Earnings Labs

O'Reilly Automotive, Inc. (ORLY)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 7, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello. My name is Yumicki, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the O'Reilly Automotive Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Earnings Release Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Tom McFall, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Thank you, Yumicki. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our conference call. Before I introduce Greg Henslee, our CEO, we have a brief statement. The company claims the protection under the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify those statements by forward-looking words such as expect, believe, anticipate, should, plan, intend, estimate, project, will or similar words. In addition, statements contained within the earnings release and on this conference call, that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements, such as statements discussing, among other things, expected growth, store development, integration and expansion strategy, business strategies, future revenues and future performance. These forward-looking statements are based on estimates, projections, beliefs and assumptions and are not guarantees of future events and results. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, but not limited to, competition, product demand, the market for auto parts, the economy in general, inflation, consumer debt levels, governmental regulations, the company's increased debt levels, credit ratings on the company's public debt, the company's ability to hire and retain qualified employees, risks associated with the performance of acquired businesses, weather, terrorist activities, war and the threat of war. Actual results may materially differ from anticipated results, described or implied, in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the Risk Factors section of the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 for additional factors that could materially affect the company's financial performance. These forward looking statements speak only as of the date they were made, and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. At this time, I'd like to introduce Greg Henslee.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the O'Reilly Auto Parts fourth quarter conference call. Participating on the call with me this morning is, of course, Tom McFall, our Chief Financial Officer; and Jeff Shaw, our Executive Vice President of Store Operations and Sales. David O'Reilly, our Executive Chairman, is also present. As many of you know, in mid-December, we announced that Ted Wise transitioned from his long-time role as Chief Operating Officer to Executive Vice President of Expansion. Ted continues to be a very actively-involved member of our executive management team. But now, he is specifically focusing his time and efforts in the areas of new store growth, maintaining our existing installed store base and new market expansion. Ted's level of passion for the business has not diminished a bit, and he remains extremely committed to the success of our company, although he will be working at a slightly reduced schedule. Moving forward, Ted will continue to attend our quarterly conference calls. However, he is currently enjoying his new role and reduced schedule by taking a well-deserved vacation, so he is not present for today's call. We also announced in December that Jeff Shaw was promoted to the position of Executive Vice President of Store Operations and Sales. Jeff has been an O'Reilly team member for 24 years, beginning his career at the store level. He held numerous store, district and regional manager positions throughout our company before being promoted to Vice President of Store Operations in 2003 and then Senior Vice President in 2004. Many of you have met Jeff and have heard him present at our O'Reilly Analyst Days. Jeff will be participating in our conference call today and will be an ongoing participant on our quarterly calls. I would like to begin the discussion of…

Jeff M. Shaw

Analyst

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. It's an honor to get the opportunity to represent our 53,000 hard-working and dedicated team members on this call. When Greg asked me to begin participating on these calls, I was extremely humbled. What he didn't tell me at the time was Ted wouldn't be here for my first call, so I'd immediately have to try and provide the level of color regarding our operations that Ted has provided for so many years. So I guess, I'll begin today by thanking Ted for this opportunity. Ted, I'm not sure if you're listening in, but I sure hope you're having a great time in South America. Our business has always been, and always will be, about providing consistent and outstanding customer service. We sell parts, but we're really in the customer service business. I'd like to focus my comments today on discussing our operational results for the year on the investments we made during the year to improve our service levels and on the expected impact these investments will make as we look forward into 2013. During 2012, we generated a fairly respectable 3.8% increase in comparable store sales. In the midst of a challenging year for our industry, these results are within our guidance range, but below our expectations. Thanks to the hard work of our team, we finished the year beating our forecasted fourth quarter comparable store sales guidance range, which provides us solid momentum coming into 2013. For the year, our SG&A per store was higher than we expected, finishing at an increase of 2.2% over 2011 and above our beginning-of-the-year guidance of 1.5% to 2% growth. For the fourth quarter, our SG&A as a percentage of sales was 35.4%, a deleverage of 10 basis points over the prior period. And for…

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Thanks, Jeff. Now we'll take a closer look at our results and add some color to our guidance for 2013. Comparable store sales for the quarter increased 4.2% on top of the prior year's comps of 3.3%. DIY and professional comps were again both positive for the quarter with professional contributing a larger percent to our growth. Average ticket growth for both the DIY and professional side of the business was again the driver to the comp improvement. For the quarter, sales increased $97 million, comprised of a $57 million increase in comp store sales; a $39 million increase in non-comp store sales; a $2 million increase in non-comp, non-store sales; and a $1 million decrease from closed stores. For the year, sales increased 7% to $6.2 billion, primarily driven by our 3.8% comparable store sales growth, which was on top of the prior year's comps of 4.6%. Our sales guidance for 2013 is $6.6 billion to $6.7 billion. Our comparable store sales guidance is 3% to 5%, driven by expected strong growth on the professional side of the business, especially in the acquired markets and moderate growth in the DIY side of the business. Gross profit for the quarter increased 50 basis points over the prior year. We were able to maintain our strong merchandise margins in the fourth quarter and drive an increased gross margin percentage against the tough compares versus the prior year through distribution efficiencies, improved shrink and a benefit from the amount of capitalized distribution costs. As a result of our initiatives to put more inventory close to our customers, as Jeff has already discussed, we added significantly to our store level inventories during the year. The cost to move this inventory into a sale position in the stores has capitalized on our balance sheet…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Colin McGranahan with Bernstein. Colin McGranahan - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: First question just on the expansion, moving into Florida, opening up the Lakeland DC and pushing further south. It's obviously a newer market for you and then moving into the Northeast as well. Can you talk a bit about what you're seeing in Florida so far as you expand there and expectations for the Northeast just in terms of store performance, difference in the competitive environment, things like that?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Well, it's still early in Central Florida. We're not into Southern Florida yet. But we are in the Northern Florida, the Panhandle, and had been for a while. And our stores there do very well. It's a pretty good real estate market for us. Our exploration so far has yielded good results from a location standpoint, and we've got several stores going in down there, and we expect to do really well in the Orlando and Tampa markets and several small markets around that area. So, yes, we're excited about it. We think it's a great opportunity for us, and we look forward to having a facility in Lakeland that will allow us to get further south into Florida. In the Northeast, it's way early. We've done a lot of looking around up there, as we've contemplated acquiring a company or 2 up there. And as you know, we acquired VIP. A lot of cars, a lot of traffic, the real estate market, obviously, is a little more difficult. But for most part, where we would locate the majority of our stores outside of the major, major metro areas, we would have part stores in Downtown Manhattan for instance. It looks pretty good. We're excited about the opportunity to expand up there, and we'll use the VIP acquisition as a means for us to expand south out of the far Northeast, and then we'll continue to use our existing store base to expand up into the Northeast. And at some point in the future, we'll be expanding our distribution capability in that area. Colin McGranahan - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC., Research Division: Okay. That's great. And then, just a quick follow-up on CSK. Can you talk a little bit about the relative performance differential of the stores in the middle of the country versus the West Coast and how that contributed to the overall comp?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

I really don't have a -- I mean, the West Coast obviously performs very well, and they're a -- they performed better than the core O'Reilly stores, although the core O'Reilly stores performed well. The upper Midwest stores were our poorest performing stores. And as I said in my prepared comments, that the 25% of the stores that we comprised as maybe being the weather-affected stores, comped about a 200 basis point decrease in our overall comp performance. We would say that maybe the disparity between the non-weather-related stores and the weather-affected stores would be somewhere above 700 basis points, something like that.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Wewer with Raymond James & Associates. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Just to follow up on that comment you noted that the gap between the cold and warm weather markets is 700 or 800 basis points. But did you also indicate in your prepared comments that, by the end of the quarter, those upper Midwest markets were performing in line with the company average?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

They were comping better. They weren't -- they would have been -- it varies by region. If you put them as a whole, they would have been comping under the average, but they had sequentially improved significantly into December. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Do you think that we have crossed the hurdle where the weather issues that have been impacting those markets are now behind us? And when you look at 2013, are you expecting those markets to perhaps outperform your Southwestern and Western stores given the easy comparisons?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Dan, it's hard to really fully get our arms around the effect of the unusual winter we had last year and, to some degree, in many markets, say, a little bit of a soft winter, this winter. There's no question that extremes put pressure on automobiles, and that there's some hard parts failures that result from the cold and hot weather. And the roads, they get potholes in them and so forth. I guess, to answer your question, yes, I would expect those stores that have not performed well as the weather normalizes, to perform much better on the easier comparisons. So, yes, I think they will. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Okay. If I may just ask my follow-up question for Tom. You noted that you're not expecting any improvement in your payables inventory rate in 2013. I mean, I would certainly understand that the rate of increase gets slow, but I'm surprised that you're not expecting any improvement. Could you, again, maybe walk us through the reason for that?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Well, the primary reason is we're going to have to have some substantial gains to stay where we are. When we look at the math and we talk about the store-level inventory build this year of $150 million, and when you add additional parts to the stores and that kind of mass, we're able to get special bating [ph] on those orders. So if we have re-bating [ph] on those orders that's come into the numerator and denominator at 100% and they're going to come due this year. So we're going to have to continue to make progress with our vendors through the financing program and through other avenues to maintain that percentage. And if we look back to the beginning of the year, our guidance was 70 to 75. And that -- those stock-up orders helped us surpass that level this year. So we've got some work to do to stay where we are. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: But would not if your inventory per store is flat year-over-year in 2013, that would lead to faster inventory turns, right? And then that mathematically would benefit the payables inventory rate?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Well, if you look at our days in payables, it's starting to get beyond where our turns are. So it's more of the bigger drivers when do those payments come due for non-typical orders.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scot Ciccarelli with RBC Capital Markets.

Scot Ciccarelli - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Greg, the commercial business has always been competitive. But just given the continued focus on the segments from Advance and AutoZone, are there any noticeable changes on the competitive front? And alternatively to that, is there a point where O'Reilly may have to accelerate some investments, whether it's newer systems or more labor, to continue to gain the kind of share that you have in that part of the business?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Well, yes, it's a competitive business. As I have said to many of you several times, it's -- I've been doing this for a long time, and I think it's always been a very competitive business. There's -- I can think of only a few markets over the years where we didn't have a competitor that was just tough and quality and did a good job. So we're -- our role has always been to go out and identify the markets where there's a lot of commercial business and try to take market share, and it's not easy. So, yes, I think the newer players in that -- in the commercial business coming in certainly adds another element of competition. It doesn't -- hasn't really changed the way that we would go to market because the fundamentals that drive the relationship between a commercial customer and the parts store remain exactly the same. The expectations are the same. We've always been able to build our business by meeting those expectations better than many of our competitors, and I think that we'll continue to do that. From an investment standpoint, for the things that we can do to improve that, it's over a number of years. We've kind of transitioned the way we do that business. We were one of the first companies, I think, to allow our customers to electronically order from our stores, pre-Internet -- or before the Internet was mainstream as it is today. We put terminals in our customer shops and had them electronically order parts from us, and I think we've been pretty innovative in the way that we manage those relationships over the years. And, yes, I think that we'll continue to invest in innovation. I don't see any big game-changer on the horizon that would require significant investment by us to maintain those relationships. I think the things that we see that we need to do, for instance, in 2012, when we increased our weekend deliveries. Some of our professional customers are open on weekends now, whereas back several years ago, maybe there weren't as many open on weekends -- or the national-account type customers are open on weekends. And by increasing our weekend service out of our hubs and DCs to our stores, it makes us a more effective supplier and then just increasing the number of stores that are touched everyday by a hub store or by a distribution center. And when I say by a hub store, many times the hub store itself is touched by the DC on a daily basis, and the hub store touches the stores. So in effect, the store has access to a distribution center breadth of inventory, and that's been very effective for us. So, no, I wouldn't see anything that would change significantly, but we will continue to incrementally make investments as we see fit.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Hofkin with William Blair & Company. Daniel Hofkin - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Just a question about the comp outlook. Effectively doing the math, the full year guidance would imply something in the range of a 4% to 6% expectation across quarters 2 through 4 on average. I'm just wondering, how much of that fairly substantial acceleration is due simply to the considerably easier comparisons? How much is due to either current or potential additional initiatives?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Well, it certainly -- we don't ignore the comparisons when we come up with our annual guidance. And having the easier compares in the second and third quarter will allow us to generate a little better comp than we would, assuming that our comp trend continues to be what we think it will be. So I think the things that we've done, from an inventory deployment standpoint by increasing our hub store count, product availability, all the things we can do to drive our business, are going to be helpful. But certainly, the comparisons in the second and third quarter are a consideration. Daniel Hofkin - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Okay. And then, from a gross margin standpoint, could you just review, again, sort of the -- maybe the biggest puts and takes in terms of -- obviously, you've had really substantial gross margin improvement over the years, including 2012. What kind of at the midpoint would make you think about flat versus moderate improvement again in 2013?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Well, we look at big puts and takes. We would tell you, we kind of laid out why we came up with a flat gross margin because we're looking to really maintain the run rates we're at. We have some switch in distribution costs, some switch between professional business and acquisition costs. Our expectation is that if pricing is going to remain rational within our industry and there's not going to be any type large dramatic shift in how we and our competitors have priced over the last 3, 4, 5 years. Daniel Hofkin - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Okay. And the -- I mean, as far as like at the former CSK stores, obviously, you're seeing the strongest growth in the commercial business there as well. But that said, is there a gross margin benefit to kind of the increase in the mix of hard parts within their business compared to what it was a couple of years ago?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

That's definitely the case. In general, hard parts carry a better margin, as commodities are on the low end of our margin spectrum. So as we've added more hard parts, both on the professional and the DIY side at CSK, that's helped to offset the pressure from giving professional shops volume discounts.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Lasser with UBS.

Michael Lasser - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst · UBS.

The spread between your comp and that of your competitors that have reported in the last several weeks seems to have expanded quite a bit. Do you have a view or a hypothesis on what drove the expansion? How much do you think it was due to the geographic differences versus some of the initiatives that you've laid out?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · UBS.

It's really hard to quantify for us, Michael. We're out there, and I -- I've got Jeff sitting across the table from me, and he manages a lot of great team members that wake up every day, trying to take market share from our competitors. And I feel like we're pretty effective. It's -- we work hard at it. I think, this -- the fourth quarter, we worked extremely hard, focusing on growing quality sales. We could grow ourselves faster if we were not as prudent when it comes to maintaining the price, in which we sell products for you and we're very cognizant of the gross margin, in which we sell products. So what I would say is we're out there, pedaling as hard as we can and trying to gain as much market share as we can. And I think our competitors are doing the same thing. It's just -- it's hard for me to speak to their results compared to ours and the causes of maybe their comp softness as compared to ours.

Michael Lasser - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst · UBS.

That's helpful. And the second question I had is, over the course of the last few quarters, you've seen some particular weakness in categories that are typically for purchase rather than replenishment. Have -- as the cold weather has set in, have those categories gotten better? And do you expect to see some pent-up demand at least over the next few periods?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · UBS.

Yes, I've said in a few -- when I've met with a few analysts in just different venues that I would expect that some of the parts that didn't get replaced last winter, they were parts that were -- would typically fail in extreme weather, would either fail -- for instance, batteries that didn't fail in the winter time. A lot of them failed last summer during the heat, and they'll fail this winter. Our battery business in 2012 was really good. I would expect that some of the chassis parts that have lived a little longer life than they really should have based on them failing due to weather extremes, they would have maybe a little pickup there, maybe some ignition...

Unknown Executive

Analyst · UBS.

Brakes.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · UBS.

And brakes. Brakes has been a little soft, with the -- yes, they are not being as much weather-affected, corrosion-type stuff as you might see otherwise. So, yes, we would expect to see some pickup in some categories as the weather normalizes.

Michael Lasser - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst · UBS.

And just a follow-up on that. In the colder weather market, is that what -- are those categories is what -- are what improved?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · UBS.

Well, I think that everything do -- has done a little better there at the end of the quarter. But, yes, we saw -- the one that sticks out in my mind is we've seen a significant improvement on our performance on batteries.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alan Rifkin with Barclays.

Alan M. Rifkin - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst · Barclays.

Greg, it was mentioned that your operating margin in 2012 of 15.8% was achieved 1 year earlier than you had originally planned. Looking back at the last 4 years since you acquired CSK -- and I'm sure it's a function of many things, but is your ability to get to that operating margin a year earlier more a function of revenues that are exceeding your plan or greater synergies or greater expense reductions? Can you maybe just shed some color on that?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Barclays.

There are several contributing factors. And I'll make a comment. And then, Tom, you may have some comments too. Obviously, growing our revenue out there has been helpful. But the synergies, from a new product acquisition standpoint and maybe a mix standpoint and also some improvements that we've made in the way we deploy products and some of our private-label branding, those things are significant contributors. So, Tom, I don't know if you have a comment on which one you think is the biggest contributor.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · Barclays.

When we look back at our model when we bought CSK, the opportunity from a scale standpoint to reduce our acquisition cost was quite a bit more than what we thought. We've done a little bit better on the expenses than we thought. And sales continue to be an item that we're very pleased with. But as Jeff mentioned in his prepared comments, yes, we still have a lot of opportunity to improve our market share on the West Coast.

Alan M. Rifkin - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst · Barclays.

Okay. On the last call, you guys were kind enough to give us longer-term expansion opportunities out of Lakeland. Would you be able to shed some color on how many stores in 2, 3, 5 years you guys think you can have [ph] in the new market over the Northeast?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Barclays.

I would rather not speculate on that. We've not planned our distribution strategy up there yet. Yes, we'll have a lot of stores up there. But I really -- I would be completely speculating to give you a count. And considering that we've not planned our distribution strategy and haven't done all the detailed market analysis that we'll need to do to define where we put DCs, how many DCs, how many stores those service. I would rather save that for another day.

Alan M. Rifkin - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst · Barclays.

Okay. One last one, if I may. Greg, if you take your commentary over the last 4 years in terms of the CSK stores, year-in and year-out, outperforming the legacy stores, our math would tell us that those stores today are doing $1.6 million and $1.7 million. And I know that in the past, you've been -- your statement has been, "Our goal is to get them to $1.8 million." But there's come a point in the not-too-distant future or maybe you revisit the longer-term opportunity on the revenue side for those former CSK stores?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Barclays.

Well, we threw that $1.8 million number out there early on just as a speculation as to where we thought those major metro market stores could get based on our experience in major metro markets in the core O'Reilly stores. We've never felt like that we would rest when we get to $1.8 million because we obviously are going to try to gain as much market share as we can. Yes, we've gained a lot of market share in the Western CSK stores. The upper Midwest Chicago, Detroit stores, the gains there have been somewhat affected by the weather events [indiscernible] of our competitors have talked about to some degree. So if I carve those out and look just at the regular CSK stores, we've come a long way in getting to the average that we talked about. But, yes, at some point, we may talk about a different target. But again, the idea is there's -- this target is just to -- early on was just to give some idea for analysts as to where we thought we could take the majority of those stores. It's not an internal target by any means. Our internal target is to gain as much market share as we possibly can, and it's very -- there's a very detailed evaluation on a by-store basis as to what we feel like our market entitlement should be, and our store managers and district managers and regional managers are out there today striving to get us to that point.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Gary Balter with Crédit Suisse. Gary Balter - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Just a question, Greg and David and Tom and everybody. Your results, kind of, in the middle of last year, kind of, slowed down and joined the pack. And since then, you've gotten back to doing much stronger results than we've seen from the other public competitors, at least. What changed in your mind? Like, was there a refocus on maybe operational excellence? Or could you talk about, kind of, what got you remotivated and we're seeing in the results?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Well, I -- we didn't -- we don't feel like we ever weren't motivated. We worked really hard to drive sales in the fourth quarter. We worked hard through the summer too. We're very consistent executors of our business model, and we've not really -- we didn't change anything in the fourth quarter. And we have -- we did go through a process of evaluating some supply chain opportunities that we had as far as making inventory available on a same day basis to more stores and looking at some of the newer stores whose inventory could potentially yield better results if it was a little larger, and we went through this process of investing in inventory last year that we think has generated some good results. So I would say that we tried no harder in the fourth quarter to drive sales than we did in the second and third quarter. I think some of the changes that we made from a supply chain standpoint and from an inventory availability standpoint have benefited us and will for the long term.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Fassler with Goldman Sachs.

Matthew J. Fassler - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

First of all, you alluded when you discussed gross margin to the capitalization of certain distribution costs associated with inventory accumulation, and I know we hear about this periodically. It feels like more in the auto parts sector than in some other industries. Can you just give us a brief refresher on how this accounting works? And I think you discussed this being a barrier or hurdle for you as you enter 2013?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Jeff, do you want to handle that one?

Jeff M. Shaw

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

I still owe you. When we look at our merchandise, we have the cost of the product and we have the cost of getting the product into a salable position. So as we move inventory into the DCs, it has a certain additional value that gets capitalized. As we move it into the stores at even a higher value. And then, as we sell that merchandise, we expense not only the cost of the merchandise, but the cost to get it in place. So as the inventory in the stores rises, the value of the cost to get it in place rises on our balance sheet. To the extent that inventory and the cost to distribute stays the same over time, it has a net 0 impact. When inventories go up, it reduced -- it is an offset to our distribution costs. When inventories go down, that -- or don't go up as much year-over-year, it's a less of an offset to our distribution costs. So when we look at next year, we are going to have a less of a build of inventory, a less of a benefit from adding that value, so it will create a headwind.

Matthew J. Fassler - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

The 15 basis points you discussed, for the quarter or for the year?

Jeff M. Shaw

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

That was the fourth quarter number. The third quarter number was larger than that, and that's versus 2011. When we look at our headwind for 2013, it was going to be a little bit more than that for total.

Matthew J. Fassler - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

A little bit more than that going the other way, you're saying?

Jeff M. Shaw

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Correct.

Matthew J. Fassler - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Okay. And then, just another follow-up on gross margin. Clearly, as you've gained commercial share and CSK has achieved incremental commercial penetration, there's some headwind to your gross margin that's, in part, offset some of the other things that have gone right. On that line item, could you give us a rough quantification of what that drag has been in any given year whether that number's moving around a lot over the past few years?

Jeff M. Shaw

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

I would tell you, we have -- when we originally purchased CSK, when we looked at what the professional side was and what we thought the margin impact was going to be, we had a -- our expectation was it was going to be a pretty significant number. What I'd tell you is, over the last 4 years, it's really been a net 0. CSK was selling a lot of not -- items that weren't hard parts that didn't create great margin. And as we've transitioned the business away from ancillary products to hard parts, on both the DIY side and the professional side, those products and themselves generated better POS margin. So we've seen that balance.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Horvers with JPMorgan. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Can you give a little bit of a retrospective and forward-look as to how you think about inflation, '11, '12 and '13?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Tom, do you want to speak to that?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

I will be glad to. We were -- if we look at this year, we were pretty -- we would say we had a below-average inflation year. We've expect, just like any other retailer, to see 1.5% inflation for the year as gross margins percentage stay the same and acquisition cost goes up, that helps to fund inflation and wages and inflation also in occupancy costs. If we look at 2012, we saw larger-than-normal rate and was a helper for comps in 2011 and about average in 2010. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: So 2012 was above the 1.5% -- 2011 was above the 1.5%, 2012 was below, and then sort of back to normal in 2013?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

That would be our expectation. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And then, a couple of follow-up, cleanup questions. On that headwind to capitalize inventory costs, Is that -- should we think about that headwinds in the back half as you cycle? Or how does that play out?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

We look at the flow of our gross margin, we would expect the last 2 quarters to be a tougher compare because of that. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And then, Greg...

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

By the way, slightly better in the first half of the year, slightly below in the second half of the year, of course, with the backdrop of inflation and the pricing environment to be determined. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: And, Greg, you mentioned on the cold weather being a pickup in the batteries. Is it -- as you look out today, I mean, is it just that the tough comparison -- you're seeing in the underlying data maybe where we shouldn't expect to see an overall comp because of the compare but you're seeing the lift actually underneath in batteries and brake pad and some of those other areas?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Yes, I'm [indiscernible] well, we haven't seen them so much in brake pads as we have seen in batteries. Batteries are something that have a very specific life. When a battery dies, it's dead and it's not going to work. You can charge it and maybe make it start the car again or you can jump start it. But when it's dead, it's dead. Brakes are a different story. When a brake pad gets metal to metal, it's worn out and you're done. But a lot of brakes in good times get replaced before they're worn out because as tires get rotated, people decide to go in and have their brake pads replaced at that time. And then from a corrosion standpoint, some of the brake components fail quicker because of corrosion due to salt on the roads and stuff like that. So what I was saying is that some of the parts that didn't get replaced and that would be more weather-related, those will be replaced. It's just been pushed a little further in time and that we have seen improvement in batteries and some of that could very well be due to the batteries that didn't fail last winter that failed during the summer or this winter. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Perfect. And one final one. I would love to get your thoughts on how you're talking internally about the potential impact from the payroll tax increase.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Tom, do you want to take that?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Well, that's something that we, like any other retailer, want to see people with -- walking around with money in their pockets. To-date, we haven't seen a significant change from that, but that would be a headwind this year as our type of customer has less discretionary income spend. So that's built within our comp expectations. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: But tough to see anything quite yet?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Correct.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the allotted time for questions. I will now turn the call back over to Greg Henslee, Chief Executive Officer.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Thanks, Yumicki. We would like to conclude our call today by, again, thanking our 53,000 members of Team O'Reilly for their commitment to providing the best customer service in our industry. 2012 was another record-breaking year for our company, and our continued success is the direct result of your hard work. As we look forward to 2013, I'm confident that we are well positioned to continue our strong record of profitable growth, supported by your dedication to the fundamental concept that taking care of every customer every day is the key to our long-term success. I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call today. We're very proud of our performance in 2012, and we look forward to reporting our first quarter 2013 results in April. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.