An unintentionally explicit photo on Sears' website made for some happy posters on Reddit Tuesday. The department store's nip slip was revealed to any potential buyers of the Morris Babydoll Mesh & Lace, originally on sale for the low price of $25.25, according to Gawker.
Sears has since removed the product, offered through its website's Marketplace section, which according to the store is "a community of sellers working with Sears providing you with millions of additional items. We partner with thousands of sellers to offer you more of the unique products you want."
UPDATE: Following this incident, Sears announced it will remove the "Exotic Lingerie" section of its online store entirely, TODAY reports.
Marketplace images are not generated by Sears, but are instead "borrowed" by the third-party seller -- in this case a company called Fright Depot.
Fright Depot sells all manner of delightful clothing items and accessories, from Halloween costumes to wigs, to "sexy clothing" broken down helpfully into such categories as "Cave Girl," "Pirate," "Nun" and "Ethnic."
The chain's model snafu is not an isolated incident though, according to Forbes. In February, the site offered an item called the "Elegant Moments" cami that featured a very risque top, which left little anatomy to the imagination. The mistake was again caught by a discerning Redditor, and within hours the item in question had disappeared.
A spokesperson told Forbes that the Marketplace sellers are forbidden from displaying "nudity and see-through clothing" on the site. “We perform ad-hoc content audits to remove inappropriate items," Tom Aiello said, "And also take customer feedback and react very quickly."
Perhaps. But the "ad-hoc audits" do not actually seem to be catching all inappropriate items. In lieu of the removed Morris Babydoll Mesh & Lace, the site helpfully offers up a selection of "related items," several of which are garments from purveyor Fright Night, and at least one of which is also not exactly safe for work.
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