Costco Wholesale Corp (COST) — Q1 2017 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Kimberlynn. Good afternoon to everyone. Please note that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results and/or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in today’s call as well as other risks identified from time to time in the Company’s public statements and reports filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and we do not undertake to update these statements except as required by law. For the 12-week fiscal first quarter, that ended two weeks ago Sunday – this past Sunday, earnings came in at $1.24 a share, up 14% or $0.15 a share over last year's reported earnings per share of $1.09. A few items to point out, as was mentioned in today's release, this year's first quarter benefited from a non-recurring $51 million legal settlement. This $51 million pre-tax figure represented a 19 basis point benefit to gross margin and a benefit to first quarter's earnings per share of $0.07 a share. Last year in the first quarter there were two non-recurring items that we mentioned that together negatively impacted last year's earnings results. In that quarter, we recorded a $22 million pre-tax charge, which represented an 8 basis point impact to SG&A to the negative and a reduction in last year's first quarter earnings of $0.04 a share. Stock compensation expense was 13% or $25 million higher year-over-year, so $0.04 a share more. There are about 4,800 of our employees that receive restricted stock units as a significant part of their annual compensation. These grants are made annually each October in our fiscal first quarter, and then typically vest over a five-year period with accelerated vesting when the recipient reaches 25 years, 30 years, and 35 years of employment with the Company. Factors driving this increase included additional levels of accelerated vesting given the rising number of our employees achieving long tenure with the Company. An increased stock price with a five-year ago grant coming off of the thing when the stock price was in the 80's to last year's grant when the stock price was in the 150’s and of course having a larger number of employees in the plan. Note that the $25 million year-over-year increase in Q1 is a larger year-over-year dollar increase than we'd expect to record in each of the second, third and fourth fiscal quarters of this year, given the October RSU grant cycle. Next, gas profitability; our profits from gas during the quarter as compared to last year's first quarter were lower by about $20 million pre-tax or $0.03 a share, primarily a function of last year's very strong profit results in the first quarter for gas. Fifth, IT costs. These expenses negatively impacted SG&A in the first quarter on an incremental year-over-year basis by about $18 million or 5 basis points to SG&A, which is about $0.025 a share. And lastly, when I get to the discussion on year-over-year gross margin and SG&A comparisons, I’ll review with you the very positive impact that our new Citi Visa deal has had on margins, SG&A, and of course our bottom line. Turning to the first quarter sales, total reported sales were up 3% and our 12-week reported comparable sales figure on a reported basis came in at 1% year-over-year. Comp sales were negatively impacted by weaker FX relative to the U.S. dollar and slightly impacted by gas price deflation, for a combined negative impact to the reported comp number of about 0.75% of sales. Excluding gas deflation, the reported 1% U.S. comp figure for Q1 remained at 1%. The reported Canadian comp figure plus 4% would have been plus 5% ex-gas deflation in FX. And the reported 0% other international comp figure excluding gas and FX would have been plus 3%. Total comps reported at 1% for the quarter again excluding gas and FX, would have been plus 2% and of course this plus 2% total Company adjusted figure is also being impacted by increases in deflation and other merchandising categories overall primarily in foods and hardlines. In terms of new openings, in the first quarter we opened nine new locations which included one relo, so a net increase of eight. And later in the call, I will discuss our upcoming expansion plans for the balance of the fiscal year. This afternoon, I’ll also touch on membership trends and renewal rates, again, discuss margins and SG&A in Q1; update on the Citi Visa, the new Citi Visa relationship and the card which we began offering in the U.S. and Puerto Rico this past June 20th during the fiscal fourth quarter of 2016, talk about e-commerce and then a couple of other items of note. So going down the income statement, again sales for the first quarter, the 12 weeks ended November 20 were $27.5 billion, up 3% from last year's first quarter of $26.6 billion. And again, on a comp basis reported 1% in ex-gas and FX up 2%, again that up 2% still being impacted by other aspects of deflation that we hadn't called out historically. In terms of sales comparisons by geographic region, within the U.S., Northwest Texas and Midwest showed the best results. Internationally in local currencies, better performing countries were Mexico, UK and Korea. In terms of merchandise categories for the quarter, in terms of sales for those within food and sundries, overall, flat year-over-year with spirits, sundries and deli coming in best. Tobacco, of course, as I mentioned in the last call was down a little over 20% year-over-year as we continue to see lower sales in that category. As I mentioned before these big tobacco declines should anniversary this coming spring. For hardlines, also flat year-over-year. The departments with the strong results were hardware, tires, and health and beauty aids. I give you an example of deflation which is impacting this department. And November for example, our reported November sales, TV sales in dollars were up 2% and units were up 17%, so quite a bit of deflation on big ticket items as well as some of the fresh foods items that I mentioned earlier. Within softlines, up low single-digit comps with apparel, small electrics and special events being the standouts. And within fresh foods, produce and deli were the strongest departments. Again, in recent months we have seen additional deflation overall in the low-to-mid single-digit range in many food and fresh meat categories and a little more in some of the other non-food areas as I mentioned like electronics. Moving to the line items on the income statement, membership fees good results for the first quarter, coming in up 6% and 6 basis points as a percent of sales, up $37 million year-over-year. In terms of membership fees, good renewal rates, 90% U.S. and Canada actually 90.3% and 88% worldwide, rounding up to 88%. Continued increasing penetration of the executive membership and in terms of number of members at Q1 end, compared to fiscal year end 12 weeks earlier, Gold Star which stood at 36.8 million accounts, at Q1 end it was 37.1 million. Primary business was 7.3, both at fiscal year end and at Q1 end. Business add-ons 3.5 and 3.5. For total membership, household memberships 47.6 million at fiscal year end and up to 47.9 million at first quarter end and given that many of the people have two cards, many of the accounts have two cards. At fiscal year end, we stood at 86.7 million in cardholders and at first quarter end 87.3 million people with a membership card. At November 20 first quarter end, Executive Members stood at 17.7 million member households, an increase of 348,000 since the end of the previous quarter. That's about 29,000 additional Executive Members per week increased during the 12-week quarter. And as I have said before, Executive Members are a little over a third of our base and a little bit more than two-thirds of our sales where Executive Members are offered. In terms of renewal rates, our business renewal rate, which at fiscal year end stood at 94.4%, came in at 94.3% renewal rate as of first quarter end. Gold Star at 89.5% both at fiscal year end and at the first quarter end. For total 90.3% at fiscal year end and it remained at 90.3% at first quarter end. Worldwide, at year end it was 87.6% and it hit 87.5% at first quarter end. As you know it's been probably almost two years in Canada when we converted to the MasterCard and with that we saw as we would have expected a slight decline in renewal rate. As occurred in Q4 2016 this past summer, we saw that finally reverse, and saw an uptick in renewal rates in Canada and that continued in Q1 of this fiscal year too. We are now seeing the same thing in the U.S. had ticked down a little bit over the last couple of quarters and have ticked down a little bit as well in Q1. We don't see any issues there at this point. Regarding membership fees, at the beginning of this past September or beginning of our fiscal year, we increased membership fees in our Asia operations, Taiwan, Korea and Japan as well as in Mexico and the UK. And again, that's because of – due to deferred accounting. It is about 15% of our membership fee income base and due to deferred accounting and the fact that it will roll in over the next 12 months in September that will be a little less than $0.01 a share a quarter. Before continuing down the income statement line items, a quick update on the Citi Visa card offering. This past June 20, midway through the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016, we stopped accepting American Express at all U.S. and Puerto Rico Costcos and at costco.com and began accepting all Visa cards, including of course, the new Citi Visa Anywhere card. The new card is great in terms of increased cash back rewards for our members and that’s great for us as well in terms of driving member value and sales over the next years, and of course lowering our effective merchant fees related to the new program. In terms of the new card, as was mentioned over the last couple of quarters on these calls, there were approximately 11.4 million American Express co-branded cards or about 7.5 million accounts that were transferred from American Express to Citi for conversion to the new Citi Visa Anywhere card as over 85% of the accounts transferred over have been activated. And since the June 20 cutover several months ago, we have 1 million members that have signed up for and have been approved for the new Citi Visa card. Most of them have it in hand, but to the extent that it was the last couple of weeks; they may not have gotten their card yet. In terms of conversion, usage, and new sign up for the card, all good so far. Now turning to gross margin. Our reported gross margin in the first quarter was higher year-over-year by 29 basis points coming in at 11.58 this year versus 11.29 last year. As usual, I’ll jot down a few numbers to make the two columns for the quarter, reported and without gas deflation. In terms of core merchandising, year-over-year in the first quarter, core merchandising was up 19 basis points of 16 without gas deflation. Ancillary businesses down 5%, minus 5 year-over-year and for the quarter minus 6 without deflation, 2% reward, minus 2 in the quarter on a reported basis, minus 1 without gas deflation. LIFO minus 2 and minus 2, other which is the big one-time non-recurring benefit we got from the litigation settlement plus 19 basis points both for the reported and without gas. All told for the quarter, we reported again the 29 basis point improvement in ex-gas deflation and 26 basis points. So overall, again 26 basis points up on a kind of ex-gas basis. The core merchandise component was higher by 19 basis points year-over-year and again 16 without the gas deflation. The majority of the core gross margin increase and already taking out, we've separated out the one-time legal settlement. About 13 basis points of that 16 if you will was due to higher year-over-year revenue share and bounties associated with the new Citi Visa agreement. Some of those monies go to the revenue line as revenue share. The gross margin of our core merchandising categories, which are the food and sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh foods. That gross margin as a percent of their own sales were higher year-over-year in the first quarter by 17 basis points with foods and sundries, hardlines and fresh foods all showing higher year-over-year margins and softlines being down a little bit year-over-year and one of the impacts was the warmth of the season and outerwear issues. Ancillary and other business gross margin was down 5 basis points, 6 basis points, ex-gas deflation in the quarter. All the function of the lower year-over-year gas profits as I discussed earlier in the call, ex-gasoline operations, all other ancillary and other business gross margins were up 6 basis points. 2% reward, again ex-gas, a negative impact of 1 basis point and that's inside margin. That's a sales penetration and the associated executive member awards from our executive members continue to grow. LIFO in the first quarter flat this year, we did not book a LIFO credit card charge and compared to a 2 basis point positive or a $5 million pre-tax credit last year in the quarter. And lastly, the one-time non-recurring legal settlement has benefited Q1 gross margin by 19 basis points as we discussed in the beginning of the call. Moving on to SG&A, our SG&A percentage in the first quarter year-over-year was higher by 16 basis points on a reported basis and by 13 basis points on ex-gas deflation. Again, I'll have you just jot down a few line items, core operations for the quarter was higher or negative 8 basis points and without gas the negative 6. Central higher by 9 and 9 both reported without gas deflation. Stock compensation expense minus 7 and minus 6. Other plus 8 and plus 8 that’s that rough $20 million or $22 million amount that I told you about earlier in the call that impacted SG&A to the positive last year versus nothing this year. And again reported SG&A was higher by 16 basis points in the quarter higher by 13 ex-gas deflation. The core operations component of SG&A again in the chart shows 8% higher – I’m sorry 8 basis points higher year-over-year reported and 6 ex-gas. This minus 6 consisted of higher payroll and benefits of about 31 basis points year-over-year that certainly impacted by the lower sales result and certainly that's impacted by the deflation I’ll give you a couple examples of that later. This was primarily offset by lower year-over-year merchant fees as a result of the switch to Citi Visa. That had a benefit to the SG&A line of plus 25 basis points impact of the positive. Central expense was higher year-over-year in Q1 by 9, increased IT spending again as I mentioned was 5 of that. Stock compensation expense higher by 5 or 6 without gas. And lastly, the other item I mentioned the plus 8 was non-recurring in nature. Next on the income statement line, pre-opening expense was $4 million lower this year versus last year coming in at $22 million versus $26 million a year-ago really a function of openings. This year in Q1 we had 9 openings, last year 13 each of the 9 included 1 relo in the 13 last year in the first quarter and 2 relos, pretty much in line with that number of openings. All told, operating income in the first quarter came in up $82 million or 11, but up $9 million or 1% year-over-year excluding just the non-recurring items that I previously mentioned. Below the operating income line, interest expense in the first quarter came in at $29 million this year versus $33 million in last year. Lower due to the retirement of some senior notes in December of last year. Interest income and other was lower by $2 million in the quarter coming at $26 million versus $28 million a year ago. Actual interest income for the quarter was better year-over-year this was offset by approximately $4.5 million in charges related to the FX transactions that usually fluctuate pluses and minuses in the zero to 10 million range, so no surprises there. Overall, reported pre-tax income on a reported basis was higher by 11% again higher by 1% ex those non-recurring items that I mentioned earlier in the call. In terms of income taxes, our tax rate in the first quarter came in at 34.4 for the quarter compared to 36.1 last year. We benefited from a couple of positive discrete items this year in Q1, our anticipated effective rate for the year is expected to be approximately 35.2% as best we can tell at this point. Overall reported net income $545 million this year up $65 million from $480 million last year, so an increase of 14% ex the non-recurring items that I mentioned up 3%. And next for a quick rundown of other topics, while the balance sheet is included in this afternoon's press release. A couple of the balance sheet info items, depreciation and amortization from the cash flow statement which is not here for the quarter came in at $297 million for the quarter. Accounts Payable if you look at one of things we always look at is our accounts payable as a percent of inventories. On a reported basis it was up from a 100% a year-ago in the quarter and 203%. If you take out 9 merchandise payables and more of an accounts payable of merchandise versus inventories improved from a 90% to 93% from last year's first quarter into this year's first quarter end. Average inventory per warehouse was actually lower by about $67,000 per warehouse coming in right at $14.9 million a year ago and $14.83 million per location this year. FX was about roughly $70,000 lower, FX was about $170,000 lower just the impact of FX so about 100 net if you assume flat FX. That’s about what majors was up electronics, it was up a $117,000, so really not a lot of pluses and minuses over sub-departments but pretty much in line and pretty much flat year-over-year. In terms of CapEx we spent approximately $670 million during the quarter and our estimate for the whole year as I mentioned hasn’t changed from last quarter end, our expectation for fiscal 2017 is somewhere in the $2.6 billion to $2.8 billion range compared to $2.6 billion for all of fiscal 2016. Next, Costco online, we're now in of course in the U.S., Canada, UK, Mexico and more recently Korea and Taiwan. For the first quarter sales and profits were up, total online sales were up 8% in the quarter and 7% on a comp basis, pretty choppy essentially the first several weeks and the last several weeks of the quarter we're in the mid singles with the middle part of it in the low doubles, if you will. I want to point out that over the past three weeks and that would include the last week of Q1, which is the Thanksgiving week, and the first two weeks of our second fiscal quarter, e-com sales were up in the low to mid teens including some results for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And of course, that's not withstanding significant amount of TV sales which were essentially flat in dollars and up 15% in units. Lastly, as it relates to our online business, we are improving our offerings and enhancing our member experience. I've touched on this a little bit during last quarter’s call. Our current focus comes in three primary areas in terms of improving merchandise first, we are adding more exciting high-end brand in merchandise on an everyday basis, we are improving in-stocks on high velocity items and there are a few other things that we will be doing coming in the first couple of months of the new calendar year. Second, we are improving the experience and functionality of our site, we are improving our search that we have and are continuing to do that. We have shortened the checkout process from many clicks to two and so a big improvement recognizing this is new for us. We are simplifying and automating our returns process, a much better experience particularly on big ticket items and we have seen great improvement in that in the last several weeks and we are improving our members' ability to track their orders. Again, that's something that we were not terribly good at historically. And thirdly, we are improving our distribution logistics. We have increased the number of depots from where we fill online orders, so closer and faster and less expensive delivery. And again, look for more improved and quicker distribution comments from us in early calendar 2017. Next, in terms of expansion, I mentioned we had eight net new units this year, this fiscal first quarter. We plan to add two for Q2 and a net of five for Q3, excluding the relocations. And a net of 16 in Q4 for an anticipated number for the year of net new units of 31, 34 less than three relocations, so 31 net new locations. Last year, recall we opened 29 so about 4.5% square footage growth. If we get to the 31 that would be about the same, about 4.25% plus square footage growth. Assuming the 31 net new openings in fiscal 2017 locations by country will be 16 in the U.S. Mind you that last year it was 21 out of 29 in the U.S., eight in Canada which is quite a number for Canada and one each in Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Australia and Mexico as well as France, our first in France and also one in Iceland. Note that these include our first locations to open in France and Iceland and again those will be in late spring and early summer. Now as you can tell by the quarterly dispersion of these about half of the 31 planned openings are scheduled in Q4. To the extent a couple of those could slip into the next fiscal year, so be it. So somewhere in the very high 20s if not 30 or 31 is what we would expect. As of first quarter end, our total square footage stood at 104.5 million square feet. In terms of common stock repurchases, for the first quarter, we repurchased 809,000 shares for a total of $122 million at an average price of $151 a share. That compares to all of fiscal 2016, when we repurchased $477 million, 3.2 million shares at an average price of just under $150 a share. In terms of dividends, our currently quarterly dividend stands at $0.45 a share and that was a 12.5% increase and that was effective last spring. A 12.5% increase from the prior $0.40 a share, so $0.45 a share on a quarter, so that yearly $1.80 dividend represents an annual cost to the Company of just under $800 million. Lastly, before I turn it back for Q&A, our fiscal 2017 second quarter schedule earnings release date for the 12-week second quarter ending February 12, will be after market close on Thursday, March 2, with the earnings call that afternoon at 2 o'clock Pacific Time. I will now turn it back to Kimberlynn, and open it up for questions and answers. Thank you.

So, Richard the new Citi agreement, was that a – was a total benefit in the quarter of 38 basis points if I'm hearing you right and I assume that was exactly what you thought it would be?

Probably a little higher than we thought it would be. There's lots of nuances to the program in terms, there's bounties that we received for signing up new members and applications that incents the warehouses to do that. There's revenue share on outside spend. I think that's a little more than we had anticipated. We knew and felt that over time it would go up because the exceptions of Visa in terms of the penetration Visa throughout all types of merchants and that happened a little faster than we had anticipated. There's also some other aspects of it, again, there's lots of little pieces, but those are two of the bigger ones. On the merchant side, on the fee side rather, I think some of it's related to the fact that we were making estimates of the different rewards buckets, if you will, gas at 4, Costco at 2, those velocity categories at 3. Again, there's all kinds of equations there that as that changes there's some sharing and so it's all good at this point.

Well, as a sort of the follow-up to that is that recognizing there is some volatility, is roughly that level, is that what you would expect going forward? And right now it's covering right soft sales and some investments in labor would be – is the idea that when that – when the soft sales changes more of that drops to the bottom line or do you think you find other things to invest in?

Well, time will tell, won’t it. I think it's still an early program, we're in the first full fiscal quarter of it. Over the next couple of quarters as I said last quarter this will be the first time we'll try to provide a little bit more insight and I'm sure we'll be able to do a little bit more each time. As you know, we're going to invest in loyalty and growth and – while it's raining on everybody as it relates to higher levels of deflation. We're known for deflating the sell price sooner and faster and certainly one other sound bite example would be meat sales, just in the month of November meat sales were up 6% in dollars and 16% in pounds. That's the kind of stuff that this deflation, it's impacting all retailers of course, and it's probably impacting a lower margin quicker to pass it on up or down and certainly down faster, so all those things go into play. So time will tell.

And then just lastly, have you found or when you think about this conceptually, is it better to make - more impactful to make price investments when we start the reflationary cycle, right. So not raising while others do as opposed to cutting more now, investing more in a deflationary recycle.

Well, we’re always going to do more extreme probably than others. Another example would be as I've said in the past as it relates to some different types of competition out there the competitive pricing moat has gotten wider which is good. We haven't used that to improve our margins consciously in that regard, the wider the better. And so we're constantly figuring out that. We are constantly going back to every supplier with our purchasing power, with our buying power as it relates to – and competition itself with private label to figure out how can we bring the quantity up, the quality up, and the price down. And we know we will sell more and each of us and our suppliers will make a little more times – a little less more times. And so that's what we do, that's what we're always doing. We see that in every monthly budget meetings. And so I think that we'll continue to do what we do. We're certainly not going to benefit from every extra dollar of income. We're going to figure out how to use it to drive that competitive spirit and to drive our sales. And that's been a little tougher in this tough deflationary environment.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. Hey guys. So my question relates to core profitability and expectations to the extent we can talk about it. So the EBIT growth this quarter was I think about 4% adjusted, the trend line has been a little lower and I'm not taking a lot of currency into this, but if you think about the core profitability going forward Richard, should we expect it to increase granted this quarter had a tough topline compare, we talked about maybe credit card getting better. I'm not thinking about membership price increase, but that's something that could come, but is this – just thinking about the overall business, how it’s performing, do you expect it to do better than where it is or performing about where it should be?

Well, again I'm not allowed to tell you what I think completely. We're encouraged by the last few weeks including the first two weeks of Q2, but yes we got - we feel good about our merchandising offerings, we feel good about some things we're doing operationally, we certainly feel good about the strength of KS, Kirkland Signature, and traffic has improved a little bit. I remember one of the analysts reports a few months ago, was we can exhale. We are hopefully beyond that right now. We feel that again the last - the traffic seems to hit a trough and it’s come back a little, not that we expected to get back before it necessarily, but it certainly seems like it's back on the mend a little and we'll see. I feel we're doing a lot of good things; we got a lot of things up our sleeve in terms of merchandising, we’re clearly merchandising and selling from a position of competitive strength. And fresh foods drives the business and the fact that renewal rates ex a little bit of impact from auto bill in the conversion are perfectly fine. So there’s a lot of good things out there and I guess I'll stop there. But overall we'll see.

Okay. And then my follow-up, part of it relates to what John asked where you know the credit card benefit that could ramp. There also could be a membership pricing straight down the horizon. Thinking about what you’ll reinvest versus what you drop down, I mean are you – is the investment rate being inhibited right now because you haven't had that membership price increase in a long time so or are you going to let some of these things flow to the bottom line when we get there.

First, let me go back for a minute to the monies that we've benefited from as it relates to the Citi Visa the new agreement. In theory you would say okay if you made a little more did you put it back in the pricing. We're doing a lot in pricing anyway and also you don't change the reward structure every day it's a new program. I would assume over time and this is - who knows if hypothetical but over the next couple of years if the performance of the program continues to go which we expected to do in the right direction and our piece of that action if you will versus the rewards that our members are getting, you’d expect to see this change that over time. But we're way too early to even think about that. Historically, as it relates to membership increases, we usually invest that back in the business, a lot of that in terms of competitiveness and pricing and it kind of eases in over the next several years and more fully into the bottom line notwithstanding in fact that membership fee increases take about eight fiscal quarters to get into the income statement on the membership line because of deferred accounting. So I don't think first of all we certainly haven't done anything different. As we've seen in some examples where we do comp shops versus certain others, where that moat has gotten bigger if you will, that gap has gotten wider, we haven't said hey let's use this to get a few extra basis points of margin. We've held the course and we continued to go in that direction.

Hey, good afternoon Richard. Just want to touch back on margins with - we think about the core GPM, excluding the benefit from the Visa card. It was still up but maybe a little bit less than the past few quarters. If you can maybe just touch on that and then also on the SG&A, you mentioned the higher payroll and benefits but if I recall I think the second quarter last year is when you raised some wages. Is that correct and should we start to cycle some of that headwind?

On the last point, the wages, I believe the U.S. and Canada which is 80 plus percent or 80% to 83% of our company. We took the bottom of the scale up $50 basically from 11.50 in 12 up to 13 and 13.50. I believe on an annual basis that's about a $40 million incremental increase in our pre-tax costs or about $3 million little low $3 million per month number. That started in March, so that's kind of halfway through - early halfway through Q2 of our fiscal year that's when the annual anniversaries and that's kind of a small. I'm sorry, the first part of the question, I didn't write it down.

Just around core merchandise margins.

Keep in mind, as I try to point out on each of these calls and mentioned what was the core, roughly 80% plus of our business that is food and sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh foods. What is that margin on its own sales? And again, as I mentioned earlier in the call, that was up 17 basis points. When I look at the weighted average of what impact it had on our company margin year-over-year. It's a lot less than 17 because there's increased penetration of another category with a lower margin or reduced penetration of another category with a higher margin and so that tends to – that's what we pointed out. We don't see just because that that 80% was 17 basis points up on that that had a much smaller effect on the year-over-year for all company.

Got it. And then just when it comes to topline, Richard, obviously November was kind of a tell of two periods with the first half of the month and the second half being much better and from the comments you made around e-commerce, it sounds like there's been some strength maybe that's sustained into early part of December. Just kind of what's your view right now kind of the spending levels of your core customer and as we turn the corner into 2017, what's your thoughts around kind of what our core comp expectations should be particularly in the U.S.?

Well, again, we don't know. We’ll have to wait and see ourselves. We are thrilled that the first few weeks have been good. And again, November, the four weeks of November was choppy frankly, particularly the week of the election. I think it was worse than a snowstorm in terms of nobody wanting to go out and buy stuff and that’s what I read about other retailers as well. And again, over the last few months it's been a little choppy a little more in November and a little weaker and so at least, what we can tell you at this point is the first couple of weeks have been okay. And again, traffic has seemed to have stabilized until something changes there, who knows. But again, we feel good about our merchandising, what's going on and one of the reasons we continue to provide monthly sales results is for that reason to keep you guys informed and that's pretty much what I can tell you at this point.

Good evening. Thanks a lot for taking my question. Richard, you mentioned that you signed up a million new members under the new Visa credit card arrangement. Is that above and beyond what you would normally sign up? Or is that typical with your run rate and how does that compare to your expectations?

First of all, we signed – million of our members signed up for it. Many of them could very well be existing members that historically did not have an AMEX card or historically used not a co-branded AMEX card. And they have now signed up for this because they want to sign up because the rewards, hopefully or they historically again were using debit or non co-branded AMEX card and are now switching to this. So it's not that we did not generate a million new members. Certainly, when a new member being online or walks in to sign up as a new member, we of course are telling them the virtues of both executive membership and these great new co-brand card.

And how are you seeing the spending patterns of those who signed up for the card or got the card versus how they're spending patterns were under the AMEX card?

It's hard to know this quickly. Generally speaking, irrespective of what credit card it is whether it's a co-branded or rewards card for an airline or hotel. Generally, we find the people on credit card spend more than by cash or check or debit. We also find that people with Executive Member spend more than non-Executive Member. So the trifecta if you will is when they are not only a member, but they're the Executive Member and they use the co-branded card. Lots of incentives for loyalty and for spend and for capacity of the spend. And so that's what we try to do, try to do it in not too hard of a seller as you might expect. And we've got a lot better doing the basics with it. We know existing members, by a lot historically based on their prior 12 months and it’s a no-brainer to be an executive member, we make sure they know and we've done a better job of converting or getting people signed up as an executive member to start with. The credit fee, of course is not completely in our hands whether it was the 16-year relationship – 40-year relationship, 40-year or 60-year relationship with American Express or the new relationship here is up to the credit card issuer in this case Citi to accept or reject applications. Now, the ones it converted over they were all in the same deal, but anybody knew they are signing up for a new card and there's going to be some people they get and some people don't. But what we do know is a million of the people that did sign up for have gotten it or approved and got it.

And my follow-up question is on the prospects for import tariffs, what percentage of your goods do you import from overseas and if you could break that down between the Kirkland’s brand and all other it would be very helpful?

We’re just asking or being asked that question recently and we're putting some members together. Our best guess is somewhere north of 20 and south of 30 and I give you a purposely large number because even you talk to some buyers in different apartments, you find out that it might be imported, but it's all based on this U.S. dollar sale and my guess would be somewhere in the mid-20s.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Wanted to ask a different question about gross margin, it’s still if you look at the core gross margin I think you set up 17 basis points still very strong, but I think it's been in the 10 basis point to 15 basis point range. I know you’ve talked about online, organics some of the higher margin categories in the mix shift there, is just curious if those are really still some of the same drivers or if there's anything else going on there particularly as online seem to slow a little bit this quarter?

I think part of it is as prices have deflated there are instances where we could make a little more, but not a lot more where others have not deflated them as much even though we're going to be the first to take it down and more there's still a little there on the table. Private label helps. I think those are the kinds of things and we've also in terms of driving business, working with our vendors to lower the price and drive more business. And we will participate in it, but we’ll still make a little more. So there's lots of little reasons and again I'd be remiss to say, I mean year-over-year, we had just under a basis point and shrink recovery, in other words better shrink number, inventory shrinkage numbers. We don't talk about it because I mean good news is continues to improve a little for 30 years essentially. We were doing a better job of operating our businesses and controlling our inventories, but it's lots of little things.

That's helpful. And then just another big picture question, lots of questions on the savings and how you would think about possibly maybe reinvesting some of that over the years, but as I hear you online and proving that experience to check out experience to search, do you look at ways to just make things more convenient for your members? Is there anything else you think about on the convenience front versus just the price front?

I got to tell you, a little tongue-in-cheek here, but we arguably were little – have been – many years ago we like it to even do e-commerce, did a little bit begrudgingly, it took a while to do some more things. I think the things that we're doing offensively not defensively, but we're also probably a little stubborn along the way to suggest – there are some extreme examples of when a member orders a big ticket item electronics or light goods or whatever and the delivery window is much larger than anyone else's. They'd like to know it pops up the calendar and here it goes. When they want to return it that process was not very good. And some of these are quick fixes, search was not very good. That's been a quick fix to get a significant improvement and we get some more improvement. So I think that we're doing some things to that we've notwithstanding decent sales. We're investing in better, but by the way that's not at the expense of we want to take our prices down a little and those are truly independent whether it's IT modernization efforts some of which was in necessarily or you know what are we going to do with regard to we need another 10 million or 50 million or whatever to enhance the site, that is truly independent of what we're doing there. We know as Jim said it will set for 25 plus years and is set for now five plus years. We are clearly a topline Company and we're best when we drive sales. We probably aren't as good at leveraging expenses when sales come down than others because we’re not going to do some things, but we're clearly taking the offense. Again there are some things that perhaps we should've done earlier but we're already seeing some improvement in that we know that will help.

Hi, Richard, this is Sean Carson for Karen. Thanks for taking our questions. Can you talk about your outlook for deflation and any signs of leveling off or maybe even an upswing?

When we talk with different category buyers probably the ones that have more specific insider on the fresh foods size because they're dealing with commodities and negotiating they're actually looking at the futures contracts and more of the cost is the actual item, the orange or the poultry or the pork or whatever. Whereas sometimes that's not the case, I think usually when we ask there's another three months to six months whatever. And when it gets to the anniversarying of it, there’s been some huge swings, some huge example of swings on some nuts which last year doubled and we’re now down 35%. There's you know eggs of course are down well over 60% year-over-year. So if eggs were down even 50% it doesn't mean that people going to eat twice as many eggs to have flat sales. They're going to eat some more eggs, but not that many. So by the way a few of those things may help in the bakery, the margins of the bakery. We’re going to - also not going to change the package the cost of 16 muffins or 15 muffins. So overall, I think the feeling has given that the last few months have been a little more deflationary. The view is that it's another few months of that, but they all believe that it's going to come back the other way and this is a lot of estimated semi-educated guesses among different departments.

And so I noticed there's also no LIFO reserve, apparently there is no charge or credit in the quarter. Is that right?

Right. That's correct. By the way as effective the beginning of this fiscal year for 30 years we've been on our retail cost systems, retail inventory system. Most companies historically have been on a cost base system where you can get down more granularly to item level with the modernization that was part of this process too. With a cost system, the way you value inventories will not have LIFO charges and credits in the future.

Yes, hi. Good afternoon. My question was around some of the things you’ve already covered including pricing and the moat that you said is opened up. And in light of that there's been a lot of debate around the traffic just north of 2% or just under 3% depending on the months and lot of questions around convenience. And I just wonder as you review this online strategy, do you think there needs to be a major shift towards a broader SKU assortment, obviously Amazon's got marketplace, Wal-Mart is building marketplace, targets chosen not to. Do you think as part of that convenience factor Costco just needs to materially up their SKU count online?

Well, keep in mind we have materially upped it over the last couple of years. Recognizing it's still a fraction of anything else out there. If we were again at 3,700 active items in a physical location and roughly that many online excluding like office products which is through a third-party and there's several thousand of those items, but in terms of what we do ourselves, we now taken it up to 8-ish, 8,000 maybe a little more. Is it likely to go to 40,000 or 50,000? Absolutely not. Unless it does one-day, but I don't think so. And is it like you go up a little bit more? Sure. And is it likely for us to do a few more things that provide convenience? Yes, but we still want you in the door. And again to Amazon and others credit, they’re trying a lot of things. Some will work and some won't and we're pretty good at understanding what works and figure out how to augment and to do what we know how to do and what we want to do. And we recognized that we can't be – sell you a smaller size or something and our margins nor we prepared to double or triple the margin to do so.

Got it. My other question was around the membership fee or potential membership fee increase, next year that's been talked about quite a bit. I'm just curious if there's a sensitivity and what that threshold is, at which point you would not do it. In other words, if the comp store sales were to continue being at the level that they were at in the first quarter, would you be less likely to put it increase through and maybe an easier way to talk about it is what kind of comp level would you like to be at when you do it?

Directionally, I responded in the past by saying if comps were a little weaker, it would be more likely to want to do it or no impact on that decision. It's all in our view about what additional values that we brought to the table. Whatever amount of an increase might be contemplated, have we improved the value proposition significantly greater in that amount which is in my view has always been a no-brainer for us. Our renewal rate is okay and if sales are a little weak, it would be the time to do it – not do it. I'm not trying to suggest that it’s tomorrow afternoon, I'm just saying that generally speaking a little bit weaker we're going to use that to drive business.

Thanks. Hey, Richard. Hey, you mentioned going into Iceland and France and I know you guys are doing Kirkland on Tmall in China. Can you just maybe sketch us up on when you might ponder opening brick and mortar up in the Mainland China? Thanks.

Sure. Well, on Tmall I think it’s about 300 items about a little over half of which are Kirkland Signature, so it’s certainly the cast name is getting known and that's a positive. We've continued to look at it for a number of years. Is it in the next couple of three years? It's probably more likely to say yes to that than two years ago or five years ago, but there's nothing definite at this point.

Thanks. Couple of quick ones. First, just on the Google Express, can you just talk about are there any plans to expand that. I know you mentioned the Bay area, but we’re hoping that being done or any thoughts to moving that out?

Start of the Bay area, but then with LA area and in the last couple years is expanded to as well Chicago, Boston, New York and D.C. I believe they're expanding and we're expanding is a few other markets as well. I believe I don't have that list in front of me, but I know it includes a few more. So let's say it's going from 6-ish to 12-ish plus and now recognizing we're working with them in different markets, testing different things. I think we've done a couple of small tests with some fresh foods, but it's a limited selection of items and each of these are little different.

Sure. I understood. On tobacco is that – is the weakness in tobacco - does that have any kind of a material effect on a core gross margin, I understand that’s a very low margin for that product?

Well, it's a low margin business so it would help improve the margin a little bit.

I mean is that a material benefit to your core margins right now or is it…

No. Gas would be an offset to that in a bigger way in my view.

Great. Thank you.

Hello Richard. Just a quick question about what you're seeing in Visa usage from people who are using – who never were AMEX card, Costco AMEX cardholders and how they're spending behavior is changed or somehow affected by Costco accepting Visa's payment now?

It's up. Particularly somebody – to the extent somebody is choosing to use another Visa card in his or her wallet. Maybe it’s airline program or hotel program. They may not be spending more because nothing is changed in their wallet. To the extent that they are using cash or debit, that's you see an increase and we have seen that as we would have expected.

Are you seeing any related impact on membership? Are you able to see if new members are being generated by the Visa acceptance?

Well, we know that's the case to a small extent though, Citi for example has done marketing activities in their branches, but it's more existing members that it converted and you'll get a few – few could be in the tens of thousands, but out of a million couple or 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 is not a big piece of that.

Three quick ones. Of the 15% of people that haven't activated the card, what are those people using? Are they using other Visa in their wallet? What can you tell us about their behavior? Are they coming less frequently or using cash or what are they doing?

Well a bunch of them it's between 11% and 15%. But a bunch of them is, are people that it was not active as a co-brand AMEX card. We had about 15% that had not – upon conversion about 15% of the 11% or whatever million people in the 7.5 million or so accounts about - just under 15% of them had not been using the prior two months I believe, the prior 60 days. And not to suggest that may be some of them just hadn’t used it and they will use it or they’ve been out of town or whatever else. It's every answer on this - and I think the vast majority of would be that, though, they were using something else in their wallet. And to the extent that the membership card was on the back, they still have it in their wallet and they still have to do it in their wallet and hopefully they see those giant signs and they reminded the cash register by the cashier and have you heard about the 4321 or the new exciting warranty program on electronic, on TVs where you get a four-year free warranty if you use it at Costco.

Got it. My other question was around the membership fee or potential membership fee increase, next year that's been talked about quite a bit. I'm just curious if there's a sensitivity and what that threshold is, at which point you would not do it. In other words, if the comp store sales were to continue being at the level that they were at in the first quarter, would you be less likely to put it increase through and maybe an easier way to talk about it is what kind of comp level would you like to be at when you do it?

Directionally, I responded in the past by saying if comps were a little weaker, it would be more likely to want to do it or no impact on that decision. It's all in our view about what additional values that we brought to the table. Whatever amount of an increase might be contemplated, have we improved the value proposition significantly greater in that amount which is in my view has always been a no-brainer for us. Our renewal rate is okay and if sales are a little weak, it would be the time to do it – not do it. I'm not trying to suggest that it’s tomorrow afternoon, I'm just saying that generally speaking a little bit weaker we're going to use that to drive business.

Okay. Well, thank you everyone. Have a good afternoon.