Wayfair, the web retailer, to bring in-person shopping to Tanger Outlets in Deer Park

Online home furnishings retailer Wayfair is set to open its first Long Island location at the Tanger Outlets in Deer Park this fall.

The Boston-based e-commerce business, known for selling furniture and home goods predominantly online, is poised to take the spot of the former Christmas Tree Shops at Tanger, a Wayfair spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.

The 46,000-square-foot “returns outlet” will sell discounted and returned items in good condition, the company said.

The Christmas Tree Shops store, one of two Long Island locations for the seasonally themed retailer, closed earlier this summer after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May.

The Wayfair returns location will operate Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., according to an online job listing seeking an outlet store manager on Wayfair’s careers web page.

Wayfair Inc., founded in 2002 by entrepreneurs and longtime friends Niraj Shah and Steve Conine under the name CSN Stores, got its start as a collection of more than 200 web stores selling a variety of home goods and furniture.

In 2011, the company consolidated its offerings under the Wayfair name. It went public in 2014 after raising more than $300 million through an initial public offering. The company also owns several of its own product brands, including AllModern, Joss & Main, Birch Lane and Perigold.

Wayfair’s move into brick-and-mortar retail on Long Island is part of a larger effort by the company.

It already has four locations in the Boston and Chicago areas, operating under the AllModern and Joss & Main brands. Wayfair is expected to open its first “large-format,” 150,000-square-foot store — complete with 19 departments and an in-store restaurant — in the Chicago area next year.

The move to physical retail for a longtime e-commerce business like Wayfair has come after years of financial struggles, industry observers said.

“The main reason that Wayfair is looking at physical stores is, quite bluntly, because its business model doesn’t work really well,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, a retail insights firm. “It has a tremendous market share … but it just doesn’t make any money.”

The company has failed to turn a profit since going public, Saunders said.

“Apart from a brief period during the pandemic, Wayfair has made consistent losses over the years and those losses aren’t small,” he said.

In its most recent quarterly earnings report, the company reported long-term debt of around $3.2 billion, with liabilities exceeding assets by around $6.1 billion. Given its financial struggles, Saunders said the move to brick-and-mortar makes sense.

“The business has to look for other ways to reach customers and the most obvious one of those is by opening physical stores,” he said.

“Some people are comfortable buying online,” Saunders said. “But I think there are a lot of people when they’re buying furniture … things like the size and shape of products are hard to get a sense of online.”