Rick Gomez
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes, Jeff, this is Rick. I can take the first part of the question about just the unit trends and what we saw within the customer base. First, on the comps, I think fourth quarter of last year, we said we were down about 4% and so when we looked at units organically over the two-year period, it's up about 12%. So, it is not just a comp that's benefiting that. I think there's good underlying demand, good underlying new customer acquisition, and we think some market share that will be evident in the data going forward. Now, the question then becomes, did -- was some of that demand, the contractor channel holding more inventory than they normally do. And I'll give you a couple of data points there. First, just conceptually, I think we all know the average contractor is a small business, an owner-operator, handful of trucks. They don't have 100,000 square foot facilities just to store inventory. They tend not to invest in inventory and working capital because we are just -- we, the distributor, are their just-in-time inventory partner. And generally, they have days of inventory on hand, not months of inventory on hand. So, conceptually, the channel has never really had a whole lot of inventory beyond us, the distributor. So, secondly, when you look at our movement throughout the fourth quarter, if contractors were buying, you'd say you'd see a spike in December. And what we saw was very balanced growth throughout all the fourth quarter and October was just as strong as December, which does not -- would not easily lead to the conclusion that there's more inventory out there. And we then looked at our own customer level trends among our largest customers. They would be the ones who would have the capacity to buy forward and hold inventory and there's nothing in that data that points to large-scale buying. And fourthly, just to beat the horse dead now, I think our own inventory says a lot about this question. And beyond the dollars that you see on the balance sheet, units in inventory have been very balanced and flat versus two years ago, believe it or not. So, we don't see a whole lot of evidence that contractors are carrying much inventory beyond us in the channel and nothing that would cause alarm about what 2025 growth rates might look like.