Groupon customers are boycotting the online marketplace after a series of listings for winter boots used a racial slur to describe the color of the shoe. Many took to social media to share screen shots of the posts on Wednesday morning:
According to the tweets, the slur was used to describe not just one pair of boots, but several sold by "Groupon stores" Kojwa and Margines among others. It featured on listings for "Women's and Men's Suede Leather Fur Boots" and "Women's Fringed Suede Moccasin Boots," for example — boots both being sold at a 46% discount but, you know, still with 100% racism.
"[Kojwa and Margines] are separate companies," a Groupon spokesperson explained, adding that they are "Chinese-based enterprises." "This is a known issue in the e-commerce space," they continued. "We're determining why the deal slipped past the controls we have in place (we flag literally hundreds of terms and various permutations) and will make the necessary improvements."
Customers have said that they will no longer give any more of their money to Groupon due to this incident. "I will no longer purchase anything from Groupon due to boots you advertise for sale," one wrote on Twitter. "Poor taste and highly offensive, but I’m glad you felt comfortable selling them....now I know how you really feel."
In a statement Bill Roberts, the vice president of Global Communications for the company, told Cosmopolitan.com that the language used is "completely unacceptable and violates our policies." Roberts added that the language used was from a third party seller. Here is Roberts' full statement:
"We are appalled that this language was displayed on our site. This product description was provided by a third-party seller via our self-service platform. Regardless, this is completely unacceptable and violates our policies -- to say nothing of our values. When made aware of the issue, we immediately removed the deal -- as well as the third-party seller -- from our marketplace. Language like this has no place on Groupon, and we're further strengthening our self-service controls to ensure it doesn't happen again."
