The retail pain is only going to to intensify, from Damien Boey at Credit Suisse:
Very weak discretionary spending numbers
Yesterday, we learned that nominal retail sales flat-lined in March, below Consensus expectations for an 0.2% monthly gain. Real retail sales (ie volumes) also came in below expectations, rising by a modest 0.2% in 1Q, compared with expectations for an 0.6% gain. We think that Consensus arrived at its estimates by using the NAB cashless index (which had been pointing to moderate growth in March), and 1Q CPI data to deflate nominal sales.
Compositionally, discretionary spending was weak. Food retail sales rose by 0.7% in March, meaning that non-food spending fell by 0.5% over the month. Weakness was broadly-based across discretionary spending categories.