?

首先，可以談談公司目前的成本結構嗎？我想知道您認為就成本而言，該模式的可變性是比 10 年前更大還是更小？我的意思是，如果成長速度略有放緩，在這種環境下，你還能維持 20% 的貢獻毛利率嗎？

The first in your underlying -- when I think back to a decade ago when we started what we called the pathway to profit, one of the things that we were truly doing is we were slowly making the model more variable in that -- by not opening branches as fast. That added to the fixed cost infrastructure of the business. We're making it more variable.

首先，回想十年前我們開始所謂的獲利之路時，我們真正做的一件事就是慢慢地讓這個模式變得更加靈活——透過降低開設分行的速度。這增加了企業的固定基礎設施成本。我們正在增加它的可變性。

One of the things that hurt our ability to leverage, as the economy was picking up is, a, I personally felt we needed to make some additional investments in some people resources to support Onsite to our vending, but also we made significant advancements in our infrastructure to do great things from a technology standpoint. And we talked about those dollars that we were willing to spend and consumed some of the leverage. But also the variable nature consumed some of the leverage, and incentive comp is a good example. To the extent we're talking about incentive comp and the people energy, the model is more variable today than it was in the past.

隨著經濟的復甦，影響我們利用優勢的因素之一是，我個人認為我們需要對一些人力資源進行額外的投資，以支持我們的現場自動售貨服務，但同時，我們在基礎設施方面也取得了重大進展，從技術角度來看，我們能夠做出偉大的事情。我們討論了我們願意花費的那些美元，並消耗了一些槓桿。但這種可變性也消耗了一些槓桿作用，激勵性薪酬就是一個很好的例子。就激勵薪酬和員工積極性而言，如今的模式比過去更加多變。

The question about incremental margin really becomes challenging in the short term because it really falls back to how much do you want to dial back on certain growth drivers because the deleverage comes from -- if we were to branch out, they're doing 200,000. And that market softens, and they go to 180,000. That's a painful downhill because that's a highly profitable branch that's levered like crazy. And there, it's going to delever. And it's not very -- and it's more fixed than variable.

短期內，關於增量利潤率的問題確實變得具有挑戰性，因為它實際上取決於你想在多大程度上削減某些成長驅動因素，因為去槓桿化來自——如果我們要拓展業務，他們正在做 200,000。市場行情走軟，價格跌至 18 萬。那將是一段痛苦的下坡路，因為那是一個利潤極高、槓桿率極高的分支。在那裡，它將實現去槓桿化。而且它不是很——而且它更偏向於固定而非可變。

The incentive comp piece, obviously, comes into play. So it's probably a long -- not very -- a long nonanswer to your question, Dave, but it depends on the time frame. In the short term, we could -- incentive comp pulls back automatically, and you're the one that used the historical reference of the shock absorbers, which I think is a great descriptor. And in the shorter term, it's not as difficult. In the longer term, it really comes down to do you want to start cutting away on some of the flesh when the economy we sell into is huge. The opportunity is huge, but our installed base has contracted because we have all this customer spend, but their spend is down 20%. And so it makes it really challenging to do that because I'm a firm believer. I'm more interested in the going after the $100 billion-plus market than I am about reigning everything in, in the short term.

顯然，激勵性薪酬機制就發揮作用了。所以，戴夫，這可能不算是對你問題的長篇大論，但這取決於時間範圍。短期內，我們可以－激勵性薪酬會自動減少，而且是你用避震器的歷史比喻來解釋的，我認為這是一個很好的描述。短期來看，這並不難。從長遠來看，這實際上取決於，當我們所處的經濟體量如此龐大時，你是否願意開始削減一些成本。機會巨大，但我們的客戶群卻在萎縮，因為我們擁有大量的客戶支出，但他們的支出卻下降了 20%。所以，這對我來說真的很有挑戰性，因為我是一個堅定的信徒。比起在短期內控制一切，我更感興趣的是進軍規模超過 1,000 億美元的市場。

Yes. Okay. Sounds different but still manageable, so that's fair. Second question. In previous quarters, you've talked about the customer conversations you were having around tariff-related price increases. And Holden, you answered this question to some extent. But I guess to refine it, have those sort of negotiated price changes been reflected already in the first quarter results? And also on the inventory side, are you now seeing the tariff cost increases flow through FIFO? Or do those 2 things continue to evolve with a glide path from first quarter into second quarter?

是的。好的。聽起來不太一樣，但還在可控範圍內，所以還算合理。第二個問題。在前幾個季度，您曾談到您與客戶就關稅相關價格上漲的對話。霍爾頓，你在某種程度上回答了這個問題。但我想更準確地說，這些協商後的價格變動是否已經反映在第一季的業績上了？另外，在庫存方面，您現在是否看到關稅成本上漲透過先進先出法（FIFO）傳導？或者說，這兩件事會從第一季平穩過渡到第二季嗎？

Well, yes on all of it, first off. Yes. So the conversations were aggressive through Q4, and frankly fairly constructive. When we said we were encouraged, I see no reason to sort of step away from the fact that we thought the conversations with our customers went fairly well, and I think there's a lot of reasons why that has been the case. One was simply the plan that was put together to address the issue of tariffs. We feel that was fairly open and fair, and I think our customers responded as we would have hoped they would have given that.

嗯，首先，全部都對。是的。因此，第四季的對話氣氛活躍，坦白說也相當有建設性。當我們說我們感到鼓舞時，我認為沒有理由否認我們認為與客戶的對話進行得相當順利，而且我認為有很多原因導致了這種情況。其中一項就是為解決關稅問題而製定的計劃。我們認為這相當公開公平，而且我認為我們的客戶也做出了我們希望他們做出的回應。

We also put a lot of energy into having those conversations face to face with our customers. And so yes, they went fairly well. Now our expectation at the time, and I think it's played out this way, is that we would begin to see those costs flow through the business in Q1. And so we had to be timed to start getting some of the pricing flowing through the business in Q1. And I believe that, that happened.

我們也投入大量精力與客戶進行面對面的交流。所以，是的，他們進行得相當順利。當時我們的預期，而且我認為也確實如此，就是我們會在第一季開始看到這些成本反映到業務中。因此，我們必須把握時機，讓一些定價策略在第一季開始在業務中發揮作用。我相信這件事確實發生過。

And when we talked about seeing some sequential increase in pricing, I think that some of that is, is increases coming as a result of tariffs in that February-March period. And when we talk about being able to see some sequential increases in pricing, I think there's going to be some additional relationships that come online as we go through the early part of second quarter and third quarter.

當我們談到價格出現一些連續上漲時，我認為其中一些上漲是由於二月至三月期間的關稅造成的。當我們談到價格可能會出現一些連續上漲時，我認為隨著第二季初和第三季的推進，將會有一些額外的合作關係上線。

So -- but at this point, I wouldn't say that we've been able to narrow the deficit with those things happening. The timing has worked out like we had planned for it to work out, and the dialogue with the customers has been positive around it. So I guess that's where I'd leave that.

所以——但就目前而言，我認為這些事情發生後，我們還沒有能夠縮減赤字。時機就像我們計劃的那樣順利，與客戶的溝通也十分積極。所以我想我就說到這裡吧。

Dave, the only thing I'd throw in as an adder is sudden jolts are disruptive as heck. And what it really requires is all of us, our suppliers, Fastenal, our customers, having a really informed, frank discussion about what's happening because it's been incredibly disruptive in the last 4 months. In fact, it probably -- it took away some growth because you're having -- a lot of our sales teams are having discussions about pricing when I'd rather have discussions about growing the business. And -- but it's going to be disruptive. If anybody on the call has a crystal ball and can tell me what's going to happen with the tariffs 6 and 12 months from now, and do they get bigger? Do they get smaller? Do they unwind? Is it messy? It's going to be disruptive -- just disruptive on the unwind as it was on the wind. And only time will tell how that works. Fortunately, on an unwind, whenever it occurs, while it might be disruptive to pricing, it's probably going to be helpful to the underlying economy. So there'll be a lot of noise to our numbers. But in disruptive times and times of radical change, the best cure is just good, open, honest dialogue with your customer, and you manage through it.

戴夫，我唯一要補充的是，突然的震動會造成極大的干擾。而真正需要的是我們所有人，包括我們的供應商、Fastenal 和我們的客戶，就正在發生的事情進行一次真正知情、坦誠的討論，因為在過去的 4 個月裡，這種情況造成了極大的混亂。事實上，這可能——這阻礙了一些成長，因為我們許多銷售團隊都在討論定價問題，而我更希望討論的是如何發展業務。而且——但這將會帶來混亂。如果電話會議上有人有水晶球，可以告訴我6個月和12個月後的關稅會發生什麼變化，它們會上漲嗎？它們會變小嗎？他們會放鬆下來嗎？是不是很亂？這將造成混亂——就像它在風中一樣，在解凍過程中也會造成混亂。時間會證明一切。幸運的是，在價格回檔期間（無論何時發生），雖然可能會對價格造成乾擾，但可能對基礎經濟是有益的。所以我們的數據會受到很多幹擾因素的影響。但在動盪時期和劇烈變革時期，最好的方法就是與客戶進行良好、開放、誠實的對話，然後設法渡過難關。

Our next question is from the line of Ryan Merkel of William Blair.

我們的下一個問題來自威廉布萊爾的瑞安默克爾一線。

So first question I had was on oil and gas. I recall going back to maybe February that the RVPs were saying this was just a pullback in spending. It was just a pause. Is this still the case? And what are you hearing today?

所以我的第一個問題是關於石油和天然氣的。我記得大概在二月的時候，區域副總裁們就說過這只是支出的一次縮減。只是短暫的停頓。情況仍然如此嗎？你今天聽到了什麼？

Yes. Well, so the RVPs obviously respond to what their customers are telling them. And the -- what we're hearing is that it's a challenging marketplace. We're not seeing wholesale sort of layoffs and cutting of capital spending and things like that. Frankly, the weakness that we're seeing seems to be fairly measured in temper, which doesn't always sound like what oil and gas has been like historically, right. And so if I think about the RVP tone around oil and gas, some of them are more encouraged about what the second half looks like than what the first half looks like, but all of them say what's the oil prices going to do, right.

是的。顯然，區域銷售副總裁會根據客戶的回饋做出回應。我們聽到的消息是，這是一個充滿挑戰的市場。我們沒有看到大規模裁員和削減資本支出之類的情況。坦白說，我們目前看到的疲軟態勢似乎還算溫和，但這聽起來並不總是像石油和天然氣行業的歷史表現，對吧。所以，如果我回顧RVP對石油和天然氣的看法，有些人對下半年的前景比上半年更樂觀，但他們都在問：油價會如何走勢？

And so I think if I think about the tone around oil and gas, like I said, it began to weaken. I think we began talking about this probably November, December last year. And the degree of weakness hasn't necessarily gotten more severe over that period of time. It has persisted, but it's also broadened. So what -- something which began in Houston and Dallas has spread to other regions, right, in terms of commentary.

所以我覺得，如果我回顧一下石油和天然氣產業的基調，就像我剛才說的，它開始減弱了。我想我們大概從去年十一月或十二月就開始討論這件事了。而且，在這段時間裡，虛弱的程度並不一定會變得更嚴重。它一直存在，而且範圍也擴大了。所以，從評論的角度來看，這種起源於休士頓和達拉斯的現像已經蔓延到其他地區，對吧？

And like I said, some of them feel like this is going to clear itself out by the second half. Some of them feel like they don't know, and all of them understand that it's about what happens to the price of oil and how their customers feel. And we just don't have a great answer to it, but that's where we have oil and gas today.

正如我所說，他們中的一些人覺得這種情況會在下半年得到緩解。他們有些人覺得自己一無所知，但他們都明白，這關係到石油價格的走勢以及顧客的感受。我們目前還沒有很好的答案，但這就是石油和天然氣如今的現狀。

Okay. No, that's hopeful. Then second question on Onsite margin inflection. I recall 2020 could be the year where more mature Onsites at higher margins start to offset the newer Onsites. Is this still the case based on what we know today? And then how much do you think it could lift overall company margin?

好的。不，那隻是希望而已。然後是關於現場利潤率轉折點的第二個問題。我記得 2020 年可能是利潤率較高的成熟 Onsites 開始抵銷較新 Onsites 影響的一年。根據我們今天所了解的情況，情況是否仍然如此？那麼，你認為這能為公司整體利潤率帶來多大的提升？

Yes. So we haven't seen any real change in kind of the pacing of how we expect that to play out. And so what I've said before is, today, where we've got new many new Onsites, you don't have sort of an equal ratio between how they're aging versus how we're adding them. But over time, that's going to change. And I think the proxy for that will be, when does the average size per Onsite stop declining, right? And my feeling is that, that is probably late '19 but probably more in 2020, which means by the time you get to 2021, 2022, instead of this continuing to work against our overall level of gross profitability, that it will begin to diminish in terms of the impact on the mix. We still feel like that is the case. Now what we said before is -- and I think Dan laid this out last time, right. I mean when we double our revenues, we want to be a 22% operating margin company thereabouts. And in order for that to happen from 20% today, we need to see some of those Onsites begin to mature and become more profitable. And we think that, that will happen.

是的。所以，我們還沒有看到事情的進展速度有任何真正的變化，也沒有看到我們預期事情會如何發展。所以，我之前說過，如今我們有很多新的現場服務，但它們的老化程度和新增程度之間並沒有均衡的比例。但隨著時間的推移，這種情況將會改變。我認為衡量這一點的指標是，每個現場服務的平均規模何時停止下降，對吧？我的感覺是，這種情況可能會在 2019 年底出現，但更有可能在 2020 年出現，這意味著到 2021 年、2022 年，這種情況不會繼續影響我們的整體毛利水平，而是會對產品組合產生影響，影響程度會開始減弱。我們仍然認為情況確實如此。我們之前說過──我想丹上次也闡述過了，對吧。我的意思是，當我們的收入翻倍時，我們希望成為一家營業利潤率約 22% 的公司。而要讓這一比例從目前的 20% 上升到現在的水平，我們需要看到其中一些現場服務開始成熟並變得更加盈利。我們認為，這種情況將會發生。

And so what is the impact? I would tell you, today, the overall impact is a drag more so on the gross margin, the operating margin, but it's in both. But over the next, let's call it, 18 months, I think you're going to begin to see that drag really flatten out, and then it begins to contribute more towards our goal of being a 22% operating margin company.

那麼，其影響是什麼？就目前而言，我會告訴你，整體影響是拖累毛利率和營業利潤率，但兩者都受到了影響。但在接下來的 18 個月裡，我認為你會看到這種拖累真正趨於平緩，然後它將開始為我們實現 22% 的營業利潤率目標做出更大的貢獻。

And one thing to keep in mind, it's a two-pronged drag in the short -- over the last few years. The one drag is the mix of Onsites and the average revenue per Onsite going down. The other drag is we went from not really signing Onsites to 80 and then 180 and then 280 and now close to 400. And every time we sign an Onsite, oh, I shouldn't say that. Most of the times that when we sign an Onsite, we're taking a customer relationship out of a branch, a highly profitable branch, and we're delevering it. So you kind of have a twofer going on. Not only are you pulling down the average of your Onsites, you're actually hurting the profitability of your branch network a little bit in the short term. And when you get to a steady state of how many are coming in and going out, that's when life becomes a little easier. No different than think about how the math changed a decade ago when we slowed down opening branches through the pathway to profit. All of a sudden, your mix of branches changed.

需要記住的一點是，在過去幾年裡，短期內出現了雙重拖累。唯一不利因素是現場行銷的組合以及每個現場行銷的平均收入下降。另一個阻礙是，我們從幾乎沒有簽現場合同，到 80 個，然後 180 個，然後 280 個，現在接近 400 個。每次我們簽署現場協議時，哦，我不該這麼說。大多數情況下，當我們簽署現場服務協議時，我們實際上是將客戶關係從分行（一家盈利能力很強的分行）轉移出去，從而降低了分行的槓桿率。所以你相當於一舉兩得。你不僅拉低了現場服務的平均水平，而且在短期內實際上還會對分支機構網絡的盈利能力造成一些損害。當進出人數達到穩定狀態時，生活就會變得輕鬆一些。這與十年前我們放慢透過獲利途徑開設分公司的速度時，數學計算方式的變化並無二致。突然間，你的樹枝組合改變了。

So it's kind of a trajectory. And frankly, what's been great is that really has been playing out largely as we would have modeled it out a year ago, 2 years ago.

所以這算是一種發展軌跡。坦白說，最令人欣慰的是，事情的發展基本上與我們一年前、兩年前的預測一致。

And our next question is from the line of Hamzah Mazari of Macquarie.

我們的下一個問題來自麥考瑞大學的 Hamzah Mazari 家族。

This is actually Mario Cortellacci filling in for Hamzah. I know there's been questions about pricing already. But I mean, do you think it's harder for distributors in general to get pricing during this cycle versus prior cycles? And -- or maybe asked a different way, I mean, given where the demand environment is and where commodity inflation is, should pricing be higher than where it is?

實際上，這是馬裡奧·科特拉奇代替哈姆札出場。我知道之前已經有人問過價格方面的問題了。但我的意思是，你認為與以往週期相比，分銷商在這個週期內獲取定價資訊是否更難？換句話說，考慮到當前的需求環境和商品通膨水平，價格是否應該高於目前的水平？

Since I've been here longer, I'll take a shot at that. And Holden, I can say, can chime in and correct me on some things he disagrees with. But pricing is always hard. People talk about transparency in today's world, and it is greater. But frankly, our customers knew what they were spending per product and what product costs were around town, 10 and 20 and 30 years ago. So it's always been hard. It's about are you bringing a great value to your customer and their willingness to pay for that value if you think of that way. I think probably the toughest one right now on a pricing front is pricing is always hard, but I think the one that's got a little bit harder is the freight one. Now for us, it's twofold. One, the freight dynamic is a little bit different because Onsites are a different dynamic for freight than the branch network, and so we almost have to understand the 2 pieces individually. But in today's world, there's a lot of examples of were freights included or freights this or freights that, and it's fundamentally different models. And it's always just having a good discussion about your freight, the freight side of your picture. And that's probably the more challenging element in today's world, setting mix aside.

因為我在這裡待的時間比較長，所以我就試試看。我可以說，霍爾頓可以隨時插話，糾正我一些他不同意的觀點。但定價始終是個難題。如今人們都在談論透明度，透明度確實提高了。但坦白說，我們的客戶早在 10 年前、20 年前、30 年前就知道他們每件產品要花多少錢，也知道城裡其他產品的售價是多少。所以一直以來都很困難。如果這樣想的話，關鍵在於你是否為客戶帶來了巨大的價值，以及他們是否願意為這種價值付費。我認為目前定價方面最棘手的問題可能是運費，因為定價一直都很難，但運費問題現在變得更加棘手了。對我們來說，這包含兩方面。首先，貨運動態略有不同，因為現場服務點的貨運動態與分公司網路的貨運動態不同，所以我們幾乎必須分別了解這兩部分。但在當今世界，有許多關於運費是否包含在內、運費是什麼、運費是什麼的例子，而這本質上是不同的模式。而且，這始終意味著要就你的貨運問題，也就是你業務中的貨運部分進行深入的討論。撇開混音不談，這或許是當今世界更具挑戰性的因素。

Yes. And I would say I don't know what it should be compared to history. I would say this. I mean every quarter, going back the beginning of 2018, we have made sequential progress in raising price. We've done that because there has also been sequential increase in costs. And so we don't love obviously that we have a deficit on the price/cost dynamic, but part of that is perhaps we needed to be more aggressive than we were. But that shouldn't be read to mean that we weren't doing what we had to do to protect the margins because, as I said, pricing has gone up every quarter. But we also have to acknowledge that we've had some pretty significant increases in cost. And if I look at how much our cost has increased in the first quarter, it's more than twice what that same increase was in the first quarter of last year. And so we're kind of chasing -- we're chasing that piece of it as well. But I don't want to give the impression that because we have a price/cost deficit that, that doesn't mean that we haven't been able to pass price through because we passed more price through every quarter in response to the marketplace. But if you give us a flattening in the cost environment, we'll catch up. But the -- I don't want to leave the impression that we haven't been able to pass price through because we have.

是的。至於它與歷史相比應該處於什麼位置，我想說，我不知道。我會這麼說。我的意思是，從 2018 年初開始，每個季度我們都在逐步提高價格。我們這樣做是因為成本也隨之逐年增加。因此，我們當然不喜歡在價格/成本動態方面存在劣勢，但部分原因可能是我們需要採取比以前更積極的策略。但這並不意味著我們沒有採取必要的措施來保護利潤率，因為正如我所說，價格每季都在上漲。但我們也必須承認，成本確實出現了相當大的成長。如果我看一下我們第一季的成本成長幅度，就會發現它比去年同期成長幅度高出兩倍以上。所以我們也在追尋──我們也在追尋那一部分。但我不想給人留下這樣的印象：因為我們有價格/成本赤字，但這並不意味著我們沒有能力將價格轉嫁出去，因為我們每季都根據市場狀況提高了價格轉嫁率。但是，如果成本環境趨於平穩，我們就能迎頭趕上。但是——我不想給人留下我們無法將價格成本轉嫁出去的印象，因為我們做到了。

Great. And just one more, and I'll turn it over. You actually mentioned freight. Just wanted to see if the benefit of essentially running your own captive fleet, it has been fully optimized? Or do you think there's more room to go there? And I guess if there is more room for improvement, I guess how much do you think that could be?

偉大的。再來一個，我就翻過來。你剛才確實提到了貨運。我只是想看看，經營自己的專屬艦隊所帶來的好處是否已經完全發揮了？還是你認為那裡還有更大的發展空間？我想，如果還有進步的空間，你覺得可以再改進多少呢？

Well, first off, the advantage of having our captive fleet, it's indescribable from the standpoint of -- set the costs aside for a second. Our ability to provide service is night and day different from all our competitors. Earlier, I used the example of that outdoor locker. A year from now, I fully expect us to be able to take an order from a customer that comes in late in the day, maybe in the evening. And let's say one time in a hundred that customer is in a jam, and they need it like 2 hours ago. Our competitors are going to be providing that. They're probably going to have to freight that in using small parcel. And it's not getting there 10:00 tomorrow morning, and that's a really expensive trip. Our driver gets to that branch at 4 in the morning or 2 in the morning or 6 in the morning. You pick the time because it's different for each branch. But let's say this branch is 4 in the morning. Our driver could throw that item in an outdoor locker, and that customer will get a text at 4 in the morning and say the item you ordered at 5:00 last night is here. And nobody else in that market can do that. So to me, the value of a captive trucking is you can provide a level of service that just separates you in the marketplace.

首先，擁有我們自己的艦隊的優勢，從某種意義上來說是無法形容的——暫且不談成本。我們提供的服務能力與所有競爭對手相比，簡直是天壤之別。之前，我舉過那個戶外儲物櫃的例子。一年後，我完全有信心接受顧客在一天中較晚時間，甚至是晚上下的訂單。假設每100位顧客中就有一位遇到緊急狀況，需要在2小時前就收到貨。我們的競爭對手將會提供這種服務。他們可能得用小包裹的方式運送那件東西。而且明天早上10點也到不了那裡，那可是一筆非常昂貴的旅行。我們的司機凌晨 4 點、凌晨 2 點或早上 6 點到達那家分店。時間由您自行選擇，因為每個分行的時間都不同。但假設這家分店現在是凌晨 4 點。我們的司機可以將該物品放入室外儲物櫃，然後顧客會在凌晨 4 點收到一條短信，告知您昨晚 5 點訂購的物品已送達。而且市場上其他任何人都做不到這一點。所以在我看來，自有運輸服務的價值在於，它可以提供一種讓你在市場上脫穎而出的服務水準。

From a cost standpoint, we have a great cost structure compared to our peers, and we're able to use that cost structure. Part of our gross margin differential in our industry is because of that freight advantage. Our cost structure is lower. But it puts you in a position to challenge it every day. It also puts you in a position to have conversations with your customer and maybe move some product for them on the backhaul. So one of the reasons that we've always been successful is we do a nice job with backhauls from our suppliers, and more recently, from some customers. That's where I think we have some more legs to, especially on the Onsite piece of saying to customers, "You got some pallets you need moved? We'll move them for you." And maybe you get freight that way.

從成本角度來看，與同業相比，我們的成本結構非常有利，而且我們能夠利用這種成本結構。我們在產業內毛利率優勢的部分原因在於運費優勢。我們的成本結構更低。但這使你每天都有機會挑戰它。它還能讓你有機會與客戶進行對話，並可能在回程時為他們銷售一些產品。因此，我們一直取得成功的原因之一是，我們很好地處理了供應商的回程貨源，最近也處理了一些客戶的回程貨源。我認為我們在這方面還有很大的發展空間，尤其是在現場服務方面，我們可以對客戶說：“你們有一些托盤需要搬運嗎？”我們會幫你搬運。 「也許這樣你就能接到貨運訂單了。

To quantify the potential, I'm not going to -- I'm not ready to go there right now because I don't know that we know it.

要量化這種潛力，我不會——我現在還沒準備好去談論它，因為我不知道我們是否已經了解它。

Yes. The only thing I would add is I think one direction you're going is, it is more cost effective to move product on our trucks than on third parties. And from the fourth quarter of 2017, we really began to see the field utilizing our truck network at a greater rate because of what was going on outside of our truck network. That kind of hit a level in Q3 of 2018 that we sustained a very high level.

是的。我唯一想補充的是，我認為你們的發展方向之一是，用我們自己的卡車運輸產品比用第三方運輸更具成本效益。從 2017 年第四季開始，由於卡車網路之外發生的事情，我們真正開始看到現場作業人員更頻繁地使用我們的卡車網路。2018 年第三季度，這一數字達到了非常高的水平，並持續保持至今。

So if the question is what can you ship more and more onto your trucks? Yes, there's always good reasons to use a third party, whether it's customer requirement or what have you. So we're probably at a good level for that, but I can't emphasize enough that in a period like this of inflation, third-party inflation is going up at a far greater rate than the costs that we're experiencing at our own captive fleet. And what that means is we have a huge advantage in the marketplace that is only getting wider by having that fleet. So what we can never tell you is how much of an advantage are we getting in winning business because we have our captive fleet, even in an environment where there's inflation, especially in an environment where there's inflation. I can't answer that question for you, but it goes into our calculations. And it's a reason why we win.

所以，如果問題是：你的卡車能運載的貨物越來越多？是的，使用第三方總是有充分理由的，無論是客戶要求還是其他原因。所以，我們目前可能處於一個不錯的水平，但我必須強調，在像現在這樣的通貨膨脹時期，第三方通貨膨脹的成長速度遠遠超過了我們自身船隊所經歷的成本成長速度。這意味著我們在市場上擁有巨大的優勢，而且隨著這支艦隊的加入，這種優勢只會越來越大。因此，我們永遠無法告訴你的是，即使在通貨膨脹的環境下，我們擁有自己的船隊，這在贏得業務方面究竟能為我們帶來多大的優勢，尤其是在通貨膨脹的環境下。我無法回答你的問題，但這會影響我們的計算。這就是我們獲勝的原因之一。

So I guess the tenor of the question is when is it going to stop impacting gross margin? I want to take the answer a little bit more broadly because we've done things to sort of minimize the impact, but you can't underestimate the value of that trucking fleet and our ability to manage cost and our ability to win business.

所以，我猜問題的實質是：這種情況何時才能停止影響毛利率？我想更廣泛地回答這個問題，因為我們已經採取了一些措施來盡量減少影響，但是你不能低估這支卡車車隊的價值，以及我們控製成本和贏得業務的能力。

So I show on my watch 9:57 and very mindful that we're in earnings season, and everybody on this call has a busy schedule. And so I don't want to go long.

所以我看了看手錶，時間是 9:57，我非常清楚現在是財報季，參加這次電話會議的每個人都很忙。所以我不想待太久。

I just want to close out with a few thoughts. I mentioned earlier in the question and I thought I'd just touch on it again to make sure I didn't freak anybody out with my kind of off-the-cuff comment.

最後我想補充幾點想法。我在前面的問題中提到過，我想再強調一下，以確保我剛才那句隨口說的話不會嚇到任何人。

The message I have to our team is as we go forward, just like it's more challenging to grow when you start stacking years together, it's more challenging for incremental margin. And that means we need to work hard at it every day to achieve it. Doesn't mean -- if this -- that isn't a cautionary tale. That's just a statement of fact. And I feel great about the team we have and their ability to manage this business and to grow this business.

我要傳達給團隊的訊息是，隨著我們不斷前進，就像多年累積帶來的成長挑戰越來越大一樣，增量利潤也會面臨更大的挑戰。這意味著我們需要每天努力工作才能實現目標。但這並不意味著——如果這件事——就不是一個警世故事。這只是陳述事實。我對我們擁有的團隊以及他們管理和發展這項業務的能力感到非常滿意。

The second item. We talk about the weather impact and the issue discussion centers on the impact to sales and the impact to our customers. One thing I'm really proud of is the -- because the biggest impact, quite frankly, is to the folks that drive our semis down the road. We were talking about freight. Picture you're driving through the middle of the night and they're in the middle of a snowstorm. That's a tough thing. I think I've mentioned on the last call or I may have mentioned to our team internally about a semi driver who was stranded outside of Chicago because their fuel line gelled up because it was so cold. And a branch manager on the last day of the month went and rescued that person and got him into a warm environment because it was 30 below 0. And one thing I'm really proud of is the way our branches and our district -- and our distribution managers treat our drivers from the standpoint of, hey, make sure your back dock is -- snow is removed, and it's a safe environment for your driver because that driver is the lifeblood of your business. And really pleased to say we came through it with a very safe circumstance for our semi drivers.

第二項。我們討論了天氣的影響，討論的重點是天氣對銷售和客戶的影響。讓我感到非常自豪的一件事是——因為坦白說，最大的影響是給那些駕駛我們半掛卡車行駛在路上的人。我們當時在談論貨運。想像一下，你深夜開車行駛，而他們正身處暴風雪之中。那可真是個棘手的問題。我想我在上次電話會議上提到過，或者可能在內部跟我們團隊提到過，有個半掛車司機因為天氣太冷，燃油管路凝固，被困在芝加哥郊外。月底最後一天，一位分公司經理親自去救了那個人，把他帶到溫暖的地方，因為當時氣溫是零下30度。我真正引以為傲的一點是，我們各分公司、我們區域以及我們的配送經理對待司機的方式，他們會確保後方裝卸平台的積雪被清除，為司機提供一個安全的環境，因為司機是我們業務的命脈。非常高興地說，我們最終確保了半拖車司機的安全。

Last thing. Great people pursuing a common goal can do great things. Learned that from Bob 23 years ago, and it's as true today as it was then.

最後一件事。優秀的人們朝著共同的目標努力，就能成就偉大的事業。23年前我從鮑伯那裡學到了這一點，直到今天仍然適用。

Thanks, everybody. Have a good day.

謝謝大家。祝你有美好的一天。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

女士們、先生們，感謝各位參加今天的會議。節目到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線了。祝大家今天過得愉快。