Wayfair is laying off nearly 900 employees, the company's CEO announced.

In a letter to employees, Niraj Shah said that the company has not grown as anticipated.

"Our team is too large for the environment we are now in, and unfortunately we need to adjust," he said.

Wayfair is offering a minimum of 10 weeks pay to outgoing employees in the U.S. Bonuses will also be paid out to eligible employees, Shah said.

"The individuals being impacted have not only made tremendous contributions to the company as colleagues but have enriched us all as our partners and friends," Shah stated.

Wayfair is based in Boston. According to ABC News, about 400 employees at its headquarters will be losing their jobs.

CNN reports that shares of Wayfair are down about 70% since the start of the year.

Major credit card companies are reclassifying purchases at gun stores and ammunition shops — a change that could pull back the curtain on gun purchases.

Visa, American Express, and Mastercard will start implementing the plan, separating gun and ammunition purchases from other kinds of shopping for the first time. They had previously been classified as general merchandise.

The move comes as gun sales keep climbing.

"The sales have definitely increased over the last several years compared to probably the last five," said Vincent Vasquez, a gun store manager in Arizona.

The FBI reports having done 78,571,988 background checks for gun purchases in the last two years. That's more than in any two-year stretch since record-keeping started in 1998.

Cyndi Starr is among the many buying a firearm for the first time.

"I came to that decision after months of going back and forth," Starr said. "I would never want to ever harm anybody, never, but I've been close enough to certain violent or potentially violent situations that I had that split second where it's like, 'What's my backup?'"

Gun violence prevention activists hope the new classification for credit card purchases will help differentiate people like Starr from those intending to use a gun to harm people, helping banks see and report suspicious activity.

But, of course, not everyone's on board.

Over the weekend, the NRA said the move was about creating a "national registry of gun owners."

The policy is intended only to separately categorize purchases at gun and ammunition stores, not specifically what was purchased. It's a simple label change advocates hope will help curb gun violence.

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CNN —

Walmart's chief merchandising officer for its US operations is stepping down from the job as the retailer faces a tougher year ahead, an internal memo shared to US associates Friday said.

Charles Redfield, whose career at Walmart spanned 32 years, will transition on May 1 and remain in an advisory role. In a memo viewed by CNN Business, Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner said Redfield wants to spend more time with his family.

Redfield held his position at the retailer for a little more than a year, beginning in January 2022.

The leadership shakeup comes after America's largest retailer warned it is facing a more challenging year ahead and will approach 2023 with caution.

Despite a strong holiday season, Walmart forecasted slower sales and profit growth in February. Its strong holiday sales were fueled by groceries. Grocery prices rose 11.8% annually in December, pushing customers toward more affordable options.

However, sales were slower for traditional holiday products like toys, electronics and clothing — a sign that consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending.

Walmart did see an 8.3% sales increase during its latest quarter ended Jan. 31 at U.S. stores open for at least one year. More customers are buying its private label brands and more higher-income households are shopping at its stores, the company said.

"The consumer is still very pressured," Walmart CFO John Rainey told CNBC. "And if you look at economic indicators, balance sheets are running thinner and savings rates are declining relative to previous periods. And so that's why we take a pretty cautious outlook on the rest of the year."

The retail industry, in general, is expected to face challenges this year after sluggish holiday sales.

Redfield is a Walmart veteran. He began his career as a Sam's Club cashier while attending the University of Arkansas. He became assistant manager with Sam's Club and worked his way up the ladder.

"There are merchants, and then there's our Chief Merchandising Officer Charles Redfield," CEO John Furner said in a memo viewed by CNN Business. "I could probably stop there and many associates across our businesses and the retail industry would know exactly what I mean."

Redfield became CMO for Asda, Walmart's UK subsidiary, in 2010. In 2012, he was named executive vice president of merchandising for Sam's Club and named executive vice president of food for Walmart U.S. in 2015.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the departure.

Furner said the company will be announcing a new CMO soon.

This week, Walmart said it was selling its trendy menswear brand, Bonobos, at a steep loss, to management firm WHP Global and retailer Express Inc. for $75 million. Walmart acquired the brand in 2017 for $310 million.

In a note, Neil Saunders, managing director of consultancy GlobalData, wrote that discounted price for Bonobos "reflects the current weaker outlook across retail, but some is also the result of Walmart not having done much to develop the brand over the past six years."

The restaurant industry has been one of the hardest hit in the last two months.

“The numbers that have come in so far about restaurant closures and restaurant job losses, have been nothing short of staggering,” said Sean Kennedy with the National Restaurant Association.

According to the National Restaurant Association, 8 million employees in the industry have lost their jobs. Since the pandemic began, that’s three times more jobs loss than other industry. In addition to job loss, total losses in revenue for restaurants stand at $80 billion with projections that could go up to $240 billion.

“It’s painful trying to manage this business,” said Ryan Fletter. “We are easily down 50% and I feel like we are enormously successful for being down only 50%. I have two restaurants and the other one is suffering a 90% loss.”

Fletter is the owner of Barolo Grill and Chow Morso Osteria in Denver. Like the 60% of restaurants around the country that are open, the establishments have been surviving on take-out orders for food. However, both have also been able to sell to-go cocktails, since Colorado began a temporary allowance for this at the end of March.

With no longer having dine-in service, selling liquor to-go with food has become a critical source of revenue.

“Everything is lifeline right now,” said Fletter. “You take that away and it would be like standing on top of our head while we are underwater.”

Colorado is not the only state to allow restaurants this additional stream of revenue. Around the country, 45 states have begun allowing restaurants and bars to now sell to-go cocktails and other liquor.

“That has actually been a huge revenue generator,” said Kennedy.

The National Restaurant Association believes the revenue stream has become a lifeline for the industry, but it is still not enough.

“We are really at our most dangerous point right now, and it is why we need a federal solution from congress if restaurants are going to survive into the fall,” explained Kennedy.

Kennedy and the National Restaurant Association have proposed stimulus package ideas for restaurants that include tax breaks and grant money for restaurants, but there has been little talk in Congress about it being part of the next stimulus package. For now, restaurants are relying on what has always kept them alive, their customers.

“We hope that everyone will continue to reach out to their local restaurant and participate in whatever program they are doing, whether it is food or beverages or both,” said Fletter. “It’s why we are alive.”

Shoppers aren't showing any signs of getting tired of Amazon Prime Day, even though some sellers had said they weren't planning on offering deals this year.Amazon said that Prime Day, held this past Monday and Tuesday, was the biggest two-day sales period for third-party sellers in the company's history. Amazon said sales from third-party merchants outpaced its own sales.Amazon also said Prime members purchased more than 250 million items worldwide on Prime Day. Robotic vacuums, coffee makers and Crest Whitestrips were some of the top-selling products."Amazon's Prime Day was aimed to boost new Prime member signups and enhance its relationship with existing members to grow the ecosystem, a mission we believe Amazon accomplished," Joseph Feldman, a retail analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, said in a research note Wednesday.Amazon benefited this year from a favorable economic environment, a wider product assortment — particularly in its own private-label brands— and increased participation from third-party sellers, said Feldman.Walmart, Target, Costco, Best Buy, Macy's and others offered up deals of their own to capitalize on the surge in online traffic driven by Prime Day.Overall, online spending during the two-day event surpassed $11 billion, a 6.1% increase compared to last year's Prime Day held in October, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites and over 100 million items across 18 product categories.The "halo effect" of Prime Day gave "both large and small online retailers significant revenue lifts," said Taylor Schreiner, the director of Adobe's digital insights.