Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). Our first question comes from Budd Bugatch.
M. Farooq Kathwari
Budd, good morning.
Unidentified Analyst
Good morning, Farooq and Dave, this is actually Chad filling in for Budd this morning.
M. Farooq Kathwari
Yes.
Unidentified Analyst
Couple of questions, Farooq. In the release, you mentioned some -- maybe some early signs of improvement at retail and I know in the press release last week you noted that March, the trend of business improved relative to February.
Could you give us the flavor for how April was trending and then as kind of an add on to that, I know it's very early in the promotion but what kind of feedback are you getting from your dealers on the Celebrating American Innovation?
M. Farooq Kathwari
Yes, I did -- we did mention in our previous press release that towards the end of March we did see improvements. We also -- it continued in the first week of April and then sort of the business was flat, reflecting also normally eased taxes and all that is also effective but it was, it became--, it did not continue after the first week.
Now last, the end of last week we started our -- this major campaign. It's very early because the national television just started, our direct mail will go out in the next couple of weeks, our major campaign is going to start this week and in the next few weeks.
But I was also referring, when I was referring to the retail improvements, I was talking about not our retail, I was talking about the fact there are better signs of improvements in the overall retail environment, not necessarily just arts or the furniture business.
Unidentified Analyst
Okay, understood and in regards to the fourteen design center openings that you expect over the next nine months, could you share with us in terms of breakdown of how many of those are independent versus company owned? And how many were actually kind of relocations versus say an incremental new store?
M. Farooq Kathwari
Yes. Now as you know our major objective has been to reposition our network and relocation has been a very important part of our strategy. And in fact in the next-- in the fourteen ones that we are talking about, most of them are going to be in fact, in fact more than half are going to be overseas.
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