Best Buy Canada will lay off 950 employees at its Best Buy and Future Shop stores as part of a restructuring initiative.

The company said it will consolidate sales departments and reduce management, and employees will be offered severance packages.

"Decisions that impact our people are never easy and we make them with our customers, employees and corporate values in mind," the company's president and CEO Ron Wilson said in a statement Thursday.

The company, which said it has seen online sales grow more than 50% in the past year, says it plans to grow its online presence, create "stores-within-a-store" using vendor partners, and will open six new Best Buy Mobile locations, and two new Future Shop stores.

Wilson said the changes in the way consumers shop "have led us to look at how to best deploy our staff to meet those evolving needs."