Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q1 2017 Tandy Leather Factory Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Shannon Greene, Chief Executive Officer, of Tandy Leather. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning everyone and welcome to Tandy Leather Factory’s first quarter 2017 earnings conference call. We will be discussing our first quarter 2017 results, as well as our plans and expectations for the rest of the year. I am Shannon Greene, CEO and I am joined today by Tina Castillo, CFO; and Mark Angus, President. Before we get started, our earnings release and related SEC filings are available on our Investor Relations section of our website and a replay of this webcast will be available later today. Also I need to remind everyone that there maybe forward-looking statements on the call today. Statements would include words like expect, believe, anticipate, plan, intend, target or words with similar meaning and are based on our beliefs and expectations and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statement about those results. These risks are detailed in our various filings with the SEC such as our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q as well as in news releases and other communications. We do not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements which speak only as of the time they are made. So as you saw in our earnings release, our results for the first quarter were soft, mainly due to a slow start to the year in sales combined with our investment in personnel and our new store growth strategy. That being said, however, our results are in line with expectations. From a sales perspective like many retailers in this challenging and evolving retail environment, we are seeing a pattern where consumer spending starts weak that is expected to pick up as we move through the year. We were no different as we saw slow traffic in January and February…

Thank you, Shannon. Before I go into the details, I wanted to remind everyone that as was disclosed in our press release, we now operate in two segments; North America and international. You may recall that prior to January 1, 2017 we operated in three segments; wholesale, retail and international. To better reflect how management analyzes the business and allocate resources, we have combined wholesale and retail into North America effective January 1, 2017 while our international reporting segment remains the same. All prior year data discussed throughout this call has been recast to conform to the new reporting segment structure, and there is no change in reporting of our consolidated financial position or results. Our first quarter consolidated sales totaling $20.1 million decreased 2.5% or 522,000 from last year's first quarter sales. Both our North American and International segments reported a 2.6% and 1.6% sales decline respectively. North America contributed 95% of total sales, while international contributed 5%. The sales decrease in North America consisted of a 2.3% decrease in same-store sales and a 398,000 decrease in stores that have been closed, offset by 328,000 in new stores sales growth. As Shannon mentioned, our ticket counts in North America were down in January and February, but we caught up in March while our average ticket declined about 5%. The decrease in the International Leathercraft segment was solely the result of unfavorable foreign currency exchange rate movements primarily for the UK pound sterling, and to a lesser extent the euro, which both declined in value relative to the US dollar quarter versus quarter. All things being equal, we would have seen a 4% sales growth in our international segment, but again this was offset by the unfavorable exchange rate. Foreign currency exchange rate affects us in two ways. One, the…

With respect to our outlook we are not updating our guidance at this time. While there are some challenging headwinds in this retail landscape, our plan is clear and our focus is on growing shareholder values through the strategic initiatives we have in place and the strong and proven brand that is generating new customers everyday. As always, I want to thank all of our dedicated Tandy Leather team members who worked so hard to move this company forward. Lastly, our annual meeting of stockholders is scheduled for June 6 at 11 AM at our corporate office in Fort Worth. We would welcome the opportunity to meet you, so please consider yourself personally invited. That concludes our prepared remarks. We appreciate your time today. And we’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Very good. Thank you for participating in our first quarter 2017 earnings conference call today. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Have a great day.