You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: The pandemic has given us an opportunity to display our agility as a company.
We increased our communications with retailers.
We changed our marketing messages.
We shifted investments to categories that are most important to consumers.
And we set new production records for VITAFUSION, ARM & HAMMER laundry and ARM & HAMMER baking soda.
And we've moved people to focus on the online class of trade.
So we've been proactive in seizing the opportunities presented by the crisis and are increasing manufacturing capacity in our plants and externally with new co-packers.
The agility and resilience of the Church & Dwight team is showing up in our results.
Our priorities continue to be employee safety, meeting the needs of consumers and retailers, helping the communities where we live and ensuring the strength of our brands.
Our plant, warehouse and laboratory employees have done an exceptional job in keeping safe, which has contributed to our ability to operate our supply chain.
Our office employees continue to work remotely and are doing a super job running the company.
So now let's talk about the results.
Q3 was another exceptional quarter.
Reported sales growth was 13.9% and adjusted earnings per share was $0.70.
Revenue, earnings and operating cash flow were all significantly higher in Q3 than last year, driven by the significant increase in demand for many of our products.
Organic sales grew 9.9%, driven by higher consumption.
Regarding e-commerce, we were already strong pre-COVID and well positioned online.
In Q3, our online sales increased by 77% as all retailer.coms have grown.
One example would be gummy vitamins.
In 2019, 8% of our full year sales were online.
This year, we expect full year to be about 14% online.
Recall, we began the year targeting 9% online sales as a percentage of global consumer sales.
In Q1, it was 10% online; Q2, 13%; and Q3, also 13%.
So we expect the full year to be actually close to 13% as well.
We continue to conduct research on the purchasing habits of U.S. consumers.
There's no surprises here, actually.
There is continued consumer concern that stores will run out of stock and websites will face delivery issues.
Consumers report that they are consolidating shopping trips and continue to stockpile to ensure that they have enough product for a couple of weeks at a time.
If we look at year-to-date shipment and consumption patterns, our brands remain generally in balance in the 15 categories in which we compete.
With respect to our brands, we had broad-based consumption growth in Q3.
We saw a double-digit consumption growth in VITAFUSION and L'IL CRITTERS gummy vitamins, ARM & HAMMER baking soda, OXICLEAN, FLAWLESS, ORAJEL, NAIR, FIRST RESPONSE pregnancy kits and cleaners.
In Household, our laundry business consumption was up 4% and ARM & HAMMER cat litter was up 8%.
Water flossers is another bright spot as consumption turned slightly positive in Q3.
Although our Lunch & Learn activity continues to be significantly curtailed, we intend to continue to address this with incremental advertising.
In addition to VITAFUSION and L'IL CRITTERS, water flossers is another brand we expect to benefit from the heightened consumer focus on health and wellness.
BATISTE dry shampoo remains impacted by social distancing, with consumption down 10%, but improved sequentially compared to Q2 when consumption was down 22%.
TROJAN consumption was down 6% in Q3, but also improved sequentially when we were down 15% in Q2.
There's no doubt that consumers have made health and wellness a priority.
VITAFUSION and L'IL CRITTERS gummy vitamins saw the greatest consumption growth of any of our categories in Q3, up 49%.
The category consumption was even higher.
Our expectation is that consumer demand for gummy vitamins will remain high.
And we have new third-party capacity coming online in late Q4 to take advantage of this trend.
Consumers are focusing on health and wellness, but also, cleaning, home cooking and new grooming routines.
At a recent investor conference, you may have heard me cite consumer research that suggests it takes 66 days to form a new habit.
And only time will tell if all of these new behaviors will translate into permanently higher levels of consumption.
But if they do endure over time, we believe we are well positioned.
Now a few words about private label.
As you know, our exposure to private label is limited to five categories.
Private label shares have remained generally unchanged for the first, second and third quarters of this year.
Our international business came through with double-digit organic growth in the quarter, driven by strong growth in our GMG business, that's our Global Markets Group, and Canada.
In October, our GMG business is off to another strong start, and we continue to see strong POS recovery in Canada and Europe.
After three consecutive quarters of growth, our Specialty Products business contracted 3.4% in Q3, primarily due to the poultry segment.
Now turning to new products.
Innovative new products will continue to attract consumers even in this economy.
VITAFUSION gummy vitamins launched a number of new products.
And to capitalize on increased consumer interest in immunity, we launched POWER ZINC and Elderberry gummies.
We've launched ARM & HAMMER CLEAN & SIMPLE, which has only six ingredients plus water compared to 15 to 30 ingredients for typical liquid detergents.
And in the second half, we launched ARM & HAMMER ABSORBx clumping cat litter, a new litter, which is 55% lighter than our regular litter.
Now let's turn to the outlook.
We're having an exceptional year.
We now expect full year adjusted earnings per share growth of 13% to 14%, which is far above our evergreen target of 8% annual earnings per share growth.
Given our strong performance, we have raised our full year outlook for sales growth to be approximately 11% and organic sales growth to be approximately 9%.
As mentioned many times in the past, we take the long view in managing Church & Dwight in order to sustain our evergreen model.
In the second half, we took the opportunity to increase our marketing spend behind our new products and we made incremental investments in the company.
As we wind up the year, we are putting together our 2021 plan.
It's safe to say that we have a high degree of confidence that we will meet our evergreen model in '21.
In February, we'll provide our detailed outlook for next year.
Now in conclusion, I would like to remind everyone of the many reasons to have confidence in Church & Dwight.
The great thing about our company is we are positioned to do well in both good and bad economic times.
The categories in which we play are largely essential to consumers.
And we have a few categories that stand to benefit from the current environment.
We have a balance of value and premium products.
Our power brands are number one or number two in their categories.
And we have low exposure to private label.
We're coming off some of the best growth quarters we've ever had.
And with a strong balance sheet, we continue to be open to acquiring TSR-accretive businesses.
We believe our company is stronger and more agile than ever.
And finally, we have the resources, the common sense and the ambition to ensure that our brands perform well in the future.
Next up is Rick to give you details on the third quarter.
We'll start with EPS.
Third quarter adjusted EPS, which excludes an acquisition-related earnout adjustment, grew 6.1% to $0.70 compared to $0.66 in 2019.
As we discussed in previous calls, the quarterly earnout adjustment will continue until the conclusion of the earnout period.
Stronger-than-expected sales performance allowed the company to spend incrementally on marketing.
Reported revenue was up 13.9%, reflecting a continued increase in consumer demand for our products.
Organic sales was up 9.9%, driven by a volume increase of 10.2%, partially offset by 0.3% of unfavorable product mix and pricing, primarily driven by new product support.
Volume growth was driven by higher consumption.
Now let's review the segments.
Organic sales increased by 10.7%, largely due to higher volume.
Overall, growth was led by VITAFUSION and L'IL CRITTERS gummy vitamins, WATERPIK oral care products, ARM & HAMMER liquid laundry detergent and OXICLEAN stain fighters.
We commonly get asked to bridge the Nielsen reporting to our organic results.
This quarter, tracked consumption was 7.7% for our brands compared to an organic sales increase of 10.7%.
In this environment, one might assume that is restocking retailer inventory.
That is not the case.
We had 400 basis points of help from strong growth in untracked channels, primarily online, and 100 basis point drag from couponing to support new products.
The good news is, as you heard from Matt, consumption and shipments are in balance, both low double digits.
Consumer International delivered 11.6% organic growth due to higher volume, offset by lower price and product mix.
This was a great recovery for our international business from a flat Q2.
Growth was primarily driven by the Global Markets Group and Canada.
For our SPD business, organic sales decreased 3.4% due to lower volume, offset by higher pricing.
The lower volume was primarily driven by the nondairy animal and food production in sodium bicarbonate business.
Turning now to gross margin.
Our third quarter gross margin was 45.5%, 110 basis point decrease from a year ago.
Gross margin was impacted by 110 basis point drag from tariffs and a 90 basis point impact from acquisition accounting.
In addition, to round out the Q3 gross margin bridge is a plus 100 basis points from price/volume mix; plus 160 basis points from productivity programs, offset by a drag of 80 basis points of higher manufacturing costs, inflation and higher distribution costs; as well as a drag of 90 basis points for COVID costs.
Moving now to marketing.
Marketing was up $45.7 million year-over-year as we invested behind our brands.
Marketing expense as a percentage of net sales increased 230 basis points to 13.8%.
For SG&A, Q3 adjusted SG&A decreased 30 basis points year-over-year, primarily due to leverage from strong sales growth.
Other expense all in was $12.3 million and $3.9 million decline due to lower interest expense from lower interest rates.
And for income tax, our effective rate for the quarter was 17.3% compared to 21.6% in 2019, a decrease of 430 basis points, primarily driven by higher tax benefits related to stock option exercises.
And now turning to cash.
For the first nine months of 2020, cash from operating activities increased 29% to $798 million due to significantly higher cash earnings and an improvement in working capital.
As of September 30, cash on hand was $549 million.
Our full year capex plan continues to be approximately $100 million as we begin to expand manufacturing and distribution capacity, primarily focused on laundry, litter and vitamins.
As I mentioned back at the Barclays conference in September, we do expect a step-up in capex over the next couple of years to approximately 3.5% of sales for these capacity-related investments.
In addition, as you read in the release, due to the strong cash position, the company may resume stock repurchases in the future.
For Q4, we expect reported sales growth of approximately 9%, organic sales growth of approximately 8%.
And as Matt mentioned, we have strong consumption across many of our categories.
Turning to gross margin.
We previously called 150 basis point contraction in the second half.
Now we're saying down 190 basis points.
The change is primarily due to nonrecurring supply chain costs.
We also expect significant expense, and we have called flat for the year in terms of a percent of sales, which implies a step-up in Q4.
We also anticipate a lower tax rate.
As a result, we expect Q4 adjusted earnings per share to be $0.50 to $0.52 per share, excluding the acquisition earnout adjustment as we exit 2020 with momentum.
And now for the full year outlook, we now expect approximately 11% for the year 2020 sales growth, which is above our previously 9% to 10% range.
We're also raising our full year organic sales growth to approximately 9%, up from our previous 7% to 8% outlook.
We raised our cash from operations outlook to $975 million, which is up 13% versus year ago.
Turning to gross margin.
We expect gross margin to be down 20 basis points for the year, primarily due to the impact of acquisition accounting, COVID costs, incremental manufacturing and distribution capacity investments and the higher tariffs on WATERPIK.
As to tariffs, remember back in 2018, we got caught up in Tier two tariffs for which we were granted an extension in 2019.
That exemption expired and was not extended as of Q3 2020.
We continue to work on mitigating that impact.
Another word or two on gross margin.
Previously, I have said the first half of the year was plus 150 basis points on gross margin and the second half was down 150 basis points on gross margin.
And so our outlook as of last quarter was flat for the year.
And then also last quarter, you heard me walk through investments we were making in the second half of 2020.
Examples here included a new third-party logistics provider, outside storage to handle surge inventories, preliminary engineering on capacity, VMS outsourcing costs as well as other investments around automation, consumer research and analytics.
Now we're calling down 190 basis points for the back half or down 20 basis points for the year, and that implies down 250 basis points for the quarter.
We have some supply chain nonrecurring costs.
Here are a few examples.
First, because of our outsized growth, I mentioned last quarter, we're adding a new 3PL distribution center.
In the quarter, we again had stronger sales.
And as such, had duplicative outside storage locations and the new 3PL distribution center that wasn't operational.
So for a period of time, we had duplicative costs.
We're also in the process of going through make first buy decisions.
And that will trigger a couple of asset write-offs likely in Q4.
We have lean training across the plants.
And finally, due to the great results this year, higher incentive comp cost that flow through COGS.
So our full year tax rate expectations are 19%, and we also raised our adjusted earnings per share growth to 13% to 14%.
Now that we're through the outlook, I also want to spend a minute on FLAWLESS.
As you saw in the release, we had an earnout benefit of approximately $50 million in the quarter in reported earnings.
We exclude any of the earnout movements in adjusted EPS.
Some color on that swing.
As a backdrop, we bought that business for $475 million upfront and a $425 million earnout tied to year-end 2021 sales.
That sales target represented in excess of 15% CAGR for three years off of a baseline of $180 million of trailing sales.
The revised 3-year CAGR for this business is closer to 8%.
And as such, the earnout liability comes down and earnings go up.
We're still positive on this business.
And the strong consumption growth these past six months is a great indicator for the future.
As you heard from Matt, the company is well positioned as we enter 2021.
And with that, Matt and I would be happy to take any questions.

user
q3 adjusted earnings per share $0.70 excluding items.
sees q4 sales up about 9 percent.
sees 2020 reported sales growth raised to 11%.
2020 organic sales growth raised to 9%.
2020 adjusted earnings per share growth raised to 13%-14%.
2020 cash from operations raised to $975 million.

assistant