Amazon is coming under pressure to remove Confederate flags and themed products from its online store after Wal-Mart, EBay and Sears said they’d stop selling the merchandise.

Amazon.com Inc.’s Facebook page lit up with demands from customers to cease selling items with the Southern rebel image or risk losing business. Controversy surrounding the Confederate flag intensified after Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old charged in the massacre of nine black worshipers in a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week, was shown posing for pictures with it.

Bill Price, 68, vowed to cut off purchases totaling about $100 a month of microphones and other sound equipment from Amazon as long as the world’s biggest online marketplace carries a flag he considers a symbol of racism and hatred.

“I feel strongly about this, especially in light of what happened in Charleston,” Price said in an interview. “That firmed my resolve.”

Amazon spokesman Craig Berman didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on the matter over the past two days.

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley Monday called for removing the flag from Statehouse grounds and Mississippi might do the same after House Speaker Philip Gunn said the state’s banner, which includes the Confederate symbol, has become a point of offense and needs to be taken down.

Objectionable Items

Retailers have come under increasing scrutiny for selling objectionable items and have been forced to capitulate to social pressure. Last year Sears apologized after a ring with a swastika symbol appeared on the company’s online Marketplace site. Amazon also offered the ring for sale at the time, though that page was subsequently taken down.

A 3-foot by 5-foot (1-meter by 1.5-meter) Confederate battle flag for $4.85 is the fifth-most popular item in Amazon’s outdoor flags and banners collection, outselling the California state flag, No. 14, and the rainbow Gay Pride, No. 16. The only items more popular in the category are variations of the U.S. flag and a set of rings for mounting it on a pole.

EBay Inc. will ban the sale of the Confederate flag and many items containing the image “because we believe it has become a contemporary symbol of divisiveness and racism,” according to Johnna Hoff, director of communications for EBay. The company will block new listings as of today and begin to notify sellers who have current listings that are affected, and then will start to remove current listings, Hoff said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it would yank Confederate products, such as pocket knives and T-shirts, from its shops and Sears Holdings Corp. said it would eliminate merchandise from stores and its e-commerce site.

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