AAP
#Well, first of all, we have the industry-related market share tools that are out there.
We do use those.
I wish we had more, but I use what's available.
So we see that once a period.
I see it Wednesday this week, for the purposes of the most recent period.
And we've been watching it very closely, and we watch it by geography, we watch it by category, all of the things that you would expect there.
And we have seen, I would say, relatively uniform improvements on it.
I mean, you've got pluses and minuses, as you always will.
But we've seen the sequential improvement come fairly uniformly.
Share, yes.
Great question, <UNK>.
I mean, I went up there fairly early on, because we were really struggling ---+ I think May, something like that, May or June, I went to a couple of the facilities we have up there.
What we did is, we tried to impose a bit of a cookie-cutter approach to those distribution centers.
And they really weren't engineered to do it.
We had more stores than we should have assigned to them, at a delivery frequency that was very difficult for them to execute flawlessly.
And that created a very chaotic environment in the distribution center.
We weren't able to fill orders properly.
There was accuracy issues.
Yes, we were delivering 5X to the stores, but if you ask the general managers of those stores, they would have said: please stop doing this.
Because we were just ---+ it was a bit of a Lucy Show-type thing going on.
We just had stuff coming in and out, and in and out.
And we weren't getting the right part to the right place at the right time.
So we essentially unwound that.
We went to 3X in those distribution centers.
We got into a much better cadence with the stores.
We executed our first one in August, okay.
Then we went in September, in the second one.
We've now done all of them.
So there's transition costs that we've incurred in the last couple of ---+ in the third quarter ---+ and will incur in the fourth quarter, by the way, as you move to this new system.
And we're seeing much better fill rates, like significantly better, much better accuracy, and the general managers are much happier, and they're selling more.
So it just goes back to, the customer wants the right part in the right place at the right time.
The customer doesn't say: hello, have you got 5X.
They say: have you got the right part.
And when we're able to fulfill that part, regardless of how we got it there, that's what they're looking for.
So I was in both of those facilities in ---+ what's this, October ---+ I was in there in October.
Totally different place.
There's not stuff all over the place.
We've got clean aisles.
I can see down the aisles.
That's kind of important to me in a distribution center.
I don't want to see stuff laying on the loading docks.
I mean, I tip my hat to the teams in those DCs, because they've really worked at it very hard.
And as a result, our customers are much happier.
Sure.
Well, first of all, I'd call out zero-based budgeting, <UNK>, and I do have some experience with that.
I love it.
It's a terrific opportunity to really standardize how costs are managed across the organization.
And I would consider what we have in there a AAA bond.
It's really about getting horizontal views of all of the costs that you have across the enterprise, as opposed to each cost center manager managing their costs in more of a vertical fashion, and us saying: gee, can you do better.
It isn't a do-better exercise, it's a change-the-physics exercise.
We're not managing those costs the same way anymore, and we're asking people to look at the costs in ways they haven't been looked at before.
So those costs, we've got a very clear idea.
<UNK> is running the control tower.
We're very clear on where those costs are coming out.
They're across the P&L, <UNK>, so I can't call out specific things.
They're really throughout the entire P&L.
The supply chain obviously is a big area of opportunity.
We just talked about one here, 5X to 3X.
You deliver parts three times a week instead of five times a week, it costs less.
And unless you have a really good effectiveness reason for doing it, which we didn't in that case, when we go from 5X to 3X, we save a lot of money.
So we're going to continue to look for those types of opportunities.
But it's those types of things where, as I said earlier, the cost is coming out.
It's not volume-dependent or revenue-dependent.
What do you mean by the trade-off.
I think it falls into the camp of my earlier answer.
I don't know that there was a lot of rigorous analytics done.
I don't know that we looked at the DC itself, and how many dock doors they had, and how many stores they were servicing, and delivery frequency.
We just felt that, that was a solution that could work everywhere, and it doesn't.
That's kind of the short version on that one.
It varies.
It varies by market.
We have different cadence for super hubs and hubs throughout the network, as we do for stores.
Was the question the mix of the parts.
Yes, again, we look at it market by market, looking at the VIOs, the vehicles in operation there.
And we're seeing a good mix of all makes, all models, at the store level.
And importantly, because many of the stores have access to the Worldpac assortment, we're measuring all that activity, and then basically working with the merchandising team to push those parts closer to the store, so they will get is closer to the customer without having to have that extra touch.
We're seeing, again, a good cross-section of parts there, mostly Asian versus high-end European ---+ which of course, is a Worldpac.
But I would say for the most part, domestic, Asian and certainly some European, Volkswagen, some Audi, and so forth.
But it's a good mix.
But importantly, when you go to the market there, we're going to the customer with the answer of: we have all of it ---+ all makes, all models, across the entire enterprise, and we're bringing that closer to the customer.
So as that develops and evolves, we'll continue to build the inventory to support that activity market by market, capturing all the look-ups on the online, which we do at Worldpac today, and certainly capturing all the call-ins as well.
That's going to be dynamic inventory.
Whatever the calls are out there for the customer development side, we're going to have the part closer to the customer.
Okay, so I really appreciate everybody coming this evening, and the interest you have in our business.
I'd just wrap it up by saying, we absolutely believe that AAP is a very compelling investment opportunity.
The industry is performing well.
We're in a compelling market position, we feel.
There's a tremendous opportunity for us to drive growth and margin expansion.
I think you've seen that the team is executing a pretty focused agenda going forward.
We're aligned around the plan.
So, big opportunity to drive substantial shareholder value, and that's our commitment to you.
So thanks for coming tonight.
