Sprouts Farmers Market Inc (SFM) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Sprouts Farmers Market third-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

美好的一天，感謝您的支持。歡迎參加 Sprouts Farmers Market 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。（操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Susannah Livingston. Please go ahead.

我現在想把會議交給今天的發言人蘇珊娜·利文斯頓。請繼續。

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased you are joining Sprouts on our third-quarter 2024 earnings call. Jack Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer; and Curtis Valentine, Chief Financial Officer, are with me today. The earnings release announcing our third-quarter 2024 results, the webcast of this call, and financial slides can be accessed through our Investor Relations section of our website at investors.sprouts.com.

謝謝大家，大家下午好。我們很高興您能加入 Sprouts 參加我們的 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。傑克·辛克萊，執行長；今天，財務長柯蒂斯·瓦倫丁 (Curtis Valentine) 也和我在一起。公佈 2024 年第三季業績的收益報告、本次電話會議的網路廣播以及財務幻燈片可透過我們網站的投資者關係部分訪問，網址為 Investors.sprouts.com。

During this call, management may make certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our expectations for 2024 and beyond. These statements involve several risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our SEC filings and the commentary on forward-looking statements at the end of our earnings release.

在本次電話會議中，管理階層可能會做出某些前瞻性聲明，包括有關我們對 2024 年及以後的預期的聲明。這些陳述涉及多種風險和不確定性，可能導致結果與前瞻性陳述中描述的結果有重大差異。欲了解更多信息，請參閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中討論的風險因素以及我們收益發布末尾的前瞻性聲明的評論。

Our remarks today include references to non-GAAP measures. Please see the tables in our earnings release to reconcile our non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP figures.

我們今天的言論包括提及非公認會計準則措施。請參閱我們的收益報告中的表格，以將我們的非公認會計原則衡量標準與可比較的公認會計原則數據進行核對。

With that, let me hand it over to Jack.

那麼，讓我把它交給傑克。

Thanks, Susannah, and good afternoon, everyone. The dedication and hard work of our 33,000 team members drove excellent results in the third quarter, surpassing our expectations. Our sales increased by 14% compared to the third quarter of 2023, including an 8.4% increase in comparable store sales. Additionally, our diluted earning diluted earnings per share grew by 40% from last year.

謝謝蘇珊娜，大家下午好。33,000名團隊成員的付出和努力，帶動了第三季的優異成績，超出了我們的預期。與 2023 年第三季相比，我們的銷售額成長了 14%，其中可比商店銷售額成長了 8.4%。此外，我們的稀釋每股收益比去年增長了 40%。

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to the teams in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas for their amazing support of their communities during the recent hurricane season. Much work still needs to be done, but our teams continue to demonstrate our core value of care as these communities recover.

首先，我要向佛羅裡達州、喬治亞州和卡羅來納州的團隊表示感謝，感謝他們在最近的颶風季節為其社區提供的大力支持。仍有許多工作要做，但隨著這些社區的恢復，我們的團隊將繼續展示我們的核心護理價值。

The progress we've achieved in the business directly results from aligning our execution with our strategy, focusing on our target customer drives all functions in our business. It begins with our team members who provide exceptional service and create an outstanding in-store experience for our customers, resulting in some of our highest customer service scores.

我們在業務中取得的進步直接源自於我們的執行與策略的結合，專注於目標客戶推動了我們業務的所有職能。首先是我們的團隊成員提供卓越的服務並為客戶創造出色的店內體驗，從而獲得了我們最高的客戶服務分數。

We are growing our assortment of differentiated attribute-focused products to meet the demands of our health enthusiast customers resulting in increased foot traffic. I'm especially encouraged by the collaboration and coordination across functions in executing exciting merchandising events and providing enhanced customer engagement, which has been instrumental to our success.

我們正在增加以差異化屬性為中心的產品種類，以滿足健康愛好者客戶的需求，從而增加客流量。我對跨職能部門在執行令人興奮的行銷活動和增強客戶參與度方面的協作和協調感到特別鼓舞，這對我們的成功至關重要。

Whilst delivering in the short term, we're making significant investments in infrastructure to support the business' growth for many years to come. I will talk more about these later.

在短期交付的同時，我們正在基礎設施方面進行大量投資，以支持未來多年的業務成長。我稍後會詳細討論這些。

For now, I'll hand it to Curtis to review our financial performance in the third quarter and our 2024 outlook. Curtis?

現在，我將交給柯蒂斯回顧我們第三季的財務表現和 2024 年的展望。柯蒂斯？

Thanks, Jack, and good afternoon, everyone. For the third quarter, total sales were $1.9 billion, up $232, or 14% from the same period last year. This increase was driven by comparable store sales growth of 8.4% and the addition of new stores. Our comp was split fairly evenly between traffic and basket, and we saw a strong traffic comp both in-store and online.

謝謝，傑克，大家下午好。第三季總銷售額為 19 億美元，比去年同期成長 232 美元，成長 14%。這一增長是由可比商店銷售額增長 8.4% 和新店增加所推動的。我們的競爭在流量和購物籃之間相當均勻地分配，我們看到店內和線上都有強大的流量競爭。

E-commerce sales also increased by 36%, representing 14.5% of our total sales for the quarter. In addition, Sprout's brand contributed 23% to our total sales for the quarter.

電子商務銷售額也成長了 36%，佔本季總銷售額的 14.5%。此外，Sprout 品牌為本季總銷售額貢獻了 23​​%。

Once again, the company's sales performance was healthy and balanced across all our key comp drivers, categories, and geographies. While all business components remain strong, our sequential improvement from Q2 to Q3 was primarily driven by improved in-store traffic and strong comp performance from new vintages.

該公司的銷售業績再次在所有關鍵競爭驅動因素、類別和地區中保持健康和平衡。雖然所有業務組成部分仍然強勁，但我們從第二季到第三季的連續改善主要是由於店內客流量的改善和新年份的強勁競爭表現所推動的。

In addition, the consumers pivot toward food at home and a growing focus on healthy living is bringing additional customers to Sprouts. We remain disciplined in executing our strategy, which allows us to capitalize on these tailwinds.

此外，消費者轉向家庭食品以及對健康生活的日益關注，為 Sprouts 帶來了更多顧客。我們在執行策略時仍然保持紀律，這使我們能夠利用這些順風車。

In the third quarter, our gross margin was 38.1%, approximately 150 basis points higher than the adjusted gross margin from last year. This increase was due primarily to improve shrink as we lap our challenges in the prior year and leveraged our improvements in inventory management.

第三季度，我們的毛利率為38.1%，比去年調整後的毛利率高出約150個基點。這一增長主要是由於我們克服了上一年的挑戰並利用了庫存管理的改進而改善了收縮。

In addition to our operational improvement, our step change in sales performance drove additional leverage in our supply chain and further reduced shrink, while our forecasting caught up to these new sales trends and our teams chased additional inventory.

除了我們的營運改善之外，我們銷售業績的逐步變化推動了我們供應鏈的額外槓桿並進一步減少了損耗，同時我們的預測趕上了這些新的銷售趨勢，我們的團隊追逐了額外的庫存。

For the quarter, SG&A totaled $580 million, an increase of $79 million, or approximately 50 basis points of deleverage compared to adjusted SG&A from the same period last year. This deleverage was due to higher incentive compensation for our teams, increased e-commerce fees, and spending against our planned $15 million investment in the business. This was partially offset by leverage from the higher sales.

本季的 SG&A 總額為 5.8 億美元，與去年同期調整後的 SG&A 相比，增加了 7,900 萬美元，即去槓桿化約 50 個基點。這種去槓桿化的原因是我們團隊的激勵薪酬更高、電子商務費用增加以及我們計劃的 1500 萬美元業務投資支出。這被較高銷售額的槓桿作用部分抵消。

In the longer term, we remain focused on cost management and looking for opportunities to mitigate our cost headwinds. Store closure and other costs totaled approximately $4 million for the quarter. These are primarily related to the ongoing occupancy costs from our 2023 store closures. Depreciation and amortization, excluding depreciation included in cost sales, was $34 million.

從長遠來看，我們仍然專注於成本管理並尋找機會來減輕成本阻力。該季度商店關閉和其他成本總計約為 400 萬美元。這些主要與我們 2023 年關閉商店帶來的持續佔用成本有關。折舊和攤提（不包括成本銷售中包含的折舊）為 3,400 萬美元。

For the third quarter, our earnings before interest and taxes were $122 million. Interest income was $1 million. And our effective tax rate was 25.8%. Net income was $92 million. And diluted earnings per share were $0.91 cents, an increase of 40% compared to adjusted diluted earnings per share from the same period of the prior year.

第三季度，我們的息稅前利潤為 1.22 億美元。利息收入為100萬美元。我們的有效稅率是25.8%。淨利潤為 9200 萬美元。稀釋每股收益為0.91美分，較上年同期調整後稀釋每股收益成長40%。

We opened nine new stores during the third quarter, ending with 428 stores across 23 states. We are excited about the new store success and expanding our growth to more communities. We have nearly 110 approved new stores and more than 70 executed leases in the pipeline for the years ahead.

我們在第三季開設了 9 家新店，最後在 23 個州開設了 428 家店。我們對新店的成功以及將我們的成長擴展到更多社區感到興奮。未來幾年，我們有近 110 家獲批的新店和 70 多家正在執行的租賃合約。

Our strong and healthy balance sheet has been the foundation of our financial performance. Through the third quarter, we generated $520 million in operating cash flow, which enabled us to self-fund our investments of $132 million in capital expenditures net of landlord reimbursement to grow our business.

我們強大而健康的資產負債表是我們財務表現的基礎。在整個第三季度，我們產生了 5.2 億美元的營運現金流，這使我們能夠自籌資金，扣除房東報銷後的 1.32 億美元資本支出，以發展我們的業務。

With our robust cash generation, we paid down our outstanding credit revolver in the second quarter and returned $130 million to our shareholders by repurchasing nearly 1.9 million shares year to date. We have $559 million remaining under our $600 million share repurchase authorization.

憑藉強勁的現金產生能力，我們在第二季償還了未償信貸循環貸款，並透過年初至今回購近 190 萬股股票向股東返還 1.3 億美元。我們 6 億美元的股票回購授權還剩 5.59 億美元。

At quarter end, we have $310 million in cash and cash equivalents, no outstanding borrowings under our credit facility, and $20 million of letters of credit.

截至季末，我們擁有 3.1 億美元的現金和現金等價物，我們的信貸安排下沒有未償還的借款，還有 2000 萬美元的信用證。

Turning to our outlook, for the full year, we expect total sales growth to be approximately 12% and comp sales to be approximately 7%. Adjusted earnings before interest in taxes are expected to be between $490 million and $495 million. And adjusted earnings per share are expected to be between $3.64 and $3.68 assuming no additional share of purchases. That said, we do expect to continue to repurchase shares opportunistically.

談到我們的展望，我們預計全年總銷售額成長約為 12%，比較銷售額成長約為 7%。調整後的稅前利潤預計在 4.9 億美元至 4.95 億美元之間。假設沒有額外購買份額，調整後每股盈餘預計在 3.64 美元至 3.68 美元之間。也就是說，我們確實預期將繼續機會主義地回購股票。

We also expect our corporate tax rate to be approximately 25%. During the year, we expect capital expenditures net of landlord reimbursements to be between $205 million and $215 million. We plan to open 33 new stores instead of our previous guidance of 35.

我們也預計公司稅率約為 25%。今年，我們預計扣除房東補償後的資本支出將在 2.05 億美元至 2.15 億美元之間。我們計劃開設 33 家新店，而不是之前指導的 35 家。

Due to the impact of hurricane Milton and to give the communities and our team members time to recover, we have decided to delay two planned store openings in Florida until the first quarter of 2025.

由於米爾頓颶風的影響，並為了讓社區和我們的團隊成員有時間恢復，我們決定將佛羅裡達州的兩家門市開業計劃推遲到 2025 年第一季。

For the fourth quarter, we expect comp sales to range from approximately 8% to 10% and adjusted earnings per share to be between $0.67 and $0.71. To add more color to our fourth quarter, we expect continued gross margin expansion of approximately 100 basis points, partially offset by continued pressure on SG&A due to new store deleverage, strategic investments, and higher e-commerce fees due to the continued strength of our online sales.

對於第四季度，我們預計公司銷售額將在 8% 至 10% 左右，調整後每股收益將在 0.67 美元至 0.71 美元之間。為了為我們的第四季度增添更多色彩，我們預計毛利率將持續增長約100 個基點，部分抵消了由於新店去槓桿化、戰略投資以及由於我們的持續強勢而導致的電子商務費用上漲而導致的SG&A 持續壓力。

And with that, I'll turn it back to Jack.

說到這裡，我會把它轉回給傑克。

Thanks Curtis. We've made significant progress this year against our strategy and are seeing positive outcomes. Our successes include enhancing our product assortment, improving customer engagement and experience, and operational advancements, all while strengthening our unique culture.

謝謝柯蒂斯。今年我們在策略方面取得了重大進展，並看到了積極成果。我們的成功包括增強我們的產品種類、提高客戶參與度和體驗以及營運進步，同時加強我們獨特的文化。

Our target customers are at the center of our strategy, and these same customers are part of a growing community around a healthier lifestyle. That community includes entrepreneurs, growers, and suppliers, and we at Sprouts are proud to be part of this movement. This has inspired us to update and roll out our purpose to our internal teams to help people live and eat better.

我們的目標客戶是我們策略的中心，這些客戶是圍繞更健康生活方式不斷發展的社區的一部分。該社區包括企業家、種植者和供應商，我們 Sprouts 很自豪能夠成為這項運動的一部分。這激勵我們更新並向內部團隊推廣我們的目標，以幫助人們生活和飲食得更好。

This purpose has always been in our DNA, but needed to be put into simple words that resonate with every team member, from a cashier in Greenville, South Carolina, to a vice president in our store support office. This purpose drives everything we do and will help us maintain our focus on serving our team members, communities, and customers into the future, while we strive to make the world a little bit better product by product and store by store.

這個目標一直存在於我們的 DNA 中，但需要用簡單的語言表達出來，以引起每個團隊成員的共鳴，從南卡羅來納州格林維爾的收銀員到我們商店支援辦公室的副總裁。這個目標驅動著我們所做的一切，並將幫助我們在未來繼續專注於為團隊成員、社區和客戶提供服務，同時我們努力透過產品和商店讓世界變得更美好。

On the topic of products, our differentiated assortment is thoughtfully curated and designed to cater to our health enthusiast customers. To highlight a few examples, we are consistently expanding our range of organic produce, which is experiencing faster growth than our conventional produce.

在產品方面，我們的差異化品種經過精心策劃和設計，旨在滿足健康愛好者的需求。舉幾個例子，我們不斷擴大有機產品的範圍，成長速度比傳統產品更快。

Organic products now comprise more than 46% of our total produce sales, thus increasing accessibility to organic options. Our protein programs have expanded by offering only non-antibiotic chicken and pasture-raised brands such as Pasture Bird.

有機產品目前占我們農產品總銷售額的 46% 以上，增加了有機產品的可近性。我們的蛋白質計劃已擴大，僅提供非抗生素雞肉和牧場飼養品牌，如 Pasture Bird。

We've taken advantage of the consumer's pivot back towards food at home by increasing our meal solutions across our fresh and frozen departments, with items like our grass-fed beef, stuffed peppers, black garlic marinated NAE chicken skewers, and our organic grass-fed meatballs. These unique natural products you can only find at Sprouts and they lead our category growth.

我們利用消費者回歸家庭食品的機會，增加了新鮮和冷凍部門的膳食解決方案，包括草飼牛肉、釀辣椒、黑蒜醃製 NAE 雞肉串和有機草飼食品等。這些獨特的天然產品只能在 Sprouts 找到，它們引領了我們品類的成長。

Our ongoing innovation efforts continue to be a differentiator for us. This year, over 170 new items have transitioned from our innovation center to our inline shelves. As Sprouts is becoming a vendor of choice for new trend forward brands, our foraging team also continues to explore new tastes and trends from across the globe, from trade shows to restaurants for inspiration.

我們持續不斷的創新努力仍然是我們的優勢所在。今年，超過 170 種新商品已從我們的創新中心轉移到我們的內嵌式貨架上。隨著 Sprouts 逐漸成為新趨勢品牌的首選供應商，我們的採購團隊也不斷探索全球各地的新口味和趨勢，從貿易展到餐廳，尋找靈感。

Our Sprouts brand continues to grow and gain affinity with unique items and attributes that our customers desire. We have released more than 300 new Sprouts brand items this year, such as Italian-made stock gnocchi, frozen risottos sourced from Italy, and our latest Moroccan and al pastor flavored chickpeas.

我們的 Sprouts 品牌不斷發展，並與客戶所需的獨特商品和屬性產生了密切的關係。今年，我們推出了 300 多種 Sprouts 品牌新產品，例如義大利製造的高湯湯糰、來自義大利的冷凍燴飯，以及我們最新的摩洛哥和阿爾牧師風味鷹嘴豆。

We're very excited about the launch of our new line of more than 130 premium body care and home fragrance items called Real Root by Sprouts this past month. They're free from many things including parabens, phthalates, artificial fragrances, and colors. These products help customers live healthier, nurturing inner and outer well-being.

我們對上個月推出名為 Real Root by Sprouts 的新系列產品感到非常興奮，該系列產品包含 130 多種優質身體護理和家居香氛產品。它們不含許多成分，包括對羥基苯甲酸酯、鄰苯二甲酸鹽、人造香料和色素。這些產品幫助客戶生活得更健康，培養內在和外在的幸福感。

On the customer engagement front, our marketing efforts have successfully attracted more customers to visit our stores. We continue to tailor our marketing strategy to target our unique customers and adjust our media approach based on regional and market differences.

在客戶參與方面，我們的行銷努力成功吸引了更多客戶參觀我們的商店。我們繼續針對獨特的客戶制定行銷策略，並根據區域和市場差異調整我們的媒體方法。

One area that has played a key role in our acceleration is social media. Our team has brought our unique assortment and experience to life and has found willing partners with many influencers and celebrities whose products and purposes align with ours. Their energy and passion inspire us. What is even more encouraging is seeing authentic posts from our customers, sharing their experiences in store and with our products.

在我們的加速發展中發揮關鍵作用的領域之一是社群媒體。我們的團隊將我們獨特的品種和經驗帶入生活，並與許多有影響力的人和名人找到了願意合作的合作夥伴，他們的產品和目的與我們的產品和目的一致。他們的活力和熱情激勵著我們。更令人鼓舞的是看到我們客戶的真實帖子，分享他們在商店和我們產品的體驗。

As a result of our marketing efforts, we're seeing more new customers, improved customer retention, and increased shopping frequency, leading to strong comp traffic momentum. Additionally, we're seeing more customers from younger cohorts, which bodes well for the future. To further support our long-term customer engagement, we're investing in technology to build a customer data foundation to tailor and personalize our customer communications.

由於我們的行銷努力，我們看到了更多的新客戶，提高了客戶保留率，並增加了購物頻率，從而帶來了強勁的競爭流量動能。此外，我們看到更多來自年輕族群的客戶，這對未來來說是個好兆頭。為了進一步支持我們的長期客戶參與，我們正在投資技術來建立客戶數據基礎，以客製化和個人化我們的客戶溝通。

Our new loyalty program will be our data acquisition engine for personalization efforts. While still early, we're pleased with the progress we're making and the learnings we're gathering from our loyalty test.

我們新的忠誠度計畫將成為我們個人化工作的資料收集引擎。雖然還為時過早，但我們對所取得的進展以及從忠誠度測試中收集到的經驗感到滿意。

Thank you to the teams in Nashville and Tucson for their support and enthusiasm. Sign-ups and scans are meeting and even slightly exceeding our early goals. We plan to extend this test to a couple more markets in early 2025 to accelerate our learnings that will inform our rollout later in 2025.

感謝納許維爾和圖森團隊的支持和熱情。註冊和掃描都達到甚至略微超出了我們的早期目標。我們計劃在 2025 年初將此測試擴展到更多市場，以加快我們的學習速度，為 2025 年稍後的推出提供資訊。

A differentiated assortment and strong marketing are key, but it doesn't tell the full story of our Q3 performance. Outstanding collaboration and execution across functions are required to bring it all together and deliver these results. Our supply chain, merchandising, marketing, IT and operations teams have been aligning early and often, working seamlessly to ensure we deliver an exceptional in-store experience.

差異化的產品組合和強大的行銷是關鍵，但這並不能說明我們第三季業績的全部情況。需要跨職能部門出色的協作和執行才能將所有這些整合在一起並交付這些結果。我們的供應鏈、銷售、行銷、IT 和營運團隊很早就經常進行協調，無縫合作，以確保我們提供卓越的店內體驗。

As part of our continuous efforts to showcase differentiated and attribute-driven products, we are organizing customer-centric events for an engaging and enhanced customer experience. In July, we debuted the first Sprouts brand Discovery Days. It was well received and drove outsized growth for our brand.

作為我們不斷努力展示差異化和屬性驅動型產品的一部分，我們正在組織以客戶為中心的活動，以增強參與度和增強客戶體驗。七月，我們推出了第一個 Sprouts 品牌 Discovery Days。它受到好評並推動了我們品牌的大幅成長。

Stores have embraced the opportunity to go big, and we saw some tremendous displays and sampling showcasing better for you products such as our rebranded coconut rolls and fall seasonal items. We also had an outstanding back-to-school event focusing on our healthy school snacks and lunch offerings, and our chef created deli and meat meals for those busy evenings.

商店抓住了擴大規模的機會，我們看到了一些巨大的展示和樣品，展示了更適合您的產品，例如我們重新命名的椰子捲和秋季季節性商品。我們還舉辦了一場精彩的返校活動，重點關注我們健康的學校零食和午餐供應，我們的廚師為那些忙碌的夜晚製作了熟食和肉類餐點。

On top of this work, our operations team was laser-focused on delivering exceptional customer service and an in-store experience that fosters long-term loyalty. This commitment to bringing our unique products to life through exemplary service, engaging sampling and in-store execution continues to set us apart and win customers.

除此之外，我們的營運團隊也專注於提供卓越的客戶服務和培養長期忠誠度的店內體驗。透過模範服務、參與樣品和店內執行，將我們獨特的產品變為現實，這一承諾繼續使我們與眾不同並贏得客戶。

We also optimize our operations by advancing our technology and processes, improving in stock, reducing shrink, boosting sales, and enhancing the customer shopping experience. Regarding our team, we've worked hard to create a culture that attracts, develops, and retains top talent, building Sprouties for the long term.

我們還透過改進技術和流程、改善庫存、減少損耗、促進銷售和增強客戶購物體驗來優化我們的營運。對於我們的團隊，我們努力營造一種吸引、培養和留住頂尖人才的文化，為 Sprouties 的長遠發展奠定基礎。

We recently held our annual SproutsCon conference, which brought together all our store managers and various department managers, with over 1,600 team members in attendance. During the event, the operations team learned about our business initiatives, received leadership development training, and were introduced to new products in our innovation pipeline, some through live vendor pitch slams.

我們最近舉辦了一年一度的 SproutsCon 會議，我們所有的商店經理和各個部門經理齊聚一堂，共有 1,600 多名團隊成員出席。在活動期間，營運團隊了解了我們的業務計劃，接受了領導力發展培訓，並了解了我們創新管道中的新產品，其中一些是透過現場供應商推廣來介紹的。

Over 1,500 vendors attended our private show to discuss their products, allowing each team member to bring back their knowledge to the stores and share it with their customers and fellow team members. Our HR teams are focused on coaching and leadership training this year to build new leaders and our talent engines to support our growth objectives. They're doing a great job.

超過 1,500 家供應商參加了我們的私人展會，討論他們的產品，讓每個團隊成員將他們的知識帶回商店，並與客戶和團隊成員分享。今年，我們的人力資源團隊專注於輔導和領導力培訓，以培養新的領導者和人才引擎，以支持我們的成長目標。他們做得很好。

As we acknowledge that we have some macro tailwinds at our back, we are putting in the effort to establish a strong foundation that will enable the business to thrive in every environment. Our third-quarter results and overall momentum continue to confirm our belief in our target customer-focused strategy. That said, we know there's plenty of work to do and each day presents new challenges.

正如我們所承認的，我們有一些宏觀的推動力，我們正在努力建立一個堅實的基礎，使業務能夠在各種環境中蓬勃發展。我們第三季的業績和整體動能繼續證實了我們對以客戶為中心的目標策略的信念。也就是說，我們知道還有大量工作要做，每天都會面臨新的挑戰。

We are more committed than ever to making healthier options available to our customers in as many communities as possible. Our results enable us to keep investing in our growth. With the outstanding support of our team members across the company, we are confident we will continue to deliver value to our shareholders. We're enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead and our teams are rising to the challenge.

我們比以往任何時候都更致力於為盡可能多的社區的客戶提供更健康的選擇。我們的業績使我們能夠繼續投資於我們的成長。在整個公司團隊成員的大力支持下，我們有信心繼續為股東創造價值。我們對未來的機會充滿熱情，我們的團隊正在迎接挑戰。

We look forward to updating you on our progress and connecting with many of you in the coming months. And with that, I'd like to turn it over for questions. Operator?

我們期待在接下來的幾個月向您通報我們的最新進展並與您中的許多人保持聯繫。說到這裡，我想把它轉過來供大家提問。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) Mark Carden, UBS.

（操作員說明）Mark Carden，UBS。

So another really strong comp for you guys this quarter. How is the cadence of the comp from month to month? Did you guys see much of an impact from the hurricanes to your sales? And is it fair to assume there's been a bit of an acceleration thus far in 4Q today, just given the midpoint of your guidance range?

所以本季你們的另一個非常強大的競爭。每個月的比賽節奏如何？你們是否看到颶風對你們的銷售產生了很大的影響？考慮到您的指導範圍的中點，假設今天第四季度到目前為止有一些加速是否公平？

Hey, Mark, it's Curtis. We had a good quarter. And a little bit of benefit from the hurricanes, but we're not heavily penetrated in the southeast. And fortunately, Helene kind of missed our stores. And then the Florida, Milton certainly impacted Florida. So there's a little bit of pull forward there. Neither was quite as bad as it was anticipated to be, but not a huge driver to the quarter overall. And yes, saw a little bit of acceleration late and good momentum heading into what we've seen so far in P10.

嘿，馬克，我是柯蒂斯。我們度過了一個美好的季度。颶風也為我們帶來了一點好處，但我們在東南部的影響並不嚴重。幸運的是，海倫有點想念我們的商店。然後是佛羅裡達州，米爾頓無疑影響了佛羅裡達州。所以那裡有一點推動力。兩者都沒有預期的那麼糟糕，但並不是整個季度的巨大推動力。是的，我們在 P10 中看到了後期的一些加速和良好的勢頭。

Great. And then as a follow-up, you talked about some stronger comp performance in your newer vintages. How much of a contribution do you think you're getting from your waterfall at this point? And how should we think about this going forward as you further ramp your store growth? Has this changed at all structurally? Thank you.

偉大的。然後，作為後續行動，您談到了新年份中一些更強的比較表現。您認為此時您從瀑布中獲得了多少貢獻？當您進一步擴大商店成長時，我們應該如何考慮這一點？這在結構上有什麼改變嗎？謝謝。

No structural changes. I'll take that in reverse order. I think we talked over the last few calls that the stores from a couple years ago kind of started a little lower than our box economics, kind of algorithm view, but they've been comping faster. So we are playing out as expected, and we think that they'll get to that mature state that we have in our box economics.

沒有結構性變化。我會以相反的順序來處理。我想我們在過去的幾次電話會議中談到，幾年前的商店的起步比我們的盒子經濟、演算法觀點要低一些，但他們的競爭速度更快。因此，我們正在按預期進行，我們認為他們將達到我們在盒子經濟中所擁有的成熟狀態。

I'll give specifics, but we're getting, I don't know, a little over, call it 100, a little more than 100 basis points probably from those new or recent vintages. So we really look at three or four years' worth of stores that are comping is out comping the core and they're doing a nice job for us.

我會給出具體細節，但我們得到的，我不知道，有點超過，稱之為 100，略高於 100 個基點，可能來自那些新的或最近的年份。因此，我們確實關注了三、四年來正在競爭的商店，它們正在對核心進行競爭，他們為我們做得很好。

And Mark, we're very excited by stores that have been on the ground for two or three years. I think there was a little bit of -- when we opened during COVID, they were probably smaller than we'd like to start with. So we're getting a benefit from that. But overall, in markets where we haven't been well established, we're seeing a really strong response from the consumers in those markets.

馬克，我們對已經開業兩三年的商店感到非常興奮。我認為，當我們在新冠疫情期間開業時，它們可能比我們一開始想要的要小。所以我們正在從中受益。但總體而言，在我們尚未成熟的市場中，我們看到了這些市場消費者的強烈反應。

Rupesh Parikh, Oppenheimer.

魯佩什·帕里克，奧本海默。

Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the very strong quarter. So just going back to -- obviously, strong guide for Q4 on the comp side. How do you guys feel about the sustainability that complement them that you're seeing in the business? Is it something that you believe can continue to next year? So just want to get a sense of if there's anything unsustainable in terms of what you guys are seeing right now.

感謝您提出我的問題，並祝賀這個非常強勁的季度。所以，回到——顯然，第四季在比較方面的強有力的指導。你們對在業務中看到的補充他們的可持續性有何看法？您認為明年可以繼續這樣做嗎？所以我只是想了解你們現在所看到的情況是否存在不可持續的情況。

Well, I think the first thing we want to say is there's a huge upside in our customer base. We've still got a very small share of our customers' wallet, and we're doing some things that seem to be stimulating the customers pretty well. I'm very excited by how our marketing teams are shaping the message and using media effectively and being very thoughtful about that.

嗯，我認為我們想說的第一件事是我們的客戶群有巨大的優勢。我們在客戶的錢包中所佔的份額仍然很小，而且我們正在做一些似乎能很好地刺激客戶的事情。我對我們的行銷團隊如何有效地塑造資訊和使用媒體以及對此深思熟慮感到非常興奮。

I think we've learned a lot this year, which we'll be able to use even more effectively next year. So I think that's an encouraging sign for us. And as I said in the script, the execution at store level continues to get better and better. Our in-stocks are getting better, the execution behind that.

我認為今年我們學到了很多東西，明年我們將能夠更有效地利用這些知識。所以我認為這對我們來說是一個令人鼓舞的跡象。正如我在腳本中所說，商店層面的執行力不斷變得越來越好。我們的庫存正在變得更好，背後的執行力。

We've invested a lot of money in infrastructure and systems over the last couple of years in terms of getting our business more in-stock and more in-tune with what needs to happen on a day-to-day basis in the stores. So I'm very encouraged that our operation execution will continue to drive some comp sales for us, encourage that our marketing teams will continue to get better and better at picking the right messages and sending those messages in the right place.

在過去的幾年裡，我們在基礎設施和系統上投入了大量資金，以使我們的業務有更多庫存，並更符合商店日常需求。因此，我感到非常鼓舞的是，我們的營運執行將繼續為我們推動一些補償銷售，鼓勵我們的行銷團隊將繼續越來越好地選擇正確的訊息並將這些訊息發送到正確的地方。

So there's a lot of encouragement in our business and there's a lot of upside to go with our customers. Curtis, I don't know if you want to expand on that.

因此，我們的業務受到許多鼓勵，並且與我們的客戶一起有很多好處。柯蒂斯，我不知道你是否想進一步闡述這一點。

Yeah. No, I think, we've had a few -- we've called out a few one-timers. Again, the hurricanes was a little bit of helper. Produce season was pretty strong. We've added channels in the last couple of years in the digital business, but those are pretty small in the grand scheme of an 8.4 comp in the third quarter.

是的。不，我想，我們已經有過一些——我們已經召集了一些一次性的人。颶風再次提供了一點幫助。生產季節相當強勁。過去幾年我們在數位業務中增加了頻道，但在第三季 8.4 的宏偉計劃中，這些頻道相當小。

So as Jack says, for now, we've got good momentum. Expect that to continue. When we come up against it later next year, we feel really confident in a 2 to 4 algorithm comp that we can do that in any environment. We're certainly building a business to deliver results in any environment.

正如傑克所說，目前我們勢頭良好。預計這種情況會持續下去。當我們明年晚些時候遇到這個問題時，我們對 2 到 4 演算法組合非常有信心，我們可以在任何環境下做到這一點。當然，我們正在打造一家能夠在任何環境下交付成果的企業。

Great. And maybe just one follow-up question. So I know this quarter you weren't able to leverage just given some of the loyalty program investments, higher incentive comp. Any insight in terms of what you think could be a normalized leverage point as we look beyond this year?

偉大的。也許只是一個後續問題。所以我知道這個季度你無法利用一些忠誠度計劃投資和更高的激勵補償。當我們展望今年之後，您認為什麼可能是正常化的槓桿點，您有什麼見解嗎？

I'll just say it will normalize next year. Certainly, we've gotten one-time things in there with the incentive and the investments that will go away and will help offset some of the pressure points in the business from growth and wages and e-com. And then things are getting a little bit better.

我只想說明年就會正常化。當然，我們已經獲得了一次性的獎勵和投資，這些獎勵和投資將會消失，並將有助於抵消業務中來自成長、薪資和電子商務的一些壓力點。然後事情開始好轉了。

Again, e-com won't have quite the penetration jump that it had this year, so there'll be less pressure from that. The labor market's been pretty good for us, so a little bit less pressure there, although we'll continue to invest in talent. And so it'll be a much more normalized 2025.

同樣，電子商務的滲透率不會像今年那樣大幅躍升，因此壓力也會較小。勞動市場對我們來說相當好，所以壓力稍微小一些，儘管我們將繼續投資於人才。因此，2025 年將更加標準化。

Teams are working through the budget process right now. And so we'll have more specifics when we get to February. But we should have a much more normal year in 2025.

團隊現在正在完成預算流程。因此，到了二月我們將會了解更多細節。但 2025 年我們應該會過得更正常。

Krisztina Katai, Deutsche Bank.

克里斯蒂娜·卡泰，德意志銀行。

I add my congratulations as well. I wanted to ask about new store performance, which came in very strong. I think, based on our calculations, it improved around 90% compared to the previous, around mid-70s.

我也表示祝賀。我想詢問新店的業績，新店的業績非常強勁。我認為，根據我們的計算，與之前（大約 70 年代中期）相比，它提高了 90% 左右。

Can you talk a little about what you see as some of the bigger drivers behind this improvement? Anything you can share in terms of how some of the most recent vintages are ramping relative to those that are a couple of years old? And could this be the higher level of NSP, the normal range going forward?

您能否談談您認為這項改進背後的一些更大的驅動因素？您可以分享一下最近一些年份的葡萄酒相對於幾年前的葡萄酒的增長情況嗎？這可能是 NSP 的更高水平，即未來的正常範圍嗎？

Yeah, Krisztina. We're very encouraged by the one, two, three, four years vintages. They're all playing a pretty strong role in terms of how they're coming through comp wise.

是的，克里斯蒂娜。我們對一年、兩年、三年、四年的年份感到非常鼓舞。他們在如何實現競爭方面都發揮著相當重要的作用。

Why are we getting a little bit better? And we are getting a little bit better opening stores. One, I think, is our marketing teams are getting more honed in terms of being very specific by market in terms of how we're bringing our brand to that marketplace.

為什麼我們會變得更好？我們開店的情況也有所改善。我認為，其一是我們的行銷團隊在如何將我們的品牌推向該市場方面變得更加針對市場。

And the second thing is, I think, our teams behind the scenes are picking even the work that we've been doing in terms of getting the modeling right, so that we understand where to build stores, how to build stores, where to build stores that are directly related to our target customer and working very closely with people in those marketplaces so that when we build stores, they're being built in exactly the right part of town and the right corner on the right road.

第二件事是，我認為，我們的幕後團隊甚至正在挑選我們一直在做的工作來正確建模，以便我們了解在哪裡建立商店，如何建立商店，在哪裡建立與我們的目標客戶直接相關的商店，並與這些市場中的人們密切合作，這樣當我們建造商店時，它們就建在城鎮的正確位置和正確道路的正確角落。

So I think there's a combination of location, understanding the customer, and execution behind the marketing teams. And to be honest, the new store opening teams have done a really nice job for us at making these things come alive. And it's really gratifying when you go to these stores and see the lines of people outside. And a lot of people come in and are genuinely surprised by the assortment and the offer and excited by it.

所以我認為行銷團隊背後需要結合位置、了解客戶和執行力。說實話，新店開幕團隊在讓這些東西變得生動起來方面為我們做了非常好的工作。當你走進這些商店並看到外面排著長隊的人時，你真的很高興。很多人進來後都對這裡的品種和優惠感到驚訝和興奮。

So it certainly gives us a lot of confidence in the future as we get a little bit better honing this new store program.

因此，隨著我們更好地磨練這個新商店計劃，這無疑給了我們對未來很大的信心。

And Krisztina, I just have a couple things. One is density matters. So as we've opened more and more stores in some of our larger markets, certainly, you're getting word of mouth and awareness before we even start the new store program, which is great.

克里斯蒂娜，我有幾件事。一是密度問題。因此，隨著我們在一些較大的市場開設越來越多的商店，當然，在我們開始新商店計劃之前，您就已經獲得了口碑和知名度，這很棒。

And then on the productivity calc itself, the denominators is advantageous because we're opening smaller stores. So that's a little bit of why it would be better than that kind of historical 75% on that new store productivity calc.

然後就生產力計算本身而言，分母是有利的，因為我們正在開設較小的商店。這就是為什麼在新的商店生產力計算中它會比歷史上的 75% 更好的原因。

Great, thanks. And just for a follow-up, I wanted to ask about your sort of target customer segments, but really tie it in with some of the newer households that you have started to shop with you. How are they performing in terms of frequency or wallet share relative to your overall base? Just any insights that you could share in terms of how we should think about their stickiness and then potential contribution on a go-forward basis. Thank you.

太好了，謝謝。作為後續行動，我想詢問您的目標客戶群類型，但實際上將其與您開始與您一起購物的一些新家庭聯繫起來。相對於您的整體基數，他們在頻率或錢包份額方面的表現如何？只是您可以分享的任何見解，即我們應該如何考慮它們的黏性以及未來的潛在貢獻。謝謝。

Sure. A little -- on the newer customers we're seeing -- or seeing the frequency increase, which means we're seeing some smaller baskets. So we're seeing more transactions in kind of a two-, three-, four-, five-unit range. And so there's a little bit of a mix headwind there, or mix change there, so to speak.

當然。有一點——我們看到的新客戶——或者看到頻率增加，這意味著我們看到了一些較小的購物籃。因此，我們看到更多的兩、三、四、五單位範圍內的交易。因此，可以說，那裡存在一些混音逆風，或者混音變化。

I think we're also really pleased because we're seeing a lot of younger customers coming into our stores. So in that 18 to 34 cohort is one of the ones where we've seen the strongest growth. And I think that's a credit to our marketing team and the work they're doing in social media and bringing in those younger customers. So a little bit of color around the customer cohort frequency increase, but we're pleased with where we're headed there.

我想我們也很高興，因為我們看到很多年輕顧客來到我們的商店。因此，18 至 34 歲的人群是我們看到成長最強勁的人群之一。我認為這歸功於我們的行銷團隊以及他們在社群媒體和吸引年輕客戶方面所做的工作。因此，客戶群頻率增加，但我們對目前的進展感到滿意。

And I think the stickiness, Krisztina, kind of comes from this growing interest in health and attribute-based products. So I think, increasingly, it's very clear that the people that are getting interested in this, get more and more interested, and we're finding that that's contributing to, I think, the increased number of people that are coming back in more consistently than they were in the past.

我認為克里斯蒂娜的黏性來自於人們對健康和基於屬性的產品日益增長的興趣。所以我認為，越來越明顯的是，人們對此越來越感興趣，越來越感興趣，我們發現這有助於，我認為，越來越多的人更一致地回來比他們過去。

Jacob Aiken-Phillips, Melius Research.

雅各布·艾肯·菲利普斯，Melius 研究中心。

So I got -- I'm curious, just doing the math, it seems like 4Q might be a little conservative or at least there's like a slowdown in comp sales. So just curious your thoughts on that. And then I guess going forward, a lot of people are asking if you can continue to maintain these comp sales because your valuation is kind of high. So I'm just wondering what are the bigger drivers, not just in 2025, but over the next two or three years for developing those comps.

所以我得到 - 我很好奇，只是做了數學計算，似乎第四季度可能有點保守，或者至少是比較銷售放緩。所以只是好奇你對此的想法。然後我想展望未來，很多人都在問你是否可以繼續維持這些補償銷售，因為你的估值有點高。所以我只是想知道更大的驅動因素是什麼，不僅是在 2025 年，而且在未來兩三年內開發這些組合。

I'll cover the first part, and then I'll let Jack cover drivers. Well, I think the one year is an acceleration at the midpoint, slightly higher than the 8.4 on Q3, and the two years flat to Q3. So I don't think it's a deceleration in the guide or in the performance in the way we've guided the business.

我將介紹第一部分，然後讓傑克介紹驅動程式。嗯，我認為一年是中點加速，略高於第三季的8.4，兩年與第三季持平。因此，我認為這並不是指南的減速，也不是我們指導業務的方式的績效的減速。

And then we feel good about what we alluded to a few minutes ago, but I'll let Jack cover some of the drivers and why we feel good about the sales.

然後我們對幾分鐘前提到的內容感到滿意，但我會讓傑克介紹一些驅動因素以及為什麼我們對銷售感到滿意。

Yeah. We feel very confident that our top line can continue to move in the right direction, and that will flow through in terms of bringing it through in terms of our earnings. So we're feeling confident that our customers are in good shape, that the customers that shop with us are pretty resilient to any economic conditions that come at them.

是的。我們非常有信心，我們的營收能夠繼續朝著正確的方向發展，這將有助於我們的獲利。因此，我們相信我們的客戶狀況良好，在我們這裡購物的客戶對遇到的任何經濟條件都具有相當的彈性。

We're pretty confident that we're taking some, as I said earlier, marketing, operational, and merchandising initiatives that should continue to drive a little bit more share of wallet of the existing customers that we have. And this health trend is a very real one. And it's one that I think we're probably benefiting from that tailwind at the moment. And I think that tailwind ain't going to go away anytime soon.

我們非常有信心，正如我之前所說，我們正在採取一些行銷、營運和銷售舉措，這些舉措將繼續推動我們現有客戶的錢包份額增加。這種健康趨勢是非常真實的。我認為我們目前可能會從這台順風車中受益。我認為這種順風不會很快消失。

So I think that gives us some confidence that we can comp the comp going forward. And we don't think the share price is too high at all, sir.

所以我認為這給了我們一些信心，讓我們相信我們可以繼續前進。先生，我們認為股價根本不算太高。

And I wasn't trying to say it was too high. Just talking about growth. What about just the same from a bottom-line perspective for 4Q, like you beat and raise every quarter is you don't consider 4Q conservative?

我並不是想說它太高了。只談成長。從第四季的底線角度來看，就像你每季都擊敗並提高收入一樣，你不認為第四季是保守的嗎？

I think it's -- again, the midpoint kind of put it right in line with what we delivered in Q3. Certainly, we aspire to beat what we've said. We were certainly going to deliver what we say and we aspire to beat it every quarter.

我認為這再次是中點，與我們在第三季度交付的結果相符。當然，我們渴望超越我們所說的話。我們當然會兌現我們所說的，並且我們渴望每個季度都能超越它。

So we've got some -- there's some things going on in the fourth quarter. We've got an election next week and we've got the holidays after that. And then we'll head into our healthy new year and fresh start. So a lot going on the last part of the quarter. Continues to be pressure on the consumer. And so we'll see how it all plays out as they're moving their way through the holiday, but we feel good about our guidance.

所以我們有一些 - 第四季度發生了一些事情。下週我們將舉行選舉，之後我們將迎來假期。然後我們將迎來健康的新年和新的開始。本季最後一部分發生了很多事情。消費者持續承受壓力。因此，我們將看看他們在假期中的表現如何，但我們對我們的指導感到滿意。

Ken Goldman, JPMorgan.

肯‧戈德曼，摩根大通。

Jack, you talked about continuing to invest in the business. Obviously, you're getting great returns on a lot of your investments right now.

傑克，您談到繼續投資該業務。顯然，您現在的大量投資正在獲得豐厚的回報。

There's an article or two out there about how to fund some of these investments. Sprouts is considering, I don't want to say leaning on its vendors, but maybe asking its vendors to work with it a little closer in terms of costs per item to help fund that growth so that those vendors can grow successfully with you.

有一兩篇文章介紹如何為其中一些投資提供資金。Sprouts 正在考慮，我不想說依賴其供應商，但也許會要求其供應商在每件產品的成本方面與它更密切地合作，以幫助為這種增長提供資金，以便這些供應商能夠與您一起成功成長。

I don't want to go into more detail than that other than there have been a couple articles and a couple people asking about it. I'm just trying to get a sense of how valid that is. And if it is valid, what has the receptivity been among some of your vendors to the idea that maybe they want to share in some of the investment side of your growth? If that's a fair question.

除了已經有幾篇文章和一些人詢問過之外，我不想透露更多細節。我只是想了解它的有效性。如果它是有效的，那麼您的一些供應商對於他們可能想分享您的成長的一些投資方面的想法的接受度如何？如果這是一個公平的問題。

Of course it's a fair question, Ken. I think it's something our vendors are a light blood of how we're going to operate going forward and how we've operated going past.

這當然是一個公平的問題，肯。我認為我們的供應商是我們未來如何運作以及過去如何運作的血液。

Differentiation comes from a set of vendors who, as I said in the script, who are enthusiastic, who are very innovative, creative, entrepreneurial. And we're working very hard with all of that group of entrepreneurs and businesses and companies to try -- we want to try and be at the head of the curve in terms of these innovative products. And we're working very hard at that.

差異化來自於一群供應商，正如我在劇本中所說，他們充滿熱情，非常創新、有創造力、有創業精神。我們正在與所有企業家、企業和公司一起努力嘗試——我們希望在這些創新產品方面處於領先地位。我們正在為此努力。

And as we build new stores and as we build our comp momentum and build our customer momentum, what we bring is some efficiency to how we work. We're a fair relative, we have been and becoming less, so a relatively immature company. And how we work with our vendors can drive real efficiency for the vendors.

當我們建立新商店、建立我們的競爭動力和建立我們的客戶動力時，我們帶來的是我們工作方式的一些效率。我們是一個公平的親戚，我們一直是並且正在變得越來越少，所以是一個相對不成熟的公司。我們與供應商的合作方式可以為供應商帶來真正的效率。

And our aspiration -- and we're having very detailed conversations with our vendors. And it's about how can we make them more efficient, how can we become more efficient, how can that efficiency drive into better opportunities for our customer and for our customers to get access to products and better opportunities, quite frankly, for us to make a little bit more margin.

我們的願望 - 我們正在與我們的供應商進行非常詳細的對話。這是關於我們如何讓他們變得更有效率，我們如何變得更有效率，這種效率如何為我們的客戶帶來更好的機會，讓我們的客戶獲得產品和更好的機會，坦率地說，讓我們創造一個更好的機會。

You've seen our margins over the last few years. So this combination of efficiency with the vendor, I'm envisaging that our vendors will become much more profitable working with us going forward. And we're getting a really good dialogue going with our companies on that. And it's really intense work, and it's great.

您已經看到了我們過去幾年的利潤。因此，透過與供應商的效率結合，我預計我們的供應商未來與我們合作將變得更加有利可圖。我們正在與我們的公司就此進行非常好的對話。這是一項非常緊張的工作，而且很棒。

The merchants are doing really good work and the vendors are responding really well because they can see the opportunity and they're very excited about this customer base that we have, which is pretty unique and pretty differentiated. So it's become a really -- it's been a very enthusiastic reception from the vendors and the merchants.

商家做得非常好，供應商的反應也非常好，因為他們看到了機會，並且對我們擁有的客戶群感到非常興奮，這是非常獨特和差異化的。因此，它確實受到了供應商和商家的熱烈歡迎。

And they're having to think more intensely about how they work forward over two, three, four, five years with vendors. If we can give commitments to inventory, give commitments to growers and farmers over a long period of time, they can invest appropriately in their business to drive their own profitability and then bring even more and get on the virtue cycle of bringing even more positive products to it.

他們必須更深入地思考如何在兩年、三年、四年、五年內與供應商合作。如果我們能夠對庫存做出承諾，對種植者和農民做出長期承諾，他們就可以對自己的業務進行適當的投資，以提高自己的盈利能力，然後帶來更多，並進入帶來更多積極產品的美德循環到它。

So, yeah, we are definitely having a lot of dialog with our vendors, and it's very positive dialogue that we think is going to stand us in good stead for many years to come in terms of the way we're operating. And it's been part of us growing up as a company, Ken.

所以，是的，我們肯定與我們的供應商進行了很多對話，我們認為這是非常積極的對話，這將使我們在未來多年的運作方式方面受益匪淺。肯，這一直是我們公司成長的一部分。

Robert Ohmes, Bank of America.

羅伯特·歐姆斯，美國銀行。

Great quarter. Hey, Jack, you mentioned social media as part of the -- play to roll in the acceleration here. Can you talk a little more about how impactful social media has been? And maybe with that, when you think about an 8% to 10% comp in the fourth quarter, what's the difference between being at 10% in the fourth quarter versus 8% in your mind?

很棒的季度。嘿，傑克，你提到社群媒體是加速發展的一部分。能多談談社群媒體的影響力嗎？也許這樣一來，當你考慮到第四季 8% 到 10% 的成長率時，第四季 10% 的成長率與你心目中的 8% 之間有什麼區別？

Well, I'll let Curtis do the 10% and the 8% conversation. The social media, what we've got very clearly in social media is literally -- I'll misquote the numbers, but we've gone from millions to billions of impressions when you get into the real specifics of what's happening. And social media for us, our teams have done a lot of work on this in terms of really bringing forward the messaging around very specific messages that have resonated well.

好吧，我會讓柯蒂斯進行 10% 和 8% 的對話。社群媒體，我們在社群媒體中得到的非常清楚的訊息是字面上的——我會錯誤地引用這些數字，但當你了解正在發生的事情的真正細節時，我們的印象數已經從數百萬增加到數十億。對於我們的社群媒體來說，我們的團隊在這方面做了很多工作，圍繞著非常具體的訊息傳遞訊息，引起了良好的共鳴。

We've had some support from some really interesting celebrities as well as part of that, which clearly drives a lot of interest in our products. And we see some pretty extraordinary responses.

我們得到了一些非常有趣的名人的支持，這顯然引起了人們對我們產品的極大興趣。我們看到了一些非常非同尋常的反應。

We've got a product called sea moss out there at the moment, which has really responded, amazingly responded to. I'm not quite sure what we all do with a sea moss, but they're buying it and it's doing a lot -- it's doing some real positive things in terms of coming from a social media post and all of a sudden, we're chasing inventory to try and make it -- be able to hold on to it.

目前我們有一種叫做海苔的產品，它確實產生了反響，令人驚訝的反響。我不太確定我們都用海苔做什麼，但他們正在購買它，而且它做了很多事情——從社交媒體帖子來看，它做了一些真正積極的事情，突然之間，我們正在追逐庫存，試圖製造它——能夠保留它。

So it's the number of impressions that we're getting and the number of social media posts we're sending out and the support that we're getting from different entities and enterprises and celebrities behind those social media posts, which is driving impressions, which is also driving both transactions and some very specific sales on specific products going forward.

因此，我們獲得的展示次數、我們發送的社交媒體貼文的數量以及我們從這些社交媒體貼文背後的不同實體、企業和名人那裡獲得的支持，推動了展示次數，也推動了未來特定產品的交易和一些非常具體的銷售。

So that's really the message of social media, which we are excited about, Robbie.

這確實是社群媒體傳達的訊息，我們對此感到興奮，羅比。

That sounds great. Yeah, and on 8% -- yeah, Robbie, on 8% to 10%, I mean, we're running -- those kind of numbers towards the end of Q3, if it's going to get a little better, if the holiday comes in well and we do well there. Again, I think we feel pretty good about where we are.

聽起來很棒。是的，8%——是的，羅比，8% 到 10%，我的意思是，我們正在運行——第三季度末的這些數字，如果情況會好一點，如果假期的話進來得很好，我們在那裡也做得很好。再說一次，我認為我們對自己的處境感覺很好。

And we've been a little surprised by the uptick in the last couple of quarters. We've seen a couple of step changes in our business. And not that we're surprised the business is getting better, but more the magnitude of the step changes and how quick they've come. So I think that's just wanting to see a little bit more of that and watching those hold on to those gains over a longer period of time.

我們對過去幾季的成長感到有點驚訝。我們的業務發生了一些重大變化。我們並不是對業務的改善感到驚訝，而是對變化的幅度和變化的速度感到驚訝。所以我認為這只是希望看到更多一點，並觀察那些人在更長的時間內保持這些成果。

But if some of that is a little bit macro or one-time in nature, that would be the way it goes down a little bit. But we feel pretty good about our range and our momentum.

但如果其中一些是宏觀的或一次性的，那麼它就會稍微下降。但我們對我們的範圍和勢頭感覺非常好。

Scott Mushkin, R5 Capital.

斯科特·穆甚金，R5 Capital。

So I think I asked this question last time actually, or maybe two times ago. But thinking about the use of capital, I think you paid down almost all your debt. Obviously, you're generating a ton of cash. So when we think about uses of capital, how should we think of it? And then I have a follow-up.

所以我想我上次問過這個問題，或者可能是兩次前。但考慮到資金的使用，我認為你還清了幾乎所有的債務。顯然，你正在創造大量現金。那麼當我們思考資本的用途時，我們該如何思考呢？然後我有一個後續行動。

Yeah, so always, first and foremost, we'll invest in the business in our 3% to 3.5% range on capital we feel good about going forward. And we're looking for ways to continue to expand our growth on the store side, get back to that 10%. But we'll start there always.

是的，所以，首先也是最重要的是，我們將在 3% 到 3.5% 的資本範圍內投資該業務，我們對未來的發展感到滿意。我們正在尋找方法繼續擴大商店方面的成長，回到 10%。但我們總是從那裡開始。

And then we get down to the excess free cash flow. It's always what's the most effective way to get it back to the shareholder. And so at the high interest rates, it was the debt pay down. Right now, it's more or less a push between hanging onto it and what we can get investing it with the banks versus buying back shares. So we're doing a little bit of both. And I think we'll continue to manage it dynamically as we watch what happens with interest rates.

然後我們開始討論過剩的自由現金流。這始終是將其返還給股東的最有效方法。因此，在高利率的情況下，債務就被償還了。目前，這或多或少是在持有它和我們可以透過銀行投資它與回購股票之間的推動力。所以我們兩者都做一點。我認為我們將繼續動態管理它，同時觀察利率的變化。

But we feel good about where we are, as Jack said earlier, with the share price. We'll continue to buy shares as we move into 2025. And we'll just watch the interest rate piece on how aggressively we pursue that.

但正如傑克之前所說，我們對目前的股價感到滿意。進入 2025 年，我們將繼續買進股票。我們將只專注於利率部分，並了解我們如何積極地追求這一目標。

And then on the M&A front, any thoughts there? (inaudible)

那麼在併購方面，有什麼想法嗎？（聽不清楚）

Well, we're being very specific. We've got to think about does it tie up with our target customer base. And those opportunities are few and far between, Scott. So we'll always look at things that come at us. But it's not something that's at the forefront of our mind at the moment.

嗯，我們說得非常具體。我們必須考慮它是否與我們的目標客戶群相關。斯科特，這些機會很少見。所以我們總是會注意發生在我們身上的事情。但這並不是我們目前最關心的事。

Okay. And then this is my follow-up question. So when you guys obviously have a lot of ability to think about the store, the future, or maybe even things that you could bring into older stores that might help sustain a very strong comp even if the trend slows down a little bit. So anything on the front burner that way that we should be thinking about?

好的。這是我的後續問題。因此，當你們顯然有很多能力思考商店、未來，甚至可能可以帶入老商店的東西時，即使趨勢放緩一點，也可能有助於維持非常強勁的競爭。那麼，有什麼是我們應該考慮的首要問題嗎？

I think it's a good question, Scott. One of the things that we were talking about is how our stores have changed, not just our existing stores have changed.

我認為這是一個很好的問題，斯科特。我們談論的一件事是我們的商店發生了怎樣的變化，而不僅僅是我們現有的商店發生了變化。

When I look at our stores that we had, although we haven't done huge remodeling exercises, our stores have got more meal cases than they've ever had before. They've got new innovation centers that they didn't have before. You've got new facilities in our vitamins department that we didn't have before. So a number of things have been happening gradually over every store.

當我看看我們的商店時，雖然我們沒有進行大規模的改造工作，但我們的商店的餐盒比以往任何時候都多。他們擁有了以前沒有的新創新中心。我們的維生素部門擁有以前沒有的新設施。因此，每家商店都在逐漸發生一些事情。

And we've clearly got a very interesting portfolio of different sizes, shapes, and sizes. In time, we may take a look at it. At the moment, we're spending most of our capital and most of our energy on making sure the size of our stores are right that we're building going forward. But there are some opportunities product-wise and category-wise that we will put back into the existing store fleet as we have done over the last couple of years. And that will be within the capital that we have allocated.

顯然，我們有一個非常有趣的不同尺寸、形狀和大小的產品組合。到時候我們可能會來看看。目前，我們正在花費大部分資金和精力來確保我們的商店規模適合我們未來正在建造的規模。但我們將像過去幾年所做的那樣，將一些產品和類別方面的機會放回現有的商店隊伍中。這將在我們分配的資金範圍內。

Edward Kelly, Wells Fargo.

愛德華凱利，富國銀行。

Nice quater. I wanted to ask you about store growth. Obviously, you've got a good healthy pipeline now. You're ramping up to your goal of 10% unit growth. How do you think about the sustainability of that over time?

不錯的四分之一。我想問你關於商店成長的問題。顯然，你現在已經有了一個良好健康的管道。您正在逐步實現 10% 單位成長的目標。您如何看待隨著時間的推移這種情況的可持續性？

And I asked the question because you're going to open up 33 stores this year, but pretty soon it'll be close to 50. Is there a ceiling on the number of stores? Or are you building the capabilities internally to sustain the percent growth and continue to drive the number higher over time?

我問這個問題是因為今年你們將開設 33 家商店，但很快就會接近 50 家。門市數量有上限嗎？或者您是否正在內部建立能力以維持百分比增長並隨著時間的推移繼續推動數字更高？

Yeah, Ed, this is Curtis. Yes, we are. We're looking at that pretty closely right now. We're really looking at process. We're looking at cost to build. We're looking at ways to really go faster in the pipeline and continue to find better sites.

是的，艾德，這是柯蒂斯。是的，我們是。我們現在正在密切關注這一點。我們真正關注的是過程。我們正在考慮建造成本。我們正在尋找真正加快流程並繼續尋找更好網站的方法。

Certainly, Jack mentioned the analytics we've put into it and the confidence we're gaining in our ability to select sites. So that should open up opportunities for us. But we're working on all those things with the intent of trying to get back to that 10%.

當然，傑克提到了我們投入的分析以及我們對選址能力所獲得的信心。所以這應該為我們帶來機會。但我們正在努力解決所有這些問題，試圖回到那 10%。

We're seeing really good results with the stores. That's been great for us the last few years. So we'd love to open up a few more stores as we go forward. And we've been in that kind of high-single-digit range. So really confident in our ability to deliver that high-single-digit piece, working our way back to 10.

我們在商店中看到了非常好的結果。過去幾年這對我們來說非常棒。因此，隨著我們的發展，我們很樂意開設更多商店。我們一直處於這種高個位數的範圍內。我們對交付高個位數作品的能力充滿信心，並努力回到 10。

I think your question is a good one, but I think it's probably more 5, 7, 10 years out. We believe we can ramp up, improve the capability, invest in the teams, and get ourselves to that kind of 50 range. And we're working our way towards that.

我認為你的問題很好，但我認為這可能需要 5 年、7 年、10 年以後。我們相信我們可以提高能力、投資團隊，並讓自己達到 50 人的範圍。我們正在努力實現這一目標。

And I think if you look at the numbers, Ed, we've only got 428 stores at the moment. And there's huge swathes of the country that we don't have stores, whether it be Chicago in the Midwest, whether it be Boston in the New England, and the Northeast. There's huge places where there's lots of customers who look like exactly the kind of customers that we're chasing after.

Ed，我想如果你看一下這些數字，我們目前只有 428 家商店。美國有大片地區我們沒有商店，無論是中西部的芝加哥、新英格蘭的波士頓或東北部。在很多地方都有很多顧客，他們看起來正是我們正在追逐的那種顧客。

So there's plenty of opportunity. And Curtis and the finance teams are being appropriately disciplined about making sure we don't open stores willy-nilly in the wrong place. And we've been very focused on that. So I think we can do more, but we're going to make sure we do it carefully and appropriately.

所以有很多機會。柯蒂斯和財務團隊正在接受適當的紀律，以確保我們不會隨意在錯誤的地方開設商店。我們一直非常關注這一點。所以我認為我們可以做得更多，但我們將確保我們謹慎而適當地做這件事。

And can I ask you, how are you thinking about store density versus new markets? Under prior management, I remember at the time like there was some growing headwind associated with cannibalization. Obviously, you're not having that issue. But I'm just curious how your thoughts around store density have evolved and your appetite to really sort of push into new markets as opposed to infill, especially infill into some of the older markets that you're in.

我可以問您，您如何看待商店密度與新市場的關係？在先前的管理下，我記得當時與蠶食相關的阻力越來越大。顯然，你沒有這個問題。但我只是好奇你對商店密度的想法是如何演變的，以及你對真正進入新市場而不是填充的興趣，特別是填充你所在的一些舊市場。

Yeah, we believe we've got opportunities in both. The density is important and it can drive some marketing very significantly. When you go to new markets, it's better not to have one store. We better have a few stores ready to go so that it can all come alive appropriately.

是的，我們相信我們在這兩方面都有機會。密度很重要，它可以非常顯著地推動一些行銷。當你進入新市場時，最好不要只有一家商店。我們最好準備幾家商店，這樣它們就能適當地活躍起來。

And I think the opportunity, if we start with, is there enough customers in that catchment area, if that gets it to how we got a distribution center within 250 miles, I think If it fulfills that, I do believe our cannibalization modeling has got significantly -- really got good in the last little while. So I'm very encouraged by the fact that we're understanding cannibalization better than we ever had.

我認為，如果我們從一開始，這個集水區是否有足夠的客戶，如果這能幫助我們在250 英里內建立一個配送中心，我想如果它滿足了這一點，我確實相信我們的同類蠶食模型已經得到了很明顯——在過去的一段時間裡確實變得很好。因此，我們對同類蠶食的理解比以往任何時候都更加深刻，這讓我深受鼓舞。

And sometimes it makes some sense to build one very close and sometimes it doesn't, but our modeling's been getting better and better. And every time I look at a new store sales, I look at what the impact, what we have forecast for cannibalization, and it feels like we're getting both of them pretty in tune at the moment.

有時建立一個非常接近的模型是有意義的，有時則不然，但我們的建模已經變得越來越好。每次我查看新商店的銷售情況時，我都會查看其影響以及我們對蠶食的預測，感覺我們目前正在使它們兩者保持一致。

Yeah. I just add a couple of things that I think, one, is that kind of 8%, this will be the second year in a row of 8%. So that kind of 8%-ish growth is in our run rate from a cannibalization perspective. And I think as we build more confidence in the process and in the program, that will allow us to maybe shift the mix a bit and be more aggressive into newer markets.

是的。我只是補充一些我認為的事情，一是 8%，這將是連續第二年達到 8%。因此，從蠶食的角度來看，我們的運行率達到了 8% 左右的成長。我認為，隨著我們對流程和計劃建立更多信心，這將使我們能夠稍微改變組合，並更積極地進入新市場。

We're looking in the Midwest now. We're looking in the Northeast now. It'll be a few years away before we start to land sites there, but we're building our plans and I think we're using our learnings from these last few years to really be a lot smarter when we go in.

我們現在正在尋找中西部地區。我們現在正在東北尋找。距離我們開始在那裡落地還需要幾年的時間，但我們正在製定計劃，我認為我們正在利用過去幾年的經驗教訓，當我們進入時，我們會變得更加聰明。

The better we get at that, the lower the -- if we can take cost out, we can take parts of the process out, some of the inefficiency there, we can build them faster, cheaper, and as the interest rates come down, the economics improve there as well. And that allows us to go faster.

我們做得越好，成本就越低——如果我們能夠降低成本，我們就可以消除部分流程，消除其中的一些低效率，我們可以更快、更便宜地建造它們，並且隨著利率的下降，那裡的經濟也有所改善。這讓我們可以走得更快。

So we're hoping those things are going to line up for us here in the next couple of years, and we'll kind of manage accordingly.

因此，我們希望這些事情能夠在未來幾年內為我們做好準備，並且我們將進行相應的管理。

John Heinbockel, Guggenheim.

約翰·海因博克爾，古根漢。

Hey, Jack, can you talk about how the foraging process has evolved? Right. So you think about how many new items you're introducing a year. Are all of those going through the innovation center first to prove themselves and then into the planogram?

嘿，傑克，你能談談覓食過程是如何演變的嗎？正確的。因此，您需要考慮每年要推出多少新產品。所有經過創新中心的人都是先證明自己，然後才進入貨架圖嗎？

And when you think about taking items out, I don't think it's one-for-one, one in, one out. But taking items out at the right time because I know you don't want them to go too mainstream. How are you sort of managing that process now, maybe versus a couple of years ago?

當你考慮取出物品時，我不認為這是一對一，一進一出。但要在正確的時間把一些東西拿出來，因為我知道你不希望它們變得太主流。與幾年前相比，您現在如何管理該流程？

Yeah, well, that's a good question. It's been a journey over the last couple of years, John. We've been committed to bringing innovative differentiated products to our customers. The foraging team have done an amazing job really making us the destination for those type of products, those entrepreneurs, those new innovative ideas.

是的，這是一個好問題。約翰，過去幾年這是一段旅程。我們一直致力於為客戶帶來創新的差異化產品。覓食團隊的工作非常出色，使我們成為此類產品、企業家和新創新理念的目的地。

And part of that, I think I said the last time when we spoke about this on the call was we're doing a lot of -- we're taking a lot of pitch slams where lots of suppliers can get access to us to see a lot of products. We're spending a lot of time in exhibitions and going to chase around the world looking at different things and different opportunities, different initiatives. And we're getting literally thousands of applications for the product. So that's certainly creating plenty of pipeline for bringing products into it.

其中一部分，我想我上次在電話會議上談到這個問題時說過，我們正在做很多事情——我們正在進行很多宣傳活動，很多供應商可以與我們聯繫以了解情況很多產品。我們花了很多時間在展覽上，並在世界各地尋找不同的事物、不同的機會、不同的舉措。我們確實收到了數千份該產品的申請。因此，這肯定會創造大量的管道來將產品引入其中。

Not everything goes to the innovation center first, but some of it does. And it's a very good testing ground for us. In some ways, it allows us to reduce -- not go to all stores as well, so that smaller vendors can have enough inventory to give us the opportunity. We've learned that a little bit that we can't necessarily go to all stores day one, that we've got to build that up with the vendor base when these are some of these smaller suppliers.

並非所有東西都會先進入創新中心，但其中一些會先進入創新中心。這對我們來說是一個非常好的試驗場。在某些方面，它使我們能夠減少——而不是去所有商店，這樣較小的供應商就可以有足夠的庫存給我們機會。我們了解到，我們不一定在第一天就去所有商店，當這些是一些較小的供應商時，我們必須與供應商基礎建立聯繫。

And the transition from the innovation center to the main store, about 25% of the products are finding their way into the main shelf, which does involve rejigging. And it means there's a lot of change. And I think our customers are appreciating the fact that new things are coming in so consistently.

從創新中心到主店的過渡中，大約 25% 的產品正在進入主貨架，這確實涉及重新調整。這意味著有很多變化。我認為我們的客戶正在欣賞新事物不斷湧現的事實。

And we're learning how to do that better as well, how to forecast it right, how to work with our vendors effectively. But as I said, this has been an evolution and a learning curve, and we'll continue to learn on this, John.

我們也在學習如何做得更好，如何正確預測，如何有效地與我們的供應商合作。但正如我所說，這是一個演變和學習曲線，我們將繼續學習，約翰。

And then a quick follow-up, supply chain. Supply chain, right? So I know at some point you'll build mid-Atlantic. It's probably too early for midwest. What else are you thinking about? I know you had a facility in Atlanta that didn't work out. Do you go back there to get more capacity in the southeast?

然後是快速跟進，供應鏈。供應鏈，對嗎？所以我知道在某個時候你會在大西洋中部建造。對於中西部來說可能還為時過早。你還想什麼呢？我知道你們在亞特蘭大有一家工廠沒有成功。你會回到那裡在東南部獲得更多的產能嗎？

We might need to do that because at the moment we're shipping it a little bit too far into the Atlanta business, and our Georgia business is doing really well. So yeah, we're going to need something south of the midwest to the mid-Atlantic going forward. When we need to do that, we're not quite sure. But we're probably going to need a DC in both the mid-Atlantic and closer to Atlanta.

我們可能需要這樣做，因為目前我們將其運送到亞特蘭大業務有點太遠了，而我們的喬治亞州業務做得非常好。所以，是的，我們未來將需要中西部以南到大西洋中部的一些東西。當我們需要這樣做時，我們不太確定。但我們可能需要在大西洋中部和靠近亞特蘭大的地區設立一個 DC。

John, I'd add Northern California too is a place where we need to expand space and expand capacity with our growth. So we're looking at that right now and looking for solutions in Northern California.

約翰，我想補充一點，北加州也是一個我們需要隨著我們的發展而擴大空間和容量的地方。因此，我們現在正在研究這個問題，並在北加州尋找解決方案。

Michael Montani, Evercore ISI.

邁克爾·蒙塔尼，Evercore ISI。

Just wanted to ask, if I could, on two fronts. One was on the core consumer that you're seeing, you mentioned obviously the healthy eating tailwinds. Just wondering if you're seeing any variation in terms of the low- to middle-income consumer versus your upper income core. If you could like discuss that a little bit further.

只是想問一下，我是否可以，從兩個方面進行。其中之一是關於您所看到的核心消費者，您顯然提到了健康飲食的有利因素。只是想知道您是否發現中低收入消費者與高收入核心消費者之間有任何差異。如果您願意進一步討論一下。

Well, we've talked a little bit about how our segmentation works. What we tend to find is we're not as directly related to earnings as we are to education level. And that people -- and I don't want to say this with hesitancy, people that have spent a bit more time thinking about what they eat and how they eat are the people that are reacting well to us.

好吧，我們已經討論了我們的細分是如何運作的。我們往往會發現，我們與收入的關係並不像與教育程度的關係那麼直接。我不想毫不猶豫地說，那些花更多時間思考他們吃什麼以及如何吃的人是對我們反應良好的人。

Not necessarily wealthy or poor people in between. We're tending to find that that's the cohort that works well for us. And younger consumers tend to be -- we're definitely drifting younger in our customer base. And that's coming about partly because of what I was talking about in social media, partly because that group of people are more thoughtful and thinking much more about what they eat and how they eat.

不一定是介於兩者之間的富人或窮人。我們傾向於發現這就是最適合我們的群體。年輕的消費者往往是－我們的客戶群肯定正在變得年輕化。出現這種情況的部分原因是我在社群媒體上談論的內容，部分原因是這群人更有思想，更多地思考他們吃什麼以及如何吃。

And as dietary trends have evolved, we're tending to find these are getting narrow -- almost narrower and narrower as a customer base. You've got very specific gluten-free, dairy allergens, vegan, vegetarian. Those specific dietary issues are becoming, I think, as we evolve our assortment, we're attracting the customers that are really thinking about that.

隨著飲食趨勢的發展，我們傾向於發現這些人群正在變得越來越窄——客戶群幾乎越來越窄。你有非常特定的無麩質、乳製品過敏原、純素食、素食。我認為，隨著我們產品種類的不斷發展，這些特定的飲食問題正在變得越來越重要，我們正在吸引那些真正考慮這個問題的顧客。

So, Mike, I'm not -- I don't really think we talk well or know well about how our income levels are, but we know really well about what the dietary trends are coming through. And that's what's driving our customer base.

所以，麥克，我真的不認為我們很好地談論或了解我們的收入水平如何，但我們非常了解飲食趨勢正在發生什麼。這就是推動我們客戶群發展的動力。

Got you. And then maybe if I could follow up on the margin front. Obviously, you gave some color into the fourth quarter of the 100 bps of gross and then some SG&A deleverage. So I was wondering if you could peel back the onion a little further in terms of what's driving that outlook.

明白你了。然後也許我可以在保證金方面跟進。顯然，您為第四季度 100 個基點的總成長率以及一些 SG&A 去槓桿化賦予了一些色彩。所以我想知道你是否可以進一步了解推動這一前景的因素。

And then I guess longer term, you know, it seems like there's been good progress and shrink from a waste perspective, but there could be a lot more to go, as well as the vendor leverage seems like a pretty new thing in our discussion. So just kind of wondering, does that provide opportunity for margins to actually move higher over time or do you feel they're at a level that's sustainable now?

然後我想從長遠來看，你知道，從浪費的角度來看，似乎取得了良好的進展並有所縮減，但可能還有很多工作要做，而且供應商槓桿在我們的討論中似乎是一個相當新的事情。所以只是想知道，這是否為利潤率提供了隨著時間的推移而實際提高的機會，或者您認為它們現在處於可持續的水平嗎？

Hey, Mike. So I'll start with the shorter term on the kind of Q3, Q4 in the margin space. It's shrink is the big driver. We've talked about it the last couple quarters.

嘿，麥克。因此，我將從短期的第三季、第四季的利潤空間開始。它的收縮是最大的驅動力。過去幾季我們已經討論過這個問題。

The team has really gotten after it. So we're pleased with how quickly they've gotten to some of the inefficiency that we felt like we had in shrink over the longer term, and they're pulling that a little bit into this year, as you saw with the third-quarter result. That was also our easiest compare from a shrink perspective, so we were starting to get our arms around it last year in the fourth quarter -- later in the fourth quarter. So the comparison is a little bit tougher for us. So that's why it would be a little maybe less than what it was in Q3.

該團隊確實做到了這一點。因此，我們對他們很快就解決了一些低效率問題感到高效，從長遠來看，我們認為我們在收縮中遇到了一些低效率問題，他們正在將這一點推遲到今年，正如你在第三次中看到的那樣——季度結果。從收縮的角度來看，這也是我們最簡單的比較，因此我們在去年第四季（第四季晚些時候）開始著手處理它。因此，這種比較對我們來說有點困難。這就是為什麼它可能會比第三季少一些。

On the longer term, I would point back to really confident in our algorithm, stable bottom line. We feel really good about that. The parts and pieces we'll deal with year to year. We've made investments in that inventory management space that's part of driving that gross margin expansion.

從長遠來看，我會指出對我們的演算法非常有信心，穩定的底線。我們對此感覺非常好。我們每年都會處理的零件。我們在庫存管理領域進行了投資，這是推動毛利率擴張的一部分。

So we'll continue to balance where we need to make the investments in order to drive the business. And that could be in gross, it could be in SG&A, but we're really good -- really confident in a stable bottom line going forward. And that goes the same for next year off of this new higher jumping off point and what we guided today.

因此，我們將繼續平衡需要進行投資的領域，以推動業務發展。這可能是在總額上，也可能是在銷售管理費用上，但我們真的很好——對未來穩定的利潤非常有信心。明年，在這個新的更高起點和我們今天的指導方針基礎上，情況也是如此。

So feel good about that. And we've got levers in gross, we've got levers in SG&A, and we'll manage through that year to year.

所以對此感覺良好。我們在總額上有槓桿，在SG&A上也有槓桿，我們將年復一年地進行管理。

Kelly Bania, BMO Capital Markets.

Kelly Bania，BMO 資本市場。

Hi. Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the e-commerce growth. Obviously, that continues to accelerate to a pretty meaningful level here. Can you just unpack it maybe a little bit by digital partner, whether that's Instacart or Uber or Dash, or by new customer versus existing customer. Just try to think a little bit about what that longer-term growth rate or penetration for e-commerce could look like.

你好。想知道您是否可以多談談電子商務的成長。顯然，這繼續加速到一個相當有意義的水平。您能否透過數位合作夥伴（無論是 Instacart、Uber 還是 Dash），或透過新客戶與現有客戶來稍微解開一下這個問題。試著想想電子商務的長期成長率或滲透率會是什麼樣子。

And then to follow up, I guess I'm surprised we haven't gotten to any questions on the loyalty test. And if you're willing to talk about just how that is going and any early learnings or tweaks to that as you test that.

然後，我想我很驚訝我們沒有回答任何有關忠誠度測試的問題。如果您願意談論進展以及測試時的任何早期學習或調整。

Sure. So e-commerce, we're delighted with our e-commerce business. It's evolving and developing really well. We've given those omnichannel customers the option of now operating through DoorDash and Uber Eats and the Instacart business continues to do well.

當然。所以電子商務，我們對我們的電子商務業務感到滿意。它的發展和發展非常好。我們為這些全通路客戶提供了現在透過 DoorDash 和 Uber Eats 運營的選擇，並且 Instacart 業務繼續表現良好。

Our customers are truly omnichannel. And I think the encouraging thing about it, and I've said this in the past, Kelly, we're very encouraged by the fact that our mix within our e-comm business is the same as our mix within our standard -- our bricks-and-mortar business.

我們的客戶是真正的全通路客戶。我認為這是令人鼓舞的事情，我過去說過，凱利，我們對我們電子商務業務中的組合與我們標準中的組合相同的事實感到非常鼓舞 - 我們的標準實體業務。

The fact that we're selling the same amount of produce as we do in our bricks-and-mortar business is pretty unusual, and it shows that the assortment and what we have is we've got a lot of trust with our target customers who are navigating their way through between different channels and whether they collect it at the store, whether they get it delivered or whether they go into the store and buy it. We're seeing steady growth in all of those issues over the course of the last, certainly in Q3, we saw it strongly in everything.

事實上，我們銷售的產品數量與實體業務相同，這是很不尋常的，這表明我們的產品種類和我們所擁有的產品對我們的目標客戶有很大的信任他們在不同的管道之間穿行，以及他們是在商店取貨、送貨還是到商店購買。在過去的過程中，我們看到所有這些問題都在穩步增長，當然在第三季度，我們在所有方面都看到了這一點。

I think e-commerce will continue to creep up a little bit going forward. What it'll actually be will be determined by our customers and we'll let them, the customers, take us where they need to take us.

我認為電子商務未來將繼續小幅成長。它實際上是什麼將由我們的客戶決定，我們將讓他們，即客戶，帶我們去他們需要帶我們去的地方。

And just sort of linking it to the loyalty program a little bit. What we're getting from that in the first few stores that we're involved in is understanding how to get our customers to scan, how to get our customers to sign up. Those are the two key initiatives on it. And we're seeing numbers that are very encouraging in the Tucson and Nashville markets on the back of that.

只是將其與忠誠度計劃稍微聯繫起來。我們從我們參與的最初幾家商店中得到的是了解如何讓我們的顧客進行掃描，如何讓我們的顧客註冊。這是這方面的兩項關鍵措施。在此背景下，我們在圖森和納許維爾市場看到了非常令人鼓舞的數字。

What we then do with that information and how we navigate, that's what we're learning. We're learning how to understand the customer that's coming from that information and coming from those scanning data. And that's something that we're right in the middle of learning. And we're going to extend it to a few more stores over the course of the next little while. And that'll allow us to learn even more.

然後我們如何處理這些資訊以及我們如何導航，這就是我們正在學習的內容。我們正在學習如何從這些資訊和掃描資料中了解客戶。這正是我們正在學習的。我們將在接下來的一段時間內將其擴展到更多商店。這將使我們了解更多。

And then the rollout program of how to really navigate our way through, how do we stimulate our customers to be -- have more affinity to the Sprouts brand going forward, that'll start to come towards the end of 2025. And we're pretty encouraged with the way it's at at the moment. And we're taking the time to really learn to create the kind of program that's very unique in the marketplace and not a kind of me-too grocery program.

然後是如何真正引導我們前進的推出計劃，我們如何刺激我們的客戶對未來的 Sprouts 品牌有更多的親和力，這將在 2025 年底開始實施。我們對目前的情況感到非常鼓舞。我們正在花時間真正學習創建一個在市場上非常獨特的程序，而不是一種模仿的雜貨程序。

Robert Dickerson, Jefferies.

羅伯特·迪克森，傑弗里斯。

I guess just kind of a general question as to what's changed relative to earlier part of the year. Clearly, now the updated guide is much more attractive, let's say, than it was nine months ago. And then it also -- if you're saying it, well, that should also continue in the fourth quarter.

我想這只是一個一般性問題，與今年早些時候相比發生了什麼變化。顯然，現在更新的指南比九個月前更具吸引力。然後它也 - 如果你這麼說，那麼這也應該在第四季度繼續下去。

So I'm just curious, like, it seems like maybe there was just not as much success baked in, but you weren't being conservative, right? And maybe now units were growing and maybe there could be a little macro tailwind, but it doesn't sound like you're really calling out much coming from a hurricane or better produce or what have you. So I'm just curious, like, what shocked you, so to speak, on the upside over the past few months.

所以我只是很好奇，好像也許沒有那麼成功，但你並不保守，對吧？也許現在單位正在增長，也許可能會有一點宏觀順風，但聽起來你並沒有真正從颶風或更好的農產品或你擁有的東西中呼喚太多。所以我只是很好奇，比如說，過去幾個月的正面方面是什麼讓你感到震驚。

Well, yeah, I think you've called it there. It surprised us at how quickly it's accelerated. We saw pretty good acceleration through the last couple of years and into the first quarter up to the four, and then it's really taken off the last few quarters.

嗯，是的，我想你已經在那裡稱呼它了。它的加速速度讓我們感到驚訝。在過去的幾年裡，我們看到了相當好的加速，到第一季一直到第四季度，然後在過去的幾個季度裡，它確實取得了飛速發展。

What's driving it under the covers is brick-and-mortar traffic, same thing that was part of our acceleration from Q2 to Q3. That's been the biggest change. We're getting more customers into our stores. Certainly, the things we highlighted in the script that the marketing teams are doing here, they're doing a great job. And I think we've made substantial progress here in the last 12 to 18 months and the team's done a really good job.

推動它發展的是實體流量，這也是我們從第二季加速到第三季的一部分。這是最大的改變。我們正在吸引更多顧客進入我們的商店。當然，我們在腳本中強調的行銷團隊在這裡所做的事情，他們做得很好。我認為過去 12 到 18 個月我們已經取得了實質進展，團隊做得非常好。

So I think it's a little bit of everything working and that's pretty rare too. Certainly, I haven't seen a lot of that in my career where everything's going in the right direction at the same time, and that's kind of what's happened here. The things that we're working in Q1 continue to work. There's made some improvements in the parts of the business that weren't working as well.

所以我認為這一切都在起作用，而且這種情況也很罕見。當然，在我的職業生涯中，我還沒有看到很多事情同時朝著正確的方向發展的情況，而這就是這裡發生的事情。我們在第一季所做的事情仍然有效。對業務中表現不佳的部分進行了一些改進。

And then we've got these tailwinds sending people our way, and the team's doing a great job executing our strategy and taking advantage. When we bring new customers in, we're showing them a good experience and giving them reason to come back.

然後我們就得到了這些順風車，團隊在執行我們的策略並充分利用這一優勢方面做得很好。當我們引入新客戶時，我們向他們展示良好的體驗，並給他們回來的理由。

Robert, there's really strong momentum in the business. Exactly why we're doing the exact numbers is difficult for us to call, but there's tailwinds. The execution in stores is as good as it's been. We've got great marketing. The merchants are working well.

羅伯特，這個行業的勢頭確實強勁。我們很難確切地知道為什麼我們要給出確切的數字，但也有有利的因素。商店的執行情況一如既往。我們有很棒的行銷。商家生意很好。

There's momentum across the board. And when you get momentum, it usually fuels itself. And we're just trying to keep that running at the moment, Robert.

整體勢頭強勁。當你獲得動力時，它通常會自我推動。羅伯特，我們目前只是想保持這種狀態。

Okay, great. Yeah, I mean, look, it all makes logical sense. And you had the comment earlier about as you build some critical mass in certain markets, right? It's word of mouth, clearly the health and wellness and just the feeling of the in-store experience is clearly on trend. But then, I step back to the longer-term algo, right?

好的，太好了。是的，我的意思是，看，這一切都合乎邏輯。您之前曾評論過，當您在某些市場建立了一定的臨界質量時，對嗎？它的口耳相傳、健康和保健以及店內體驗的感覺顯然正在流行。但接下來，我又回到長期演算法，對吧？

The 2% to 4%, I think this came up a little earlier. I'm just going circle back, definitely gives you confidence in the 2% to 4% for next year. But now, you're also saying, well, midpoint of the range, it's 9% in the fourth quarter. So why couldn't it be above algo, at least in the first half of the year, right? I mean, your comps get a little more challenging, but like what would preclude you from actually being able to be above algo?

2%到4%，我認為這個問題提得更早一些。我只是回過頭來，肯定會讓你對明年 2% 到 4% 的成長充滿信心。但現在，你還說，嗯，範圍的中點，第四季是 9%。那麼為什麼它不能高於演算法，至少在今年上半年，對吧？我的意思是，你的比賽變得更具挑戰性，但是什麼會阻止你真正超越演算法？

Yeah, I think -- Rob, this is Curtis. I think we're not going to slow it down from getting to that place. I think we'll have good momentum as we head into the year. We'll have a better update when we get to February. We aspire to deliver these types of numbers as long as we can. Then we'll be up against those tougher numbers in the second half.

是的，我想──羅布，這是柯蒂斯。我認為我們不會放慢它到達那個地方的速度。我認為進入這一年我們將會有良好的勢頭。到了二月份，我們將會有更好的更新。我們渴望盡可能長時間地提供這些類型的數字。然後我們將在下半場面對那些更艱難的數字。

And as I think about it more in terms of that, we feel confident we can deliver on that 2% to 4% on this higher base we're on. We should have some tailwinds early in the year.

當我更多地考慮這一點時，我們有信心在這個更高的基礎上實現 2% 到 4% 的目標。今年年初我們應該會遇到一些順風車。

So our next year, maybe it's toward the higher end of that 2% to 4%. But again, I want to get through the election, see how the consumer does through the holidays, get through our healthy fresh start, and then we'll be a little more pinpoint when we get to February.

所以我們明年可能會達到 2% 到 4% 的高階。但同樣，我想透過選舉，看看消費者如何度過假期，度過我們健康的新開始，然後當我們到二月時我們會更加精確。

Great. And then just one more easy quick one. For Q4 SG&A, I know you're saying SG&A was up clearly in Q3. It's a little bit of an offset of the gross margin. It was up, let's say, almost like $80 million year over year in Q3 in dollar terms.

偉大的。然後還有一個簡單快速的方法。對於第 4 季的 SG&A，我知道您是說第 3 季的 SG&A 明顯上升。這稍微抵消了毛利率。可以說，以美元計算，第三季年增了近 8,000 萬美元。

Is that like should we be thinking kind of a similar amount? Or maybe it's a little bit larger given kind of the seasonal aspect of the business? Just trying to gauge how you're thinking about the actual SG&A in Q4? And that's it. Thanks.

我們是否應該考慮類似的金額？或者考慮到業務的季節性因素，它可能會更大一點？只是想了解您如何看待第四季的實際銷售及管理費用？就是這樣。謝謝。

Yeah, I think about it -- we talk about it a little bit more in terms of the basis points and I don't have the raw dollar numbers off the top of my head. But I think it's going to be pretty similar in the fourth quarter is kind of what we're anticipating to what we saw here in the third quarter.

是的，我想了一下——我們在基點方面多討論了一點，而且我腦子裡沒有原始的美元數字。但我認為第四季的情況將與我們預期的第三季的情況非常相似。

Leah Jordan, Goldman Sachs.

利亞·喬丹，高盛。

I just wanted to dig into some basket trends a little bit more. First, where are we on the volume recovery for the average basket? Have we gotten back to flat?

我只是想進一步深入了解一些籃子趨勢。首先，平均籃子的成交量恢復到什麼程度？我們回到公寓了嗎？

And then second, we're seeing inflation reemerge in various commodities. So I guess what's your view on inflation from here and how are you thinking about AUR as a comp driver going forward?

其次，我們看到各種商品再次出現通貨膨脹。那麼我想您對通膨有何看法？

So on the AUR as a comp driver, we expect it to be a part of driving our comp when we get into -- we're kind of -- I would say we're stable and normalized now. We're seeing those trends play out as you would anticipate.

因此，對於 AUR 作為比較驅動程序，我們希望當我們進入時，它會成為驅動我們比較的一部分 - 我們有點 - 我想說我們現在已經穩定並標準化了。我們看到這些趨勢的發展正如您所預期的那樣。

Our business is always a little more volatile. It's going to be a little more up and down with the fresh aspect of our business. So we'll see it in different parts of our business, but we expect that to be a driver. But we are in that kind of stable space and have been for the last few quarters.

我們的業務總是比較不穩定。我們業務的新鮮方面將會有更多的起伏。因此，我們會在業務的不同部分看到它，但我們希望這成為一個驅動力。但我們正處於這種穩定的空間，過去幾季一直如此。

On the unit front, we're driving more units year on year. I think some of the things, we're seeing the mix a little bit with value packs. We talked about some smaller baskets as we get more customers in who are trying us or we get more customers back. We're maybe doing a fill-in shop. That's having a mixed impact.

在單位方面，我們逐年駕駛更多單位。我認為有些事情，我們看到了一些與超值包的混合。我們討論了一些較小的購物籃，因為我們吸引了更多嘗試我們的客戶，或者我們得到了更多客戶。我們也許正在開一家填充店。這產生了複雜的影響。

But when you get down to the core of our business, apples to apples skews year over year, we're in that low single digit from an inflation standpoint and we're seeing units flatten, or they are flat here in the third quarter on that kind of set of core skews. So it's played out as expected. And going forward, I think it'll play out similarly here in the fourth quarter as far as the mix between traffic and units and AUR.

但當你深入到我們業務的核心時，我們會發現，從通貨膨脹的角度來看，我們處於較低的個位數，我們看到單位數量趨於平緩，或者說在第三季度持平。種核心傾斜。所以事情就如預想的那樣進行了。展望未來，我認為就流量、單位數和 AUR 之間的組合而言，第四季的情況也會類似。

Yeah, and the movement's encouraging as to where we're at at the moment. And with regard to inflation, there is some volatility in the fresh markets across the -- and it's more volatile for us because we've got a bigger produce mix than everybody else. So we are seeing some volatility, both ups and downs. And I think that's back to a more normalized kind of inflation environment, where there's a lot of volatility and press, depending on certain seasonal aspects and weather and availability of labor and things like that.

是的，就我們目前所處的情況而言，這項運動令人鼓舞。就通貨膨脹而言，整個生鮮市場存在一定的波動性，對我們來說波動性更大，因為我們的農產品組合比其他所有人都多。因此，我們看到了一些波動，有漲有跌。我認為這又回到了一種更正常化的通膨環境，其中存在很大的波動性和壓力，這取決於某些季節性方面、天氣以及勞動力的可用性等。

So there's a lot of talk about that in the industry. But overall, inflation's definitely settled down.

所以業界對此有很多討論。但整體而言，通膨確實已經穩定下來。

Okay, great. And then for my follow-up, I just wanted to see if you could comment on the competitive environment and how it's maybe changed over the last few months. I mean, obviously, you guys are performing well, but just we're hearing more about price investments within produce from others.

好的，太好了。然後，對於我的後續行動，我只是想看看您是否可以對競爭環境以及過去幾個月可能發生的變化發表評論。我的意思是，顯然，你們表現得很好，但我們只是從其他人那裡聽到了更多關於農產品價格投資的消息。

So just how do you think about that? I know you're very differentiated, but just curious what you're seeing there.

那麼您對此有何看法？我知道你非常與眾不同，但只是好奇你在那裡看到了什麼。

Well, as you know, Leah, we spend a lot of time watching our produce price and giving it such an important part of our business. We're very focused on organic produce pricing and feel we're in very good shape there. We're not seeing a lot of aggressive investment in produce across the board. There's one or two little pockets in different geographies and we're watching that closely.

嗯，正如你所知，利亞，我們花了很多時間關注我們的農產品價格，並將其作為我們業務的重要組成部分。我們非常關注有機產品的定價，並認為我們在這方面的狀況非常好。我們沒有看到對農產品的全面積極投資。不同地區存在一兩個小區域，我們正在密切關注。

But the volatility outside of that market -- outside of our produce comparisons doesn't really affect us too much. I think there is potentially some volatility amongst the conventional grocers and what Walmart are doing and all that kind of stuff, but it doesn't really affect us too much.

但市場之外的波動——在我們的產品比較之外——並沒有真正對我們產生太大影響。我認為傳統雜貨店和沃爾瑪正在做的事情以及所有類似的事情之間可能存在一些波動，但它並沒有對我們產生太大影響。

We pay a lot of attention to certain people on produce pricing in certain markets. And we haven't seen anything that's put us in a place that we're kind of concerned about it.

我們非常關注某些人對某些市場的農產品定價。我們還沒有看到任何讓我們感到擔憂的事情。

Thank you. I'd like to turn it back over to Jack Sinclair for any close remarks.

謝謝。我想把它轉回給傑克辛克萊（Jack Sinclair），請他發表任何評論。

Well, thank you everybody for your interest in our company and we look forward to updating you in due course. Take care, everyone.

好的，感謝大家對我們公司的關注，我們期待在適當的時候向您通報最新情況。大家保重。

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does include the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

感謝您參加今天的會議。這確實包括該程式。您現在可以斷開連線。大家，祝你有美好的一天。