THE short-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic on retailers in the country will be severe, but retail sales recovery period for India is expected to kick-start from the first week of May subject to the lockdown not being extended further, a report by Capillary Technologies said received here. The report said, until March 16, the consumer retail sales and walk-ins did not see much dip compared to last year and this could be due to festive shopping (Ugadi, Gudi Padwa, Navratri etc).