Amazon Smile program discontinued

[Pea-n-Me]

Anyone else sad about this?
Always used Smile to direct donations from my purchases to the charity of my choice.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/18/ama...-charity-donation-program-amid-cost-cuts.html

Amazon said Wednesday it plans to shut down its charity donation program, in the latest example of the company’s broader cost-cutting efforts.

Through the program, called AmazonSmile, the e-retailer donates a percentage of eligible purchases on the site to the shopper’s chosen charity organization. Amazon said it has donated roughly $500 million to charities since the program launched in 2013.

Amazon now plans to wind down AmazonSmile by Feb. 20, the company said in a notice to customers posted to its website.

“After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped,” the company said. “With so many eligible organizations — more than 1 million globally — our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”

The average donation to charities was less than $230, Amazon said.

Amazon will continue to invest in areas where it can “make meaningful change,” such as assisting with natural disaster relief, affordable housing initiatives and community assistance programs, the company said.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Another take on it:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/19/23562166/amazon-amazonsmile-email-charity

Still, sometimes I wish that the PR departments of these corporations could bring themselves to be a little more honest about these things. Instead of a long screed about how ineffective a 10-year-old charitable program was and how the company is still going to be a good citizen and help deserving people, I think Amazon could have simply sent out a note saying:

Dear customers:
Times are hard. Manufacturing costs are up, prices are skyrocketing, our customers are balking at the increased cost of Amazon Prime, we’re facing a variety of lawsuits, and lawyers are expensive. As a result, even though our sales are up 15 percent year over year, our shareholders are getting nervous. So we’re looking for ways to cut corners — such as laying off about 18,000 of our employees and dropping our charitable AmazonSmile program so that we can keep every penny of what you spend on our site.
Sorry about that.
All our best

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

I did get that email from Amazon yesterday. It’s disappointing. All those smaller charities will suffer the most. Our local humane society and animal rescues - who have shopping wish lists on Amazon - will suffer since we can’t choose them as our Amazon Smile charity. I have no idea how impactful this decision may be to their budgets.

My first thought when I read this, was if the program didn’t grow to create the impact they wanted, then that’s their fault. I don’t believe they promoted it sufficiently. Of course, this is a business decision, but it’s a bad one in my opinion.

 

[YoYoAurora]

I am so disappointed in Amazon for doing this. So many small charities are going to hurt. It was so easy to shop and know that my purchase would put a little in the coffers of the charity that I chose.

 

[ronandannette]

Maybe Amazon should do what McDonald's, WalMart, Safeway and a myriad other large retailers do. Get the customer to donate to their charity of choice (usually vanity named), then donate the customer's money, making themselves look like heros while at the same time taking the tax deduction. Gawd, I despise that !! I'll never donate one red cent that way.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

It irritates me. I looked it up yesterday and the charity our account was set to donate to has received $2.5 million* through AmazonSmile over the past 10 years. That’s a significant amount of money for a non-profit and I’m sure that money made an impact on their operating budget. Amazon’s reasoning for ending the program — that charities weren’t getting enough from it — is nonsensical. Any amount of money those charities received is better than what they will be getting now — zero. Obviously, it just comes down to Amazon wanting to retain more of their profits. Don’t try to spin it any other way. Saying the charities can still receive support by setting up Amazon Wishlists (so Amazon can make money off of them) just added salt to the wound.

ETA: Oh geez, I typo’d in a big way. The organization received $250k, not $2.5 million. Still a significant amount of money and I’m sure the organization will feel the loss when the program ends.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Maybe Amazon should do what McDonald's, WalMart, Safeway and a myriad other large retailers do. Get the customer to donate to their charity of choice (usually vanity named), then donate the customer's money, making themselves look like heros while at the same time taking the tax deduction. Gawd, I despise that !! I'll never donate one red cent that way.

I don't, either. I donate in my own name from my own house, even though I no longer get a tax deduction.

 

[john7994]

After receiving the email, as disappointing as it was in terms of what I perceived Amazon's motivation to be, I estimated my expected annual contribution for this year based on historical spend and made an equivalent donation online + a little extra for the now taxable contribution.

 

[Meriweather]

I read that this morning.
Too bad it didn't work out.

 

[leebee]

This is disappointing. Maybe Amazon doesn't realize that a year's worth of donations- about $400- to a local ballet company meant they could have new costumes for their snowflakes in "The Nutcracker." This was trivial for Amazon, obviously, but huge for our dancers. I have no interest in donating to charities that Amazon feels are worthwhile supporting; I was happy helping out the local folks.

 

[smokeyblue]

At one of the companies I was a buyer for I spent lots of money with Amazon and my Smile went to an honor flight. They would get about $500/year from us which was cool because that was the cost per veteran to go to Washington D.C. Pretty Grinchy to take money away from veterans, kids and homeless animals.

 

[QueenIsabella]

I'm also disappointed that they're discontinuing Amazon Smile. A lot of small, obscure charities got big (to them) donations through the programs. They don't have the firepower of United Way or the Salvation Army--an extra $1000 can make a huge difference.

 

[FigmentSpark]

It was a program unique to Amazon US, I think.

I noticed none of the prices were different on the "smile" page from the original pages. I wonder if there was a mark up on everything to offset the donation? I can't imagine they just donated profit with no other income... unless they were writing it off their taxes.

 

[jrmasm]

Maybe Amazon should do what McDonald's, WalMart, Safeway and a myriad other large retailers do. Get the customer to donate to their charity of choice (usually vanity named), then donate the customer's money, making themselves look like heros while at the same time taking the tax deduction. Gawd, I despise that !! I'll never donate one red cent that way.

In the United States the companies do not get a tax deduction for customer donation.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-charities-offset-corporate-taxes/7622379002/

 

[DisneyHardin]

I was disappointed to hear. Our church got a couple hundred dollars a year from this program.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Also sorry to see it go. I never checked my account after signing up for donations to go to grandkids elementary school. Just checked now, over the years, just over $97. It did add up, seemlessly.

 

[GreatLakes]

I got the email and am disappointed it is ending because my charity is a smaller local one which is the type of charity this will hurt the most.

At the same time I can't really be angry about it. Amazon doesn't owe it to us to have this program and having it the past 10+ years did a lot of good.

 

[shh]

Maybe Amazon should do what McDonald's, WalMart, Safeway and a myriad other large retailers do. Get the customer to donate to their charity of choice (usually vanity named), then donate the customer's money, making themselves look like heros while at the same time taking the tax deduction. Gawd, I despise that !! I'll never donate one red cent that way.

+1000 Cannot agree more. I despise this as well. So arrogant and tone deaf to assume THEIR chosen charity is something close to my heart or that resonates with me emotionally.

That's why I loved AmazonSmile so much - I got to choose what mattered to ME. And apparently it mattered to many others, because they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for this organization. And poof - now no longer support it.

I don't believe their corporate spin for a second- this was a cost savings/revenue based move.

 

[shh]

I read that this morning.
Too bad it didn't work out.

I think it worked out too well - my suspicion is Amazon saw too much money going out the door.

 

[lowlight]

Amazon raised the price on Prime while simultaneously missing almost every 2 day delivery guarantee in the past year. They used to offer a free month of prime for every missed window, but that ended as well. Their prices are rarely the lowest anymore, you run a very high risk of getting a counterfeit item because they mix third party items in with their own stock and label as “shipped by Amazon”, and now this. I’d already moved most of my subscription item purchasing elsewhere, so maybe it’s time to cancel Prime and move to a competitor (who is just as terrible a company unfortunately).