Walmart apologizes for racial slur on marketplace listing

The retailer is dealing with backlash after screenshots surfaced of a wig cap with an offensive product description.

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Curated content can be great—but it can also wreak havoc on your organization’s reputation.

Such is the lesson Walmart is learning after a after third-party vendor posted an item for sale on the retailer’s marketplace, and used a racial slur in the product’s listing.

The product in question was a wig cap whose description noted the color as “n—– brown.”

This tweet captures much of the outrage on social media that followed:

This is WALMART’S RACIST DESCRIPTION OF THE “JAGAZI’S NATURAL FULL CAP WEAVING NET WIG CAP‼️THEY WILL NEVER GET MY MONEY AGAIN‼️‼️ pic.twitter.com/Mx24prrSww

— CastTheNet (@AmyOliviaWilli2) July 17, 2017

The Washington Post reported:

The ad — complete with the familiar Walmart colors and typography — raced around the Web, a racial flub that was a setback for a company that’s aggressively trying to expand online sales.

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