Flipkart has been forced to apologise for sending a sexist promotional email after a customer who took to Twitter to criticise India’s largest online retailer.
On Saturday, Twitter user Richa Kaul Padte posted a screenshot of aFlipkart promotional email that cited “research” to market women’s fashion products.
Thanks for this piece of sexist shit email @Flipkart pic.twitter.com/EHdI5PefcF
— Richa Kaul Padte (@hirishitalkies) August 29, 2015
This is the text of the email it sent to potential customers:
“Research shows that beautiful women are more successful in their lives. This is because when women improve their appearances, they get noticed, listened to and eventually respected for their opinion. Such women not only become confident but also remain motivated to perform even better in life.”
Flipkart replied to the tweet saying it does not endorse the content of the email and will investigate and take action. Punit Soni, Flipkart’s chief product officer, admitted that this was a big faux-pas and and apologised on the company’s behalf.
@hirishitalkies @Flipkart we are kicking off a deep review to see what happened. Will fix and will revert with an update. Apologies.
— punitsoni (@punitsoni) August 30, 2015
“Unconditional apologies. We do not endorse the insensitive remarks in the email. This is a big fail, will not happen again,” tweeted Soni.
He also said that the company was kicking off a deep review to see what happened and will fix things.