Race Relations The Wal-Mart Way
Controversy is brewing over reports that Walmart is selling a black Barbie doll for only half of what the white doll is being sold for, ABC News reports.
Photos on Guanabee.com (first shown on a site called Funny Junk) show the Ballerina Theresa Barbie doll, who is black, and the Ballerina Barbie doll, who is white, hanging side by side in a store. Price of the black Barbie: $3.00. Price of the white Barbie: $5.93.
Walmart told ABC News that the chain needed to clear space for new seasonal products and thus marked down the prices of many items.
“To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, ” spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said in an e-mail to ABC News.”… Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers.”
“Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing,” O’Brien said.
More information can be found at the ABC News Site.
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