B&Q owner Kingfisher has reported a dip in sales over recent months as the delayed onset of spring weather held back spending and bigger purchases remained subdued.

The DIY giant, which also owns Screwfix, said total sales declined by 0.9 per cent to £3.3 billion between February and April, compared like-for-like with the same period last year.

The business said it was “mindful of the consumer environment” but hailed a “resilient” start to the year.

The homeware giant revealed plans to cut more than 650 jobs across the UK last year, a move the company insists the move is about “simplifying” how its shops are run.

The company has stores in Oxford, Abingdon, Witney and Banbury.

In the UK and Ireland, sales at B&Q fell by 4.1 per cent, which the company said reflected a late start to spring resulting in fewer visitors to stores and affecting spending on some of its core items.

“Big-ticket” spending, meaning more costly home purchases, was dragged down by fewer bathroom sales, but the firm said this was partly offset by strengthening new kitchen ranges.

Nevertheless, the Screwfix brand continued to strengthen with sales jumping by 4.1 per cent year on year.

Kingfisher chief executive Thierry Garnier said it was a “resilient start to the year” for the retailer while remaining “mindful of the consumer environment”.

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The brand has been taking a bigger share of the market and has been impacted by online and trade initiatives.

The retail group is expecting earnings to grow this year, saying it is on track to make adjusted profits of between £565 million and £625 million for the current financial year.

“E-commerce and trade sales both delivered double-digit growth, underlining the momentum in our key growth drivers,” Mr Garnier said.

“While mindful of the consumer environment, we remain absolutely focused on delivering our strategy, disciplined gross margin and cost management, and consistent shareholder returns.”

However, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “Blaming the weather for weak trading is often seen in the ‘dog ate my homework’ category of excuses by the market, but the fact it has not forced any downgrades means Kingfisher has kept investors on side.

“Among the areas of positivity is the continued strong growth in the Screwfix business. Kingfisher, like several of its peers, is pursuing trade customers who are often more reliable and consistent sources of revenue than ordinary consumers.

“That’s because materials and tools are not a nice-to-have for them but essential to their day job.”

The supermarket said the affected Morrisons Daily branches have been loss-making for some time.

Jobs are at risk at stores across Oxfordshire, including two in Oxford and Bicester, and one each in Banbury, Carterton, Didcot, Faringdon and Thame.

Morrisons, which runs around 1,700 Daily convenience stores, took them on as part of its £190m rescue of McColl’s in 2022.

The move follows last year’s decision to shut 52 cafés and 17 convenience stores.

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The grocer said the stores’ performance has been squeezed in recent years by rising costs it links to Government policy, including increases to the national living wage and employer National Insurance contributions.

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A Morrisons spokesperson told The Retail Gazette it was proposing the “tough but necessary decision” to close the loss-making stores, with a staff consultation due to begin shortly.

The retailer has not yet revealed which sites are earmarked for closure or exactly how many roles are at risk, but it is thought that hundreds of staff could be affected.

While the company said it would try to find alternative roles for those impacted by the proposed cuts, it insisted it still has a “robust expansion plan” for 2026 and believes there is scope to open hundreds more franchise convenience stores over the coming years.

GIESECKE+DEVRIENT (G+D)

SecurityTech Company

A banknote and a smartphone have more in common than you might think: both fit in a pocket, both get handled millions of times a day, and both are, in their own way, remarkably sophisticated pieces of technology. The difference is in what happens when threats evolve. Smartphones get updates. Banknotes don’t. They have to get it right from the start, and keep getting it right for years, across every climate, every cash register, and every automated sorting machine on the planet. That makes the underlying security architecture all the more impressive. SecurityTech company Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) breaks down five technology layers that turn an everyday banknote into a compact high-security system.

1. Material Technology: Security You Can Feel

Banknote security doesn’t begin at the printing press, instead it begins with the substrate. The material a note is made from largely determines how durable, functional, and ultimately how tamper-resistant it can be. Modern banknotes are built on specially engineered cotton fibers, or hybrid constructions that combine cotton and polymer. These aren’t chosen for feel alone, though the characteristic texture of a cotton-based note is itself a first-line authentication tool, one most people use intuitively without realizing it. More importantly, many security features aren’t applied on top of the material; they’re embedded within it. That makes them structurally inseparable from the note, and a serious obstacle for anyone trying to replicate it.

2. Micromirror Technology: Light as a Verification Tool

Tilt a banknote and something shifts: colors change, and elements appear to float or move. These aren’t printing tricks, they’re the result of precisely engineered microstructures that control how light behaves at the surface. Among the most advanced developments in this field are micromirrors combined with nanostructures, at a scale almost impossible to visualize: up to one million of these micromirrors can fit on a single thumbnail. Aligned with nanometer precision, they reflect light to produce a clearly recognizable image, even in poor lighting. The effect is entirely physical, not digital, and it cannot be reproduced without highly specialized manufacturing equipment. No inkjet printer in the world comes close.

3. Sensor Technology: What Only Machines Can Detect

Most banknotes today are never verified by a human eye. They pass through ATMs, counting machines, and high-speed sorting systems that authenticate them in fractions of a second. This is made possible by features that are entirely invisible under normal conditions, such as elements that react to UV light, or carry characteristics readable only by dedicated sensors. This machine-readable layer largely operates in the background of everyday life. For the cash cycle, it’s essential. For counterfeiters, it’s one of the hardest barriers to crack, precisely because you can’t see what you’re trying to replicate.

4. Colour Technology: Pigments with Security Functions

The color design of banknotes serves purposes far beyond aesthetics. Special optically variable inks (OVIs) and iridescent features create effects that shift, disappear, or change color depending on the viewing angle, while others only become visible under specific light spectra or defined conditions. The color-shifting effect follows the same physics as the rainbow shimmer of oil on water, but applied with far greater precision. Layer thickness is calibrated at the nanometer level to determine exactly which frequencies of light are reflected. Even if a counterfeiter managed to reproduce the visual design, they would still be missing the underlying physical mechanism that makes it work.

5. Forensics: The Banknote’s Hidden Signature

The so-called Level 3 security layer is invisible, machine-readable, and embedded deep within the note. It can only be detected with specialized sensor technology, and it allows every individual banknote to be authenticated with high precision throughout the entire cash cycle. For counterfeiters, this layer is essentially inaccessible. Without the corresponding verification technology and system expertise, the hidden signatures can neither be identified nor replicated. It’s security through obscurity in the most literal sense: if you can’t find it, you can’t fake it. 

“Security features on banknotes must be extremely difficult to manufacture, while their effects must remain easy to recognize,” says Dr. Manfred Heim, Managing Director of G+D subsidiary Papierfabrik Louisenthal, responsible for Research & Development, Technology and Operations. “They are designed to withstand years of intensive use under highly diverse conditions, from physical wear to fully automated cash-handling processes. Modern security concepts don’t rely on any single feature. They work through multiple independent verification layers that combine physical robustness, machine authentication, and long-term stability.”