W.W. Grainger Q2 2026 Earnings Call - Raised Full-Year Guidance on Strong Demand and Margin Expansion

Operator: Greetings, welcome to the W.W. Grainger second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Kyle Bland, Vice President and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Kyle Bland, Vice President, Investor Relations, W.W. Grainger: Good morning. Welcome to Grainger’s second quarter 2026 earnings call. With me are D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, and Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO. As a reminder, some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Additional information regarding factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is included in the company’s most recent Form 8-K and other periodic reports filed with the SEC. This morning’s call includes non-GAAP financial measures, which reflect certain adjustments in previous periods as noted in the presentation. There were no adjusting items in the second quarter of 2026 period. We have also included organic revenue adjustments in the presentation, which normalize sales growth to reflect our exit from the U.K. market, including the Cromwell divestiture and the closure of Zoro U.K., both of which were completed in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Definitions and full reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures with their corresponding GAAP measures are found in the tables at the end of this presentation and in our earnings release, both of which are available on our IR website. We will also share results related to MonotaRO. Please remember that MonotaRO is a public company and follows Japanese GAAP, which differs from US GAAP and is reported in our results one month in arrears. As a result, the numbers discussed will differ from MonotaRO’s public statements. Now I’ll turn it over to D.G.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Thanks, Kyle. Good morning, everyone, thanks for joining today. Building on our momentum from the start of the year, we delivered strong performance in the second quarter by executing well and delivering exceptional service to customers. Despite ongoing uncertainty, sales remained strong in both the High-Touch and Endless Assortment segments, and core operating profitability was in line with expectations. While the external landscape remains fluid, we’re confident in our ability to manage the impact while remaining committed to our pricing tenets. We also saw continued strength in demand environment during the period, with most end markets showing acceleration. As I spend time with customers, I can see this playing out in the way we serve them on-site and inside their operations. Recently, I visited several manufacturing customers where our teams are closely connected to the day-to-day work.

We’re helping them manage inventory in ways that fit their specific needs, and that is contributing to strong year-over-year growth at these locations. More and more customers are asking us to help them run their operations more efficiently and solve specific challenges, including areas like safety. With one customer, our safety expertise was the catalyst for accelerating that partnership. We’re also seeing solid growth from our national accounts in both the U.S. and Canada. On Canada specifically, we have seen tremendous improvement over the past several years as a team to stay focused on two things: serving customers well and building a stronger, more profitable business. They’ve made great progress improving service, resetting their sales force, and revamping their website, while also diversifying their customer end markets and product offering.

These efforts have driven strong sales growth and operating margin recovery to the highest levels we have seen in nearly a decade. Now turning to our second quarter results. We delivered another quarter of strong growth and profitability. Results benefited from ongoing operational execution across both segments and an improving market, which helped accelerate volume growth in the period. We are pleased with what we are seeing from our High-Touch growth engine and from our efforts within the EA segment to continue propelling the flywheel. Total company reported sales for the quarter were up 10.3%, or 13.7% on a daily organic constant currency basis. Operating margin was strong at 16.1%, and diluted EPS finished the quarter up over 20% inclusive of the impact of IEEPA tariff refunds recognized in the period.

Operating cash flow came in at $444 million, which allowed us to return a total of $341 million to Grainger shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Lastly, we are excited to announce that our new Northwest distribution center in Oregon began outbound operations in July. This new technology-enabled building gives us another way to get more of the products customers need closer to where and when they need them. Overall, we’re encouraged by the progress we’ve made across the business. After our strong first half performance and continued momentum, we are increasing our outlook for the year. With that, I’ll turn it over to Dee for a closer look at our financials from the quarter.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Thanks, D.G. Turning to slide seven, you can see the high-level results we had in the second quarter with total company sales of 10.3%, or 13.7% on a daily organic constant currency basis, which included strong growth across High-Touch Solutions and Endless Assortment. Growth margin for the quarter was healthy at 39.5%, up 100 basis points versus the prior year period, as we saw expansion in both segments and recognized a 90 basis point tailwind from IEEPA tariff refunds on products directly imported by Grainger. Operating margin was 16.1%, up 120 basis points year over year, as growth margins flow through and leverage in Endless Assortment contributed to results. Both growth margin and operating margin benefited from our exit of the U.K. market.

If you were to normalize for the tariff refund benefit realized in the period, operating margins were in line with our verbal guide, aided by better-than-expected top-line leverage. Overall, results were strong for the quarter, we delivered diluted EPS of $12.01, which was up over 20% versus the prior year period.

Moving to segment level results. The High-Touch Solutions segment delivered sales growth of 11.9% on a reported basis, or 11.7% on a daily constant currency basis. Results were driven by strong volume growth and healthy price contribution to revenue, and also benefited from some project-based spend. From an end market perspective, MRO market demand continued to improve in the period. For Grainger, specifically, we saw broad-based acceleration across nearly all customer groups with strong contributions from manufacturing and government sectors. This was alongside outsized growth in our contractor and retail end markets, which are both benefiting from data center activities as new facilities are stood up. On profitability, gross profit margin finished the quarter at 41.8%, up eighty basis points versus the prior year.

Results were driven by the benefit from IEEPA tariff refunds and slightly positive mix, although mix came in less favorable than expected on a higher volume of lower margin products and project related spend. These impacts were partially offset by private label cost hit wins and unfavorable freight as we absorbed the higher cost in the period. Price cost was roughly neutral during the quarter. On SG&A, we delivered slightly year-over-year as strong sales and productivity were offset by continued marketing investment and higher payroll and benefits expense, including higher incentive-based compensation, given our strong top-line results. Taking all of this together, operating margin for the segment finished at 17.3%, up 70 basis points versus the prior year quarter. All told, we are pleased with the continued strength across the High-Touch segment as we move into the second half of the year.

Now focusing on Endless Assortment segment. Sales increased 13.5% on a reported basis, or 20.6% on a daily organic constant currency basis, which normalizes for the closure of our Zoro U.K. business and adjusts for the impact of the depreciated Japanese yen. Zoro U.S. was up 18.4% on a daily basis, while MonotaRO achieved 24% growth in local days and local constant currency. At a business level, Zoro saw strong growth from its core B2B customers, along with higher customer retention rates as our marketing program, both targeted and efficiency, continued to improve. The team remains focused on delivering our core foundational capabilities to improve the assortment, search experience, pricing, and delivery. At MonotaRO, sales were strong with continued growth from enterprise customers coupled with solid acquisition and repeat purchase rates with small and mid-sized businesses.

Additionally, MonotaRO benefited from customer pre-buying of certain petroleum-related products ahead of anticipated shortages due to the conflict in the Middle East. This behavior has fully subsided, and our updated guide reflects slower growth in the back half of the year as this benefit moderates. On profitability, operating margins increased by 160 basis points to 11.5%, with favorability across the segment. MonotaRO margins were strong at 14% up 80 basis points, and Zoro margins improved to 7.6% up 180 basis points, with both businesses benefiting from healthy top-line leverage. Overall, another great quarter for the Endless Assortment team. As we look to the back half of the year, I want to share a brief update on the inflationary environment. We continue to manage the business with the goal of maintaining price-cost neutrality over time. With ongoing shifts in the tariff environment, we’ve had to remain nimble.

In the second quarter, we adjusted prices to reflect the changing tariff landscape, including the rollback of IEEPA tariff pricing and offsetting Section 232 tariff impacts. While we made several changes across our assortment, our May pricing actions were net neutral in total. Also in the quarter, we recognized refunds from the federal government for previously paid IEEPA tariffs, where Grainger was the importer of record. The majority of this benefit was recognized during the second quarter as a reduction to our cost of goods sold, with a small remainder expected to flow through over the next couple of quarters. When considering these refunds, it’s important to remember that they relate only to tariffs paid directly by Grainger and represent only a small portion of the many tariff costs that we faced over the last year and a half.

Importantly, these refund proceeds and the price pass on these SKUs only partially offset the cost we absorbed in 2025 related to IEEPA. Separately, we continue to face inflationary pressures from rising freight and product costs due to the conflict in the Middle East. As these pressures persist, we expect to take additional pricing actions in September to help mitigate this impact. Our September pricing actions will also reflect adjustments related to the recent Section 232 tariff modifications, in addition to new Section 301 tariffs. Though we anticipate that these tariff-related changes will be minimal. Following our September pricing actions, the majority of known cost increases will have been addressed. And although the situation remains highly fluid, our team continues to stay focused on adhering to our two core pricing tenets, to maintain market-relevant pricing and to achieve price-cost neutrality over time. Turning to our guide.

We are raising our guidance to reflect the strong sales momentum along with the impact of tariff refunds. On the top line, this translates to expected daily organic constant currency sales growth between 11.5% and 13%, reflecting our second quarter performance and expectations for continued solid MRO market demand in the second half. Our updated operating margin range has increased versus the prior guide to 15.8%-16.2%. This includes the tariff refund benefit, most of which was recognized in the second quarter, and improved sales leverage, but is partially offset by anticipated mix headwinds and cost timing pressures as inflation builds ahead of our September pricing round. Lastly, rounding out our guide, you can see EPS is expected to be between $45.50 and $47.25, or up over 17% year-over-year at the midpoint.

This represents an improvement of over $1 at the midpoint versus the prior guidance range. We’ve also updated our supplemental guidance in the appendix, which includes a slight increase in total company operating cash flow at the midpoint compared to the prior guide. We’ve continued our strong momentum into the third quarter with preliminary July sales up north of 13% on a daily organic constant currency basis. This start supports our expectation for third quarter sales north of $5 billion, or up over 12% on a daily organic constant currency basis, which is 380 basis points lower on a reported basis when normalizing for the U.K. market exit and currency headwinds. We expect operating margins will be down sequentially in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, largely driven by the lap of tariff refunds.

With this, we anticipate third quarter operating margins will be in the mid 15% range for the total company. I’ll now hand it back over to DG for his closing remarks.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Thanks, Dee. To wrap things up, we feel good about how the business is operating, and we’re confident in our strategy. I’m encouraged by our ability to continue growing profitably in this ever-evolving environment while staying focused on creating value over the long term. Before I turn it over to Q&A, I want to take a minute to acknowledge the news we shared yesterday that Deidra Merriwether has made the personal decision to step down to pursue another opportunity, effective September 4, 2026. On behalf of the company, I want to thank Dee for her many contributions to Grainger. Dee has been a trusted advisor, guiding us with deep knowledge and sound judgment during her tenure. With this transition, Laurie Thomson, VP, Controller, and Principal Accounting Officer, has been appointed interim CFO, effective September 5th. She will also maintain her existing controllership responsibilities.

Laurie brings strong financial expertise and guidance, and I’m confident in her leadership. The transition has no impact on our day-to-day operations, and Dee and Laurie will partner on a smooth transition over the next couple of weeks. We will begin a search process for the next CFO immediately. We wish Dee all the best in the future, and I look forward to working with Laurie in the interim. With that, we’ll open it up for Q&A.

Operator: Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Your first question comes from David Manthey with Baird. Please state your question.

David Manthey, Analyst, Baird: Thank you. Good morning, DG, and Dee, thank you and best of luck. First question is on the refunds, of course. One thing you mentioned in the slide deck, I think you said the majority of refunds are reflected in the second quarter. You didn’t say all. I am just wondering if there is any kind of estimate you can give us on third quarter and fourth quarter potential refund benefits there so we can anticipate those.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Again, the vast majority, as we noted, have been accrued for and/or received. In the back half, we think it is going to be fairly immaterial based upon that, and it was very hard to estimate from a quarterly perspective. We focused mostly on what we could estimate and what we felt was probable at this time, and that is what we booked in Q2.

David Manthey, Analyst, Baird: Okay. Thinking about the guidance relative to what you reported this quarter and the benefit from the refund, could you just talk about You mentioned a few of these things. I know we are splitting atoms here. Could you talk about the offsetting factors that caused you to raise full year gross margin by less than the benefit that you got from the second quarter refunds alone?

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Sure. You’re talking about kind of decomposing the guide a little bit, right? As it relates to gross margins?

David Manthey, Analyst, Baird: Yes.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: If you kind of really just start with where we’re at, we noted that the impact in the quarter was about 90 basis points. If you look at it on a full year basis, the tariff refunds account for call it 23 basis points on the year. That was offset by what you hear us talk about, higher volume on lower gross margin products or project-based sales that we’re incurring with some of our new large customers as we ramp. That offsets that, so that nets to about 15 basis points. We see some continued net headwinds as we go through the year, mostly related to fuel and freight related to the crisis. Secondly, we do expect to have less of a mix benefit in the second half. We expect that to have some headwinds.

That nets that benefit down that we’re receiving from the tariff refunds.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: I would just add that I think the mix benefits, oftentimes we see, if you look historically, when we are in really hot market times, big projects come through. We’ve seen quite a bit of that actually from customers, those tend to be at lower gross margin. They’re strong contribution margin. We expect that’s a big part of the change actually that we’re talking about and a bit of a drag on gross margin, but not on profitability overall. The freight. If you thought about how we managed tariffs last year, we didn’t increase price immediately. We were patient with customers. We started raising them in September substantially, and we got sort of price cost neutral by January. We’re actually price cost neutral in the quarter this time, but that same pattern will play out in September.

We’ll start to recover some of the headwind we’re seeing from freight and Middle East products.

David Manthey, Analyst, Baird: Thank you. I appreciate the detail.

Operator: Your next question comes from Jake Levinson with Melius Research. Please state your question.

Jake Levinson, Analyst, Melius Research: Hey, good morning everyone. Dee, best of luck in your new role. I appreciate your help over the last couple of years.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Thank you.

Jake Levinson, Analyst, Melius Research: Maybe just following up on David’s question a little bit. I’m just trying to think about maybe putting a finer point on your pricing actions, because I know there’s a lot of moving pieces between product prices going up and down, and I’m sure surcharges in there as well. Can you help us understand where we’re going to shake out in the third quarter and into the fourth quarter? Because I’d imagine you’re going to be exiting the year at a bit of a higher rate, maybe, than where we are today.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. Dee talked about the puts and takes of May, and we basically had zero price change overall for May. We had some ups and downs. What we’re doing in September will add about one point annually, so less than that, obviously, for the balance of the year, maybe 40 basis points or something like that. For the whole year will be around 4%. We originally said 3%-4%. We’re going to be at the high end of that given those increases.

Jake Levinson, Analyst, Melius Research: Okay. That’s helpful. I guess it was just a matter of time before you mentioned data center as a tailwind for you folks, I’m just trying to get a sense of the materiality of that market over time, because I’m sure there’s a construction phase, and then after that, you’ve got those facilities that are going to be around for a long time. I’m not even sure how you would think about sizing that potential over time. Is that

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Let me start with, it shows up in maybe strange places. If you look at our comps at retail, we’ll include data centers because some of those companies actually have retail operations, even though the data centers aren’t very retail-esque. Our exposure to data centers directly is probably less than 1%. We’re seeing obviously strong growth there, but it’s having a bigger impact on the ecosystem. I think for everybody, it’s probably having a bigger impact, because we see it in construction, different types of construction. We maybe see it a little bit in the general strength of manufacturing. It’s hard to quantify, though. The direct exposure is pretty small, but the exposure overall is probably bigger than that as far as we can tell.

Jake Levinson, Analyst, Melius Research: Helpful color, DJ. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Please state your question.

Ryan Merkel, Analyst, William Blair: Hey, everyone. Thanks for the questions. I want to start on gross margin for the quarter. It looks like ex the tariff refund, it was a little bit below what you guys expected. Was the surprise the fuel and the freight? Maybe you could quantify what that impact was. Then it also sounds like maybe large projects and mix was the other reason.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. I’d say it’s more mix actually than freight, but it’s a little bit of both. Both of those were the complete driver of that. The other thing is, arguably, we knew the tariff refunds were coming in. We did not want to get aggressive with freight increases because that doesn’t make sense competitively. We’re holding that purposely, and we’ll make that up as we go through the balance of the year. Mix is the bigger part of it actually with really big projects and product sales.

Ryan Merkel, Analyst, William Blair: Interesting. Okay. Thanks for that. SG&A, and I’m focusing on High-Touch, but it didn’t lever in the quarter, and it sounds like maybe incentive comp is the main reason there. That’s the first part of the question. Should you see better SG&A levers in the second half? It looks like that’s implied in the guide, but just want to know how you’re thinking about it.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. Any year when we get the forecast incorrect and the market’s stronger than we expect, or we perform better than we expect, we have headwinds in both management bonus and commissions. We also spent more on marketing in the quarter. We’re seeing good returns on that. Those are the three SG&A elements that were higher than we would have expected to start the year. None of them are concerning, to be frank. In the back of the year, we expect some moderation in the outsized cost there, and we expect to be more in line.

Ryan Merkel, Analyst, William Blair: Got it. All right. Thanks, Bethallecky.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley. Please state your question.

Chris Snyder, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you. I was just hoping for maybe a little bit more color on the sequential bridge from Q1 to Q2, just to better understand some of the moving parts. I guess it was down maybe 140 basis points sequentially, ex, if we adjust out the tariff refund, if my math’s right. Just kind of wondering the seasonality on that mix. Anything you could just help us as we think about the recovery opportunity into the back half. Thank you.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. As it relates to gross margin specifically, we saw normal seasonality from a gross margin perspective related to price running off. As we’ve talked about, we’ve had some leakage related to fuel costs. That also was a factor from Q1 gross margin to Q2 as well as additional private label inventory costs. We’ve had, as D.G. articulated and as we talked about on the call, a lot of moving pieces as it relates to that. That was also a negative impact. As you noted, the tariff refunds were not known at the time. That was a benefit, but then that was offset by mix. That gets us down about 50 basis points Q1 to Q2.

Chris Snyder, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you. I appreciate that. Just any color, and I don’t know if you talked about this when you were talking about some of the Q3 moving parts, just any color on the Q3 versus Q4 gross margin. Just as we think through the, I guess, Q3’s behind on price cost, Q4 catches up. I would imagine some of the mix headwinds get better as the year goes on, just given the hard-to-predict nature of that. Would appreciate any color on just that back half gross margin. Thank you.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. As we talked last time, we expect the U shape to continue with our gross margins. Don’t forget, we won’t have the tariff impact in Q3 that we have now. We’ll pick up and have stronger supplier rebates as we end the year.

Chris Snyder, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Thank you.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: In the volume.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah.

Yeah.

Operator: Your next question comes from Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer & Co. Please state your question.

Christopher Glynn, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.: Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Was wondering about how the private label headwinds in the cost of goods is phasing here. It’s sort of a steady state from here. I know that there was adverse bridge in the second quarter from the first. Just curious how long that lasts, if that starts to phase better later in the year.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. It’ll still be a headwind. It won’t be much different than it was in the first quarter, first half of the year. The issue is, of course, to some degree, private brand has been hit by tariffs, but that’s also compressed some of the cost. I would say we’ve launched the Grainger brand, and that has shown good growth. We’re excited by what we’re seeing in terms of private brand going forward with many of our products converting to Grainger branded items.

Christopher Glynn, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.: Yeah. DG, could you spend a little bit more minute, another minute about that? Like what private label brands are being retired? Is this more of a margin play or a incremental growth play?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. It’s probably more of an incremental growth play, to be fair. We had 14 brands previously that were sort of historical, built over decades and decades and decades, I guess. Some of them didn’t have customer appeal or didn’t even know that they were Grainger related. Brands like Dayton will certainly remain, a lot of the other categories will shift to Grainger, and we’ll probably end up with 4 or 5 brands at the end of this process. We’re well into that shift at this point.

Christopher Glynn, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.: Okay, great. What’s just the latest on the cadence of supplier price increase announcements? Have those stabilized?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. Those are consistent, we’ll start to get an idea about what the price requests are for next year now. That is coming in. We’ll start to have a little more visibility. We won’t talk about that until February. There hasn’t been huge changes. There’s been certain categories where we’ve seen significant increases that are kind of Middle East centric in terms of where the raw materials come from. Generally, it’s been pretty stable the last couple of months.

Christopher Glynn, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please state your question.

Deane Dray, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and I’ll add my best wishes to Dee.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Thanks.

Thank you.

Deane Dray, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Hey, can we just circle back on the pre-buy impact for Zoro and MonotaRO? Can you size it for us? To be fair, you flagged this last quarter, so it shouldn’t be surprising. Maybe the magnitude might be different, but just how did it play out, and did you see any pre-buy elsewhere, let’s say in the U.S.?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: No, we did not see any pre-buy in the U.S. We did not see any pre-buy for Zoro. With MonotaRO, given their reliance on the Middle East, there was a run on mostly PPE and nitrile gloves type products. It’s roughly $45 million U.S. That was the total magnitude. You never know with the pre-buy how much of that actually plays out going forward. People can continue to buy even after pre-buy, and you just never know. That’s sort of the rough magnitude.

Deane Dray, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: Good. Were you able to size it?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: $45 million.

Deane Dray, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: $45. Okay, good. The second question, can you expand a bit on the project versus MRO? When we talk to investors, the differentiation for Grainger is you’re primarily an MRO-focused model. When and how do the projects come up? Could you ever enter projects in a more deliberate way? It would end up being a margin drag, we know, but increased volume, and just like what are the dynamics there on how you look at the project opportunity?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. The way it typically plays out is if there’s a customer that we have a relationship and are actually providing MRO, and they have a product project, they will ask for help, and sometimes we provide that help. Like I mentioned, in times when there’s a lot of activity in the market, like there is right now, demand’s strong, and particularly around data centers, we’ve seen significant projects and project business come through. It’s been a tailwind on revenue. It’s been a headwind on gross margin. That typically doesn’t sustain at these levels. I would not say we are going to shift to be a project-focused company. We do serve customers in a lot of different ways, and we’re always doing projects for customers. This year, it’s just a bit more given some of the market dynamics.

Deane Dray, Analyst, RBC Capital Markets: That’s really helpful. Thank you.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Guy Hardwick with Barclays. Please state your question.

Guy Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Hi, guys. Good morning.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Morning.

Guy Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Deej, I wonder if you could maybe expand a little bit more about the impact of large projects. Does that give you more second half visibility on top line? Does it give you some visibility on next year? If that’s the case, is that a headwind to gross margin, but maybe the cost to serve those contracts is less to SG&A, so maybe are they neutral to EBITDA margin or enhancing to EBITDA margin, or they would still be diluted?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: No. You got it right. They’re diluted to gross margin, but they’re not diluted to operating margin. Part of the reason we’re raising revenue, I think maybe a lot of people are raising revenue right now, is because of the project spend and just the race to get a lot of data centers up and get the electrical infrastructure built. We are certainly seeing a part of that. Like I said, it’s not really our focus, but we do support our customers in those efforts. It will be a tailwind from revenue for the remainder of this year, and I would argue maybe further than that, given the cycle that this is going to take.

Guy Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Deidre, it looks like the full year guidance implies maybe a 6% increase in SG&A, which kind of implies maybe 5% growth in the second half. What are the kind of the risks to achieving that 5%? I know you have an easy comparative to Q4 because you had some unusual healthcare expenses, but maybe you could expand a little bit on the dynamics for second half OpEx trends.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: I would say there are two things that we feel really comfortable with the guide, one of which you noted. The other one is, as you recall, we also had some slowdown in government business last year. We don’t expect that because of the shutdown. We don’t expect that to happen again this year or have no view of that in our guide. That will also help us from a leverage perspective.

Guy Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. A reminder to the audience, to ask a question, press star one. To remove yourself from the queue, press star two. Your next question comes from Chris Dankert with D.A. Davidson. Please state your question.

Chris Dankert, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Hey, morning. Thanks for taking the question. I guess the point of clarification, Dee, and apologies if I missed it, but on the third quarter guidance from a top-line perspective, can you just give us a sense for how July was trending on a preliminary basis versus that growth rate?

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. We kind of noted on the call that we expect July to be up 13%, and then on the quarter be up around 12%. Some of that is normal seasonality as we flow through a particular quarter on the top-line basis, but we expect Q3 to still continue our strong performance, and that’s on a daily constant currency basis for the numbers that I just provided to you.

Chris Dankert, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Perfect. Thanks for the clarification there. Appreciate it. Just on, if we could move to Zoro, the SKU optimization that we did about a year ago now. Notice the SKU count is kind of drifting back up. Are we continuing to prune at the same time? Are we trying to keep that assortment optimized, or maybe just kind of give us some color on the SKU count over at Zoro.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. A lot of the SKU pruning was around items that just never sold and weren’t going to sell and that were not really core to what we’re trying to do. We are in a constant pruning period now. We’re growing SKU count not nearly as fast as we have at times in the past, but we expect it to continue to grow for the next couple of years, but just more modestly.

Chris Dankert, Analyst, D.A. Davidson: Understood. Well, thanks for the color and best of luck, Dee.

Deidra Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO, W.W. Grainger: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from Tommy Moll with Stephens. Please state your question.

Tommy Moll, Analyst, Stephens: Good morning, thank you for taking my questions.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Okay.

Tommy Moll, Analyst, Stephens: DG, I wanted to ask about some of the September pricing, specifically around freight and fuel. Should we think of this as part of the regular cadence of negotiations you have with customers, or are these surcharges that may require some kind of force majeure discussion here? I know typically-

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: These are mostly going to be normal course discussions, price increases with our customers. It is not going to be a force majeure.

Tommy Moll, Analyst, Stephens: Okay. Then on the competitive environment and share, noted we are not gonna split hairs on how many bips of share in any given quarter. I did just want to circle back in light of some of the strong top-line performance. Any anecdotes or update you could give us on how you think your share is trending, how the competitive marketplace has been, particularly on the High-Touch side? Thank you.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah. We think that we have gotten benefit on the top line from pricing, from the market demand, and from share gain, and we think all of those have been reasonably strong year-to-date, and we would expect that to continue through the balance of the year. The market has turned from negative for several years to clearly positive and maybe low single digits, but maybe not so low single digits now. It is almost like you are trying to figure out where the puck’s moving, but certainly it has gotten stronger as the year has gone on.

Tommy Moll, Analyst, Stephens: Yep. Thank you for the insight. I will turn it back.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Connor Cerniglia with Bernstein. Please state your question.

Connor Cerniglia, Analyst, Bernstein: Great. Thank you for having me. Earlier in the call, you mentioned that the IEEPA tariff was a small impact, I guess, on the total tariff cost you’ve experienced. Is that more of a hint that you could see more refunds in the future beyond the $43 million you mentioned this quarter and I guess the next two quarters? I know it’s probably pretty difficult to size, but do you expect more refunds from IEEPA going forward?

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: No. We think that that was more just to make the point that the overall tariff increases were much larger than that we’ve taken. It’s a small portion of the total that we took, but we don’t think there’s going to be a lot more refunds.

Connor Cerniglia, Analyst, Bernstein: Okay. Helpful. I guess switching back to data center and large capital projects, have you all tried to attempt to size the contribution from a volume perspective from these large projects? Is it just too small to size it or any color or refining points on the actual contribution to volume for data centers could be helpful. Thank you.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Yeah, we think the project spend this year has increased our growth rate about 90 basis points on High-Touch. Not for the company, but for High-Touch, we don’t see project spend really at zero. Yeah, that’s the sizing of it at this point. Like I said, we always look at overall profitability on those projects. We want to make sure it’s profitable, so that’s sort of looking at a net margin perspective, and they generally are.

Connor Cerniglia, Analyst, Bernstein: Great. That’s it for me. Thank you so much.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, I’ll hand the floor back to D.G. Macpherson for closing remarks. Thank you.

D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO, W.W. Grainger: All right. Thank you. Appreciate everybody being on the call. I’ll just reiterate, we think that we are taking the right actions and making the right moves to continue to grow, gain share, grow profitably. There’s always gives and takes in the external environment, but generally, we try to focus on the long term. We continue to invest in creating better solutions for customers, and that’s going to be our focus. I’d like to thank Dee once again for her time and wish her luck. I hope everybody has a great rest of this hour. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s call. All parties may disconnect. Have a good day.