Walmart has a 'swat team' to prevent the company from offending customers
AP/Elise Amendola
The "swat team" of workers scour Walmart's website daily in search of potentially offensive items, like distasteful Halloween costumes, Bloomberg reports.
Sometimes offensive items slip under their radar, however, like the Israeli soldier costume for kids that made headlines this week.
Walmart pulled the costume after customers expressed outrage over the ensemble, which featured a toy machine gun in ads.
The Walmart team's work is sometimes dictated by the day's news, and they stay on top of headlines to make sure they aren't missing anything that has potential to offend, according to Bloomberg.
For example, the team started pulling Confederate flag merchandise from the site after a gunman who displayed the flag on his social media profile shot and killed nine people in a black church in Charleston, SC earlier this year, Bloomberg reports.
In the age of social media, it's important for retailers to appear politically and socially correct, and customers tend to see a company's products as an extension of the business itself and its beliefs.
Some retailers found selling Confederate flag merchandise after the Charleston shooting, for instance, were branded as racist by critics on social media.
But in the case of Walmart, it can be difficult to make sure every product is inoffensive.
The retailer sells millions of items on its website and partners with many third-party sellers online, as well.
A third-party vendor got Walmart in trouble last year around Halloween. The retailer had to pull a "Pashtun Papa" costume sold by the vendor after the costume was criticized as racist on social media.
NOW WATCH: The most surprising brands millennials love
- RBI Governor Das discusses ways to scale up UPI ecosystem with stakeholders
- People find ChatGPT to have a better moral compass than real humans, study reveals
- TVS Motor Company net profit rises 15% to ₹387 crore in March quarter
- Canara Bank Q4 profit rises 18% to ₹3,757 crore
- Indegene IPO allotment – How to check allotment, GMP, listing date and more
- Nothing Phone (2a) blue edition launched
- JNK India IPO allotment date
- JioCinema New Plans
- Realme Narzo 70 Launched
- Apple Let Loose event
- Elon Musk Apology
- RIL cash flows
- Charlie Munger
- Feedbank IPO allotment
- Tata IPO allotment
- Most generous retirement plans
- Broadcom lays off
- Cibil Score vs Cibil Report
- Birla and Bajaj in top Richest
- Nestle Sept 2023 report
- India Equity Market