Walmart Makes Big Fat Online Mistake and Then It Gets Worse

[yuiyoshida]

Reacting quickly to a large, offensive online mistake is important. Double-checking your solution is even more so.

Big online marketing mistakes seem all the rage these days. In late August, Spanish clothing and accessories retailer got into hot water over what appeared to be a yellow Jewish star on a kid's striped pajama top that looked like prison gear. Then there was Urban Outfitters with the Kent State sweatshirt that looked like it sported bullet holes and blood stains.

When confronted with evidence of what angered people, at least they managed to cleanly remove the offending items. It doesn't make things all better, but it's an important first step. If only Walmart had learned that lesson.

The company has just gone through a one-day rollercoaster with marketing stomachs likely still heaving. It all started with Walmart's Halloween costume. Someone noticed a different subsection on the company's website: Fat Girl Costumes, as the blog Jezebel reported.

http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/walmart-makes-big-fat-online-mistake-and-then-it-gets-worse.html

[shenmue]

1. Yipes

[scarystuffyo]

2. Was it fat girl costumes as in fat suits for costumes ?

Amazon sells those

[Marrah_G]

3. No- it labels plus size costumes as "fat girl costumes"

[scarystuffyo]

5. Oh my

[bmac19gg]

4. weird

I can reproduce exactly what the first screen shot shows by entering "Fat Girl Costumes" in the search bar myself. But when I use the navigation to "Women's Plus Costumes" without search criteria it shows "Party & Occasions > Halloween >All Costumes > Adult Halloween Costumes".

So my question is was there ever a way to use non-searching navigation to produce a banner saying "Fat Girl Costumes" or did some programmer just bind the keyword "fat girl" to the "Women's Plus Costumes" section? Cant really be upset if its the latter.