Earnings Labs

O'Reilly Automotive, Inc. (ORLY)

Q3 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 24, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the O'Reilly Automotive Incorporated Third Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. My name is Ellen, and I will be your operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Tom McFall. Tom, you may begin.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Thank you, Ellen. 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 of the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these 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 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, 2012, 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 as 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 Third 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, and Ted Wise, our Executive Vice President of Expansion, are also present. It is once again my great pleasure to congratulate Team O'Reilly on another profitable record-breaking quarter. And I want to thank each and every one of our dedicated team members for their unwavering commitment to providing the highest level of customer service in our industry. At the beginning of the quarter, we set the bar high with comparable store sales expectations of 4% to 6%, which was on top of the 3-year stacked comp comparison of 17.2%. Through your efforts and hard work, we generated an industry-leading 4.6% increase in comparable store sales for the quarter. We should all be very proud of our ability to consistently outpace the industry in comparable store sales growth, especially in the midst of ongoing difficult macroeconomic conditions. In total, we grew sales for the quarter by 8%. And because of our team's relentless focus on profitable growth and expense management, we generated a record quarterly operating margin of 17.4%, driving a 28% increase in earnings per share to $1.69. This represents our 19th consecutive quarter of adjusted earnings per share growth of 15% or greater. Our team remains committed to providing consistent, excellent customer service in each of our stores every day as we continue to focus on executing our proven business model of serving both retail and professional service provider customers. I could not be more proud of the great job our team does serving our customers, and I would…

Jeff M. Shaw

Analyst

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to echo Greg's remarks and thank Team O'Reilly for their hard work in delivering strong results against high expectations. Your dedication to providing consistent, top-notch customer service drove our industry-leading comparable store sales growth and record operating margin. Again, thank you for your continued efforts to make O'Reilly the market leader in customer service. I'd like to begin today by talking about some exciting distribution center expansion. As Greg alluded to earlier, we now have our plan in place to add significant distribution capacity in the Northeast by relocating our acquired DC in Lewiston, Maine, to a facility in Devens, Massachusetts. We purchased an existing facility in Devens, which is in the western suburb of Boston, and plan to relocate our Lewiston, Maine, facility, then begin service out of this new location in the back half of 2014. The new DC will be approximately 370,000 square feet, will have the capacity to service 280 stores and will be key to our continued growth in the Northeast markets. We knew, when we acquired the VIP stores, that we'd need a larger facility to support the growth in the existing store base as well as to robustly grow in the Northeast, and the new Devens facility will deliver that capacity while also leveraging some of its fixed costs from day 1 as it supports the 56 acquired VIP locations. Our real estate group has been actively identifying site zones throughout the Northeast this year and is currently in the process of negotiations for potential new store openings in these markets beginning in early 2015. Our focus for the acquired VIP stores over the next year will be: to complete the inventory changeovers, complete the refurbishing of the interior of the stores and roll out…

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Thanks, Jeff. Now we'll take a closer look at our results and add some color to our guidance. Comparable store sales for the quarter increased 4.6% on top of prior year's comps of 1.3%. Third quarter comps came in within our range despite the lack of extreme temperatures, which created a headwind for our results in weather-related categories, as Greg previous discussed. For the quarter, sales increased $126 million, comprised of a $72 million increase in comp store sales, a $52 million increase in non-comp store sales, a $3 million increase in non-comp, non-stores sales and $1 million decrease from closed stores. As Greg mentioned, we're setting our fourth quarter comparable store sales guidance at 3% to 5%, which is in line with our internal expectations created at the beginning of the year. We're adjusting our comparable store sales guidance for the full year 2013 to a 3.5% to 4.5% increase in comparable store sales, which is simply narrowing our previous guidance as comp sales for the first 3 quarters have been within our expectations. Our full year total sales guidance remains unchanged at $6.6 billion to $6.7 billion. As Greg discussed, our gross margin results exceeded our expectations for the third quarter despite headwinds resulting from LIFO inventory accounting. I'd like to provide a little more color on what we've seen on this front and what we're expecting over the next few quarters. As a result of our incrementally better purchasing power over time, our product acquisition costs have outpaced inflation and resulted in a reduction of our LIFO reserve to a calculated LIFO debit. We have elected the conservative approach and have not and will not record the LIFO debit, which will have the effect of writing off our inventory value beyond replacement cost. To the extent we…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Scot Ciccarelli with RBC Capital Markets.

Scot Ciccarelli - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Two questions. The first is, what kind of impact are you expecting from the LIFO in the fourth quarter and first quarter? Said another way, what will gross margins look like, excluding the LIFO impact? And then, since I'm sure somebody else will ask it if I don't, can you guys just talk about what you're thinking regarding Advance's recent acquisition announcement the other day in terms of any additional challenges or opportunities that, that may provide?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Okay. Well, I'll take the second question and I'll defer the LIFO question to Tom. I'll let -- I'll answer first. On Advance's acquisition of GPI, we basically have, read all the information you have, of course. And us being in the business, we know probably a little bit more about those companies from a competitive standpoint than you do. So we, of course, looking at it from our side, see the opportunities that could be created, just as our competitors see opportunities when we acquire companies, to take advantage of the distraction and the work that has to be done to integrate those companies. So we'll, of course, be working to do what any good competitor would do, and that is to try and gain market share as they work to bring those companies together. There's still a lot of unknown as far as what they'll do with the brands and whether the Park West and Advanced stores will be integrating together or they'll continue operate those in the same market separately. So there's a lot yet to be seen. But we, of course, see the opportunities that we have to take advantage of potential market share gains as they work through that acquisition.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Scot, on the second part of your question, we would expect, absent the LIFO charge, to see a relatively consistent gross margin percentage with the third quarter in the fourth quarter.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Mike Baker with Deutsche Bank.

Michael Baker - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

So I wanted to just ask 2 questions. One, on the -- out West with CSK. Can you tell us what -- where are you in terms of the DIY-DIFM mix in those stores? And then I guess then, where are you company-wide? Just sort of frame how far you are into that process. It's been what, 4 or 5 years and you still say you have room to go. So just sort of contextualize that. And then same type of question on the benefits of renegotiating with your vendors. How far along are you in that process? How much more benefit do you have to go there?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Okay. Well, on the CSK product mix, our company as a whole, we're about 42% professional and 58% DIY. CSK is more DIY-oriented still. They would still -- they would be more in 66%-34% range, something like that. So we continue to work to gain that market share on the professional side out there, and that becomes a bigger part of our mix. As we've talked about, we continue to do a little better DIY out there, so we're growing both sides of the business. But the commercial business grows significantly faster than the rest of the business. And then, Tom, you take the remainder.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Sure. On the timing of deals, we expect to have some pretty big deals get re-upped here in the fourth quarter and the first quarter, which is why we're calling off the LIFO charge. After that, we'd expect to be on a pace to be back to more incremental gains.

Michael Baker - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Okay. If I can just follow up on that CSK. So 66%-34% in terms of DIFM. What can that DIFM get to? Is it ever -- I don't think it ever gets to the 50%-50%, right, but if you can just talk a little where you think it could get to.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Yes, I don't think it'll get to 50%-50% just because some of the locations that we're in out there are more retail-inclined locations. But it can probably get to -- I don't know, I would be guessing because we're trying to grow both of them as much as we can. But we might get it to the 45%-55% range someday. But again, that's yet to be seen. It depends a lot on just the what happens in our industry relative to the amount of DIY business and hold the amount of the do-it-for-me business. I think everyone agrees that right now, the do-it-for-me business is growing a little bit more robustly than the DIY business. So it may be that we reach a point that we're not able to get our DIY business to be that much of our mix out there or maintain that much of a mix out there. But we'll see. We -- our do-it-for-me business is strong and growing, and we'll just have to see where it ends up.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Gregory Melich with ISI Group.

Gregory S. Melich - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · ISI Group.

I just wanted to get a little more color on that DIY versus do-it-for-me relative performance. You said that both were positive. Was that outperformance that do-it-for-me seems to have regularly, did that widen in the quarter? Or is it pretty much what it's been running? And then I had a follow-up on the purchasing.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · ISI Group.

You're referring to the company as a whole?

Gregory S. Melich - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · ISI Group.

Yes.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · ISI Group.

Yes. No, it stayed pretty -- well, no, it narrowed a little bit. The -- no, I'm sorry, it widened a little bit with -- compared to last quarter. The -- it's a little bit wider this quarter. We had one less Sunday, which is a good number for the professional side and less good for the DIY side. So yes...

Gregory S. Melich - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · ISI Group.

So excluding that sort of dayshift, do you think the gap has stayed whatever, sort of, yes, really 600 bps?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · ISI Group.

Well, we're not going to comment on the 600 bps.

Gregory S. Melich - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · ISI Group.

Okay. But that would be my answer. So the -- on purchasing, Tom, could you just give us a little more color on why now on the extra traction on the purchasing? Are there particular categories that you're resetting? And how is inflation looking on the flip side in terms of sell-through, if there is any.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · ISI Group.

Yes. Tom may have some comments on this, but we're simply going back through our major vendors, primarily hard parts vendors and -- post the CSK acquisition and the expiration of some of the agreements that we had post the acquisition and just kind of reworking those deals and resetting those deals to reflect our planned growth on the East Coast and the rest of the country, and that's kind of what we're working through. So these are deals that will benefit us and our manufacturers as we assure them business and growth into the future. And that put us in a position to work to do on the East Coast what we've not yet done and have been able to do in the Central and the Western part of the country.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · ISI Group.

On the inflation side, when we look at sale prices year-over-year, excluding mix, we're well below historical averages for inflation, which I think had been noted at other places within the industry.

Gregory S. Melich - ISI Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · ISI Group.

Still positive but well below history?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · ISI Group.

Nearly positive.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Matthew Fassler with Goldman Sachs.

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

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

I'd like to focus my question on traffic and ticket, where you did give us some color, but to think about the traffic and ticket trends within each of DIY and commercial for you, please.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Okay.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Yes. When we look at traffic on DIY, it's been pressured over a long period of time due to the changes in vehicles and the frequency of repair. Last quarter, we had one of our best DIY traffic counts in a while, and that slowed this quarter. So there continues to be pressure. So again, we had one less Sunday, which is good for the professional side of the business and more challenging to the DIY side of the business, but it did slow. Now on the do-it-for-me side of the business, we continue to gain share, both in our existing markets and even more robustly in the acquired markets. So those ticket counts are -- increases are more than offsetting the DIY pressure.

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

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

And is there -- if you look at the tickets on the DIY side, I guess, you sort of talked about an industry-wide trend of fewer repairs but of larger magnitude. Is that playing out on the DIY side of the business as well?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

We see that on both sides of the business, yes.

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

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Great. and then just quickly by way of follow-up, I know you said inflation was not really a factor. I'm asking that as it relates to comp rather than gross margin and the whole LIFO theme. As you look forward to 2014, as you look at raw material costs and other factors, any anticipation of the impact that you would expect from inflation?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

For the foreseeable future, we don't see a catalyst out there that's going to drive our acquisition costs higher and sale prices higher. So we're not expecting to see for the foreseeable future comps driven as much by inflation as we've seen in the past.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Simeon Gutman with Credit Suisse. Simeon Gutman - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: So just looking at Q3 relative to Q2, and Tom, you said that DIY was a little slow or slower, can you talk about whether that's just industry, macro or weather or was it market share that you could identify?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

I think we've been saying that it would just be more macro. And maybe not so much industry related, but I would relate it more to the fact that the DIY customers are typically customers that are -- and many have worked on their own cars because they are economically incentivized to do that. They really can't afford to have their car worked on, so they try to do some of the jobs themselves. And I think some of the things that have happened of late with the governmental shutdown and those kinds of things, us maybe not having as quite as hot a weather as what we would have typically had in the summertime, those things probably put a little bit of pressure on the DIY. I think that from an industry standpoint, that everyone agrees that the do-it-for-me business is growing a little bit faster than the DIY but -- business just as a result of the complexity of vehicles and the expertise that it takes to do some of the drivability-type repairs, and we would expect that trend to continue into the future. Simeon Gutman - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Okay. And then a follow-up. I think I got the relationship right that the gross margin benefited from being a little less promotional this year. Can you talk just about the trade-off there? And is this an intention? Is this a posture you plan on going forward? And do you think had you been a little more promotional on a tougher day, you could have gotten better comps? I'm just thinking about the return there.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Yes. It really is a timing thing. We plan our promotions based on a variety of things, including the timing with vendors related to their preference on oil change specials and some of those kinds of things. The primary difference here is just some pretty aggressive oil change specials we had running during that period last year that we didn't have running at the same time this year. Really, nothing has changed. But it did have an impact, and it was a positive from a gross margin perspective and probably did put some pressure on sales during the quarter. And definitely, as we look at it from a category-by-category basis, those categories that we were promoting last year didn't perform nearly as well from a sales standpoint towards the end of the period as they performed last year, but they, of course, performed much better from a gross margin perspective. So it's just typical promotions. Nothing has changed with the way we do it. Strictly a timing thing.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Horvers with JPMorgan. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I want to follow up on that one as well. I mean, you mentioned -- it sounds like you really believe that the promotional changes, what drove some of the slower trends into the end of the quarter, I mean, is there anything that you've seen in -- around the government shutdown leading in, coming out that would suggest that there was an impact, probably temporary but there was an impact commercial versus DIY? Was there a difference in those businesses as well related to that?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Yes, here's what I would say, Chris, that our DIY business definitely slowed down towards the end of the quarter more -- pretty dramatically. And we related it directly to the difference in the promotional activity that we were running last year in those categories that we're promoting. At the same time, this whole government shutdown and the bickering that's been going on in Washington, was going on, I think has informed, as most people are these days, because of the news agencies and smartphones and all that kind of stuff. I think it creates uncertainty, especially when people are living paycheck to paycheck and we're talking about defaulting on our sovereign debt and all the things that are discussed on TV and news agencies. So a lot of people don't really understand. They just think it's bad and can't be good for them. And then also, the impending health care debate and whether or not people are going to have to spend the money next year to have health care in order to abide by the law and what that means, and what's going to happen with their employer-sponsored health care when many are delaying their open enrollment because they are trying to figure out how to do this and what's the right thing to do, and they want to be competitive with other companies when it comes to the health care. We had all of us rapping a burden, a little more expense. So there's just a lot of uncertainties, I think, that also contribute to DIY softness. So far this quarter, we have seen our DIY business doing better, and our overall business has been solid, as I said. So I think the government saying, hey, we're going to get along for a while here, I'm trying to work this out, I think that has helped calm some nerves and things are maybe a little more back to normal. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Perfect. And then 2 more quick follow-ups. As you think about sort of -- what sort of weather backdrop are you expecting in the fourth quarter? It's been pretty shaky over the past couple of years. Do you think that -- as you see the outlook, do you think it's going to be more favorable this year?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

I'll [indiscernible].

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

All right, you go ahead.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

When we come up with our guidance, we will look at pricing trends and we will look at our business trends. We always project weather to be normal. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay, fair enough. And then last question. Just as you build inventory for these new DCs, how -- assuming that you're buying cheaper, is that part of the reason why you'll have a gross margin tailwind as the year progresses next year?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

The new DCs really won't have a significant impact on our gross margin. It will have a little bit of headwind when they first open as they're not as efficient, although we're spreading it out across a large base. So that's the distribution cost standpoint. When we look at gross margin tailwinds next year, although we haven't given guidance, when we get beyond signing up some of the last few big deals we have and the impacts from our LIFO, when those subside, we're going to see that pressure released, and we'd expect to see higher margins in the back half of the year. And it really doesn't relate back to DCs or DC openings. We really try to focus our deals with our suppliers on how much product we're going to move over a period of time. Christopher Horvers - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I guess I was just -- I always thought with LIFO that if you were buying, you're basically going to be flat inventory year-to-year right now. But as you step up presumably buy -- inventory growth year-over-year, that ends up being -- when you're buying lower, that ends up being a benefit in the LIFO calculation.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

It won't impact our LIFO calculation as much as our capitalized distribution costs for more inventory, that helps to offset the value, the cost. The cap is a recognition of the value of putting more salable inventory in place in those costs you burden. So it really doesn't run through LIFO.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Dan Wewer with Raymond James. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Greg, just following up on inflation. You noted that it's going to run below normal range, I believe is what you said in your prepared comments. What was the normal range? As I recall, it was around 2%. Correct me if I'm wrong. And then curious as to why the inflation rate is less. It's my understanding it's not just what's happening with copper and steel prices, but parts are more technologically sophisticated than they used to be. Therefore, the engineering costs are higher, and that's contributed to that historic inflation rate. So why would that not have continued?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Yes. Well, I think at some point, it most likely will continue. Our historic rate's been more in the 1% to 2% range, 1.5%, something like that. We're expecting it to be pretty flat. A big part of that's driven by commodities as oil prices have increased. And we're still seeing as much of that of late. And other commodities, too, [indiscernible] and some things like that. I think over time, we do move back into more of an inflationary environment, that as we've continued to grow and some of the other companies have continued to grow, we all buy well, it's harder, I think, for manufacturers to pass price increases through to these larger companies that operate very efficiently from a supply chain perspective. And we just went through a period and would expect to continue to go through a period in the upcoming year where we wouldn't expect there to be as much inflation, unless something were to happen that drove commodity prices up. And then we want to see some. Daniel R. Wewer - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: And as a follow-up question, back when you bought CSK, operating margins in the core business were running about 12%. As I recall, CSK's operating margins were around 5%. And now, we're looking at the combined organization somewhere between a 16% and 17% operating margin. So you could make a case there's been about 1,000 basis points of synergies coming out of CSK. When you look at where you exceeded the initial forecast from 5 years ago with the integration, was that mainly in product acquisition costs?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Yes, a big part of it was product acquisition costs for sure. We've -- and a lot of that's due to a lot of factors. One, just the size and the buying power we have. A lot of it's efficiencies that we have created in supply chain from a -- just a supply standpoint, buying through vendors here in the U.S. but buying more product from overseas manufacturers and things like that. But yes, it has exceeded what we thought would be -- I think the majority of the synergy has come through improved gross margin.

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

But Dan, what I would add to that is CSK's operating margin of 5% was -- they were working pretty hard to keep that number down. So a lot of it is operational execution. So they should not have been at 5%. Should they have been at the 12% that we were at, there are some differences in leases and things like that. But part of getting their 5% up to 12% is just executing the business better.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Daniel Hofkin with William Blair & Company. Daniel Hofkin - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Just, I guess, another question related to CSK. If you could -- you talk about sort of core versus converted stores. At this point, sales productivity, how those compare, and where you see -- I guess my math suggests they're pretty comparable at this point in terms of sales per store or sales per square foot. Where could you see -- if I'm right about that, where could the converted stores get to over time given that you're particularly growing the commercial business? That's my first question.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Okay. Well, to some degree, comparing the core O'Reilly stores to the CSK stores is a little bit comparing apples to oranges because of the -- as a company, it was a young company and expanding. We expanded into a lot of rural markets that really never had the top line potential that many of the metro stores that we put in as a more mature company at core O'Reilly and CSK was in when we bought them. So CSK has the potential to have the majority of the -- what was CSK has the potential to have a majority of their stores at a pretty high top line and more comparable with the metro stores that core O'Reilly has. If we compare the metro stores at core O'Reilly to the CSK metro stores, the core O'Reilly stores still outperformed the CSK stores. There's still a lot of upside on the CSK. The core O'Reilly stores are -- as a whole are dragged down a little bit by the rural stores that we operate. They just don't have that top line potential. So core O'Reilly would still be probably a little higher in those metro stores, but we -- we're working those CSK stores up to that level. And then, in some cases, we'll surpass core O'Reilly because they're -- we're in some really good markets out West that have a lot of market potential, and we're just in the process of gaining that -- forming market share, and we still have a lot of room to grow. Daniel Hofkin - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Okay, great. And then as it relates to just back -- yet another question on the gross margin. So when you talk about the deals that -- signing near term between now and, let's say, first quarter, the impact there, that is the unit cap? In other words, just increased capitalized distribution costs? That's the drag from that?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

No, we got a little -- we had a combined question back a few questions ago. There's 2 issues. There's -- these new deals are going to be a pressure on us from a LIFO accounting standpoint and create short-term margin as we write all our inventory down to those new deal prices. The other issue was a question on new DCs, and we'll see higher capitalized distribution costs next year, which is recognition for all these DCs we're going to put in place and additional inventory we'll have in salable position. And that will be a net 0 on gross margin as the capitalization of those values offset the increased cost of new DCs. Daniel Hofkin - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division: Okay, so -- and in summary, you're looking for flattish year-over-year gross margin in the fourth quarter and the first quarter because of the, I guess, benefit from improved product acquisition costs over time?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Yes. The short-term pain for the long-term gain, yes.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Michael Lasser with UBS. We'll take the next question. We have Jack Dulles with Focus Research.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

I was wondering, when you took over CSK, did you have some distractions that benefited competition the way you might expect to happen with Advanced Auto Parts?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Well, that's a good question, Jack. I'd like to say no, we didn't. But I can tell you that when you do something like this, it takes a lot of energy, and it takes a lot of focus from the -- not only the top management of the company but the field team members that you put in place to do that. What we did during the CSK acquisition was we really relied on our field operations management to run the core O'Reilly stores and keep things headed the right direction. I think they did a great job. But there's -- it always takes a lot of energy out of the top management of the company to absorb the kind of acquisition that we did with CSK and Advance is working on integrating with GPI. So the answer would be yes, sure it did. It takes some out. And you do the best you can to avoid materializing in market share loss, but there's certainly that possibility that exists with any acquisition of this size.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Okay, I assume that you're still able to pretty well service your commercial accounts, I see.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Oh, yes. Yes, we kept -- we were -- we kept our eye on the ball. And all the things that -- really what you try to do, Jack, is you try to make -- the stores that are in operation that are operating and servicing customers, you try to make it a non-issue for them. You make it something that they read about on our newsletters and our communications, but you make it something that doesn't impact them. Where it can become distracting is where you're trying to maybe adapt the business to the changing market conditions, something the competitor is doing. There's just not quite as much focus on that from a top management standpoint as there would you if you weren't integrating a company. So that would be generally where I'm coming from.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Okay. One last question. Regarding SG&A, which was down for the entire company, I think there was a comment made that SG&A per store was up 0.75%. Can you explain that difference?

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Would you take it?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

The increase in SG&A on a -- we leverage total SG&A. But if we look at broad dollars, the growth was 0.75% per store, which is what we're expecting for the full year.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

In other words, you went up 0.75% per store in an upward direction despite the entire company being down?

Thomas G. McFall

Analyst

Oh, we're talking about dollar -- the 0.7% is dollar increase per store, Jack.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was a percentage. Okay, that's good.

Operator

Operator

We have reached our allotted time for questions. I will now turn the call back over to Greg Henslee for closing remarks.

Gregory L. Henslee

Analyst

Okay, thank you, Ellen. I'd like to once again thank everyone, every member of Team O'Reilly for their hard work and their dedication to our ongoing success. You've proven time and time again that the relentless focus on providing consistent, excellent customer service is the key to our long-term, profitable growth. We remain committed to executing our proven business model in every existing and new markets that we enter. We are confident that we'll continue to gain market share by focusing on satisfying each customer who calls or walks into our stores. Thanks to everyone for their time today, and we look forward to reporting our 2013 fourth quarter and full year results in early February. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the O'Reilly Automotive Incorporated Third Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.