Table of Contents which is currently approximately nine years. Future changes in plan asset returns, assumed discount rates and various other factors related to the pension plan will impact future pension expense and liabilities, including increasing or decreasing unrecognized actuarial gains and losses. The Company recognized expense for its defined benefit pension plans of $0.1 million, $0.2 million and $2.3 million in Fiscal 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Fiscal 2017 includes a settlement charge of $2.5 million as a result of the pension plan buyout. The Company’s pension expense is expected to increase in Fiscal 2020 by approximately $1.0 million due to lower expected return on assets due to a change in the Company's investment strategy and higher service costs, partially offset by lower amortization of the actuarial losses. Comparable Sales For purposes of this report, "comparable sales" are sales from stores open longer than one year, beginning with the first day it has comparable sales (which we refer to in this report as "same store sales"), and sales from websites operated longer than one year and direct mail catalog sales (which we refer to in this report as "comparable direct sales"). Temporarily closed stores are excluded from the comparable sales calculation if closed for more than seven days. Expanded stores are excluded from the comparable sales calculation until the first day it has comparable prior year sales. Current year foreign exchange rates are applied to both current year and prior year comparable sales to achieve a consistent basis for comparison. 34