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Sephora Embroiled in Racism Scandal
Other | Tuesday 9th December 2014 | billieek
20% off a huge label like Sephora, as a winter treat for customers, how thoughtful! Well thats what shoppers thought before the brand banned specific accounts from enjoying this discount depending on the customers ethnicity.
If your name is of Asian descent, specifically Chinese then I’m afraid you are not allowed to enjoy Sephora’s sale. The label’s excuse? The worry of customers reselling the products for profit. In a statement from the company they acknowledged that "indeed, de-activated accounts due to reselling — a pervasive issue throughout the industry and the world.". What Sephora fails to mention in the statement is that the only people who were blocked were customers associated with email addresses that appeared to show Asian descent or those using web domains which originated in Asia. However 95% of the accounts which were blocked belonged to people living in the U.S. who were not buying in bulk or showed any signs of reselling.
Four women are taking legal action against Sephora: suing them for the alleged racism.
Xiao Xiao and Tiantian Zou, who live in New York City and Jiali Chen and Man Xu, who are from Ohio and Philadelphia are the plaintiffs in this case, taking action after losing all of their reward points accumulated from buying hundreds of dollars worth of products.
