Wayfair (W  ) is laying off 550 of its employees, 350 of whom work in Boston, which is where the online retailer has its headquarters. This cut amounts to 3% of Wayfair's 17,000 total global employees. What may be even more alarming, though, is that the company has yet to post a profit since going public, which was in 2014.

"[W]e continually evaluate the needs of the business and work to increase efficiencies while aligning our teams with the initiatives that drive the greatest impact for our customers," said Wayfair in a statement to Retail Dive."As part of that process, we have made some organizational changes that affect approximately three percent of our global workforce. We are continuing to hire for the many roles needed to drive our long-term success and the continued growth of the business."

According to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, Wayfair's restructuring isn't surprising. "The company has prioritized growth for the past few years and has been successful in boosting revenue. However, this has never been translated into profit, and Wayfair has chalked up huge losses over an extended period of time. This dynamic could not go on indefinitely.''

Indeed, Wayfair has never posted a profit, with critical decisions over the past couple years apparently not paying off. The company did see revenue of $6.6 billion, an increase of 37.5% percent, during the first nine months of last year. However, long-term debt reached $1.4 billion, up from $347 million the year before, and advertising expenses alone were $774 million in 2018.

"We find ourselves at a place where we are, from an execution standpoint, investing in too many disparate areas, with an uneven quality and speed of execution," said Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah in a company email. "Through two years of aggressive expansion, we no doubt built some excess, inefficiency, and even waste at times, in almost every area."

Despite their failed efforts, Wayfair impressively accounted for one-third of online furniture sales in 2019 at 33.4%, with Amazon (AMZN  ) in second at 29.7%. Comparatively, Walmart (WMT  ) and Macy's (M  ) generated 4.7% and 3.7%, respectively, of online furniture sales.

In light of their lack of any profit since going public, and especially considering that e-commerce giant Amazon is clearly positioned as the front runner of Wayfair's competitors, Wayfair seems to have an uncertain future ahead. Over the past year, shares have fallen more than 20%.