On the latest conference call, the CEO of drugstore.com (NASDAQ:DSCM) said that the company's highest priority was profitability. That's a good goal to have - and a particularly ambitious one for this company, which has lost more than $700 million since its inception.

Unfortunately, the losses kept coming in drugstore.com's latest first-quarter results; the net loss was $5.3 million, or $0.06 per share. This compares with a loss of $5 million, or $0.06 per share, in the same period in 2005. Revenues did rise to $104.1 million, from $99.5 million in the same period in 2005.

Drugstore.com has been restructuring over the past year, reviewing all its SKUs to ensure that every order is profitable. It's rethought shipping charges, too, adding a surcharge for larger orders and renegotiating its contract with UPS (NYSE:UPS). The company also terminated a wholesale distribution agreement with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and restructured an agreement with Dr. Andrew Weil. Drugstore.com has dumped brand advertising in favor of performance-based marketing, placing ads on online search sites like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO).

Though the company expects break-even EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) by the second quarter, overall sales just aren't growing quickly. Drugstore.com has made significant improvements in its cost structure, but wringing out those efficiencies will likely grow more difficult in the quarters ahead.

It's tough to make money selling hard goods through the Internet. Successful companies like Amazon.com offer customers tremendous selection and scale; at least for now, drugstore.com doesn't. It's nice to think that the company might eventually become profitable, but I doubt those profits will be especially robust.

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Fool contributor Tom Taulli does not own shares mentioned in this article.