>

I donated to a kitten rescue. So did my boyfriend. This is really disappointing. 😞
Sucks, just got the email today,  mine was going to St Jude's.  Always opened the Amazon page by typing in Smile and autofilled the rest.  Plus I could also bypass having to enter my password often checking orders by just going to smile... instead. >

Mine was the same but I didn’t get an email today.  I looked and my last email about it said this:
“This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, in the amount of $780,916.62 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers who have selected this charity. “ >

Interesting. Their justification is that the donations were spread too thin, but from your email it sounds like some charities were getting a non-negligible amount of cash, so.... I call bullshit >

This was my most recent one:
"This is the quarterly notification to inform you that AmazonSmile has made a charitable donation to the charity you’ve selected, ASPCA, in the amount of $667,715.43 as a result of qualifying purchases made by you and other customers between July 1st - September 30th."
This is their listed total for my selected charity: "$15,787,389.62 to ASPCA"
So, yeah. Some of the bigger charities were getting meaningful money. >

Amazon has been getting worse and worse as a platform filled with mountains of junk and this just incentivizes me to really try and aggressively search for better prices on other platforms >

I've been doing that, but I'm so focused on avoiding Amazon that I don't insist on "better prices". Many times I've purchased something and the seller just ordered it from Amazon themselves and had it shipped to me. Do due diligence. >

I once ordered directly from the website of the company that produced a product and it came via Amazon >

Amazon fulfillment is a lot more than just Amazon.com. You can send Amazon warehouses inventory and use that inventory to fulfill orders from any outlet you wish. You can even request the warehouses to use unbranded packaging so it's less obvious. It's not necessarily dropshipping always, but most of the time it is, or liquidation reselling.
Many listings on 3p e-commerce sites are scraped and reposted by other sellers or dropshippers. Very common for importers to do that and offer a niche product to their country, all while copying the copywrite, images, and so on.
The days of e-commerce shopping is in a decline. May it be retail arbitrage, liquidation bin hunters selling as new, dropshippers or outright scammers... Legislation and regulatory bodies are much too outdated to address the concerns caused by such billion dollar companies and industries that can change light-years faster than law is capable of keeping up with. >


Amazon fulfillment is a lot more than just Amazon.com. You can send Amazon warehouses inventory and use that inventory to fulfill orders from any outlet you wish.

Yup and Amazon will comingle your stock with any stock in the warehouse which is how you get counterfeit stuff even when buying direct from Amazon. >

Eh, depends on the brand or grey hatter with good xml or batch files, but you're right that it's a big reason such occurs. 
Commingling is a huge issue, but Amazon does have some tools to not commingle. They also have a transparency program. But I'm skeptical any of that really does much in reality when warehouse bob has to process 20,000 products a day.
Commingling, along with them reselling returns deemed "resellable" where they get to charge selling fees for a returned product X amount of times are some of my biggest gripes. Who know what that return was filled with or changed for. Unlike commingling, most brands or sellers can't stop Amazon warehouses from reselling returned goods at new. It's part of the agreement when using their warehouses. No option to have returns sent back to the seller, manufacturer or brick and mortar store. It's scary how so many big corporations don't even follow their own rules, and even law, while imposing them on those they want. >

This guy sells. >

Amazon was donating 0.5% of each order. So 1¢ out of every $2 spent. >

And making you jump through hoops to do it >

I mean, I went to the website and typed in mine like 3 or so years ago and it's just been working that way ever since. >

They could've solved this in the past year or two so please correct me if I'm wrong, but you had to use the Amazon smile link specifically for purchases which is why I have always used the chrome plugin to redirect. And also the twice a year confirmation on the app if you wanted purchases to count as well besides the browser confirmation >

You typed in smile.amazon.com not exactly necessary of needing a plugin for that. >

Even manually having to add that to a third party link off Google is exactly the hoop the plugin helped you avoid. Just one small use case >

I guess.  You  literally had to just type replace www with smile.  To each their own though. >

Got the email and immediately came to Reddit to be part of the Firestorm. It's a BS move on Amazons part with an even more BS excuse behind the reasoning. 
I'd like to see them backtrack if there are enough people complaining. But we all know that won't do a thing. >

My plan is to cancel my prime membership and donate that monthly cost to my smile charity. So, thanks Amazon for giving me that final reason to cancel! >

I’m beyond pissed off that they’re discontinuing this program. I dedicate mine to a local dog rescue and their Smile donations are a big part of their annual budget. This is going to seriously hurt them, along with many other smaller charities. I’ll help make up for it by increasing my direct donations, but this just feels slimy and gross of Amazon. >

Well, the Amazon high-ups are slimy and gross people.  I've been using it as well and I'm going to be cutting back as much as I can. >

Was only costing them $37.7 million a year. Times must be tough over at Amazon.
/s >

Plus can't they use it as a write off and deduct any expenses they need to run it? >

No, not how that works. Any expense in the "reasonable" course of business is a deduction, so they can deduct those expenses anyways, regardless if they're for charity or not. This program was only cutting into their revenue, since they were not getting that portion of purchases that were going to charity. >

Couldn't they just write that off? >

You have to actually pay taxes before you can write off taxes for charity >

This is (part of) the reason they don't have any tax liability at the end of the year. They have write-offs like this. >

This is something that's widely understood to be true for how corporations avoid taxes but ask yourself what's your basis for believing it? Is it just because you've heard it repeated a lot? >

I used it to donate to my local food bank! This is pure corporate greed so I will definitely be rethinking most of my future amazon purchases. I strictly used smile so that some good could come from my giving money to amazon. I do prefer small & local businesses but that not an option for everything. I hope other people hurt them in their wallet enough to maybe force them to put it back? Idk I'm just pretty angry about it. Corp greed is already getting out of control for prices but I thought this little amount was something decent left. >

me too! >

Cut costs to keep their profit growing.  Because that is all that matters to their stockholders. >

Got the email today and all I could think is “are you serious?” Absolutely disappointing that they choose to discontinue charity and not look at cutting executive raises a couple bucks. I now understand why my mom was so fearful to bring a child into this world! >

I thought the same before reading the article. With over a million eligible charities they were likely spending millions a year just to administer the program and each charity was on average not benefiting much. They can probably be much more impactful by focusing their efforts. I was more shocked that only 330 something million had been donated since its inception in 2013. That seems awfully small in comparison to the volume of purchases. >

I understand the problem with so many charities but they could have changed the set up. Maybe rotate them each month, or look at removing those that are not being used or donated to yearly. The amount that Amazon donates is minimal at best. I am not a super Amazon spender, I usually only go there if I can’t get it in store. At Christmas is my big time to use Amazon because I’m not fighting a Karen or Chad for the last aluminum Turkey pan! I think the $150+ I spent on Amazon, Bert’s Big Adventure got about 50 cents. I understand businesses are here to make money but it makes me sad that companies can’t give a little more to something making a difference in the world. Mr. & Mrs. Big don’t need another lavish (insert ridiculous item here). >

I’ve worked with several non profits. Amazon donations were anywhere from $30 to $900 some months. >

LOVE YOUR NAME! Amazon writes the donations off their taxes right? And from what I remember, people are constantly complaining the company doesn’t pay their share of the taxes, so what’s $900 to them? >

No, Amazon does not write-off the donations for taxes. That’s not actually a thing. >

A corporation may deduct qualified contributions of up to 25 percent of its taxable income. Contributions that exceed that amount can carry over to the next tax year. >

But it just lowers their income by the amount donated. The general public seems to think that the benefits somehow exceed that. >

They intentionally throttled it at the beginning, specifically not offering it for purchases through the app, before finally allowing users to count app purchases if they confirmed their participation in the program twice a year even if you already signed up via the browser. I even had to use a chrome plugin to get around the dedicated link rule for browser purchases which was even more ridiculous. 
Their line of being spread thin and thousands of orgs is probably because they basically had a massive disorganized database of any registered non profit regardless if they directly participated in the program at all. I was supposedly on track to donate over $100 through smile to my local PTSA before they let me know the org had never registered with Amazon and I'd need to switch foundations. 
Feels like this was a very lazy attempt at charity at best, even as someone who was signed up from the beginning and gradually grew disillusioned. I should've expected it. >

It’s been a great program and good for the organizations who were on the ball and got in at the beginning, such as the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson where we were sending ours. >

Maybe I'm going to "discontinue" my Prime membership because their shipping timelines are ass now. >

My next day and 2 day shipping is typically 3-6 days now. >

Got the email earlier. 
And it pisses me off to no end.
They can go fuck themselves with this quote “To help charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program with this transition, we will be providing them with a one-time donation equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022”
Amazon is alienating themselves from customers. I will for sure be looking for alternative options. 
The smile.Amazon.com option made me happy. It going away does not.
Edit:
To add. Their earnings are hurt by high inflation, resulting in lower sales. And they dare to cut the Smile program to stay out of the red???
I’d rather happily shop at individual vendors than support a billionaire’s pillar. >

The greed keeps growing. How much does Jeff need? >

Jeff hasn’t worked there for awhile.  I doubt he’s involved. >

I bet the actual CEO of Amazon loves everyone’s lack of knowledge about that, heh. >

Andy Jassy?  World famous AWS guy, Andy Jassy? >

What pisses me off is this BS statement 
‘the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped. With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.’
Even a little bit helps just not Amazons bottom line, fuckers. >

Yup, this bit really annoyed me too. "Our impact was spread too thin, so instead we'll just cancel it instead of improve it." >

Man I am super bummed by this, been supporting my local Rottweiler rescue for years and it always made me feel good when I got told every year how much went to them. I still donate outside of Amazon but it was a nice kicker >

This was the only thing keeping me buying on amazon rather than just using it as a search engine and then buying from the sellers directly on their own page lol >

I was doing this too, then the seller would ship the product to me via Amazon. >

But not the bonuses for executives right? >

Amazon Smile just got turned upside down. It's now Amazon Frown. >

We'd like to increase profits.  How should we do it?  
Well Mr. Jassy, we paid you $221 million in total compensation in 2021.  We paid our head of the Worldwide Consumer business $56 million and the head of AWS $81 million.  We also paid several of our senior VPs over $20 million in total compensation each.  Maybe we could cut that down a bit?  
Hmmm... how about we fire 18,000 people with a median pay of $32k a year instead.  Oh hey, I see a line-item here for $38 million a year going to charity.  Let's cut that as well.  
Brilliant, that's why you're the CEO.  No wonder they pay you 6474 times more than the median pay of the other employees! >

Did the 18k people they fired really only have a median salary of 32k?! I thought they were laying off people in Seattle, there's no way anyone could even afford to breath in seattle on 32k a year >

Yeah, software engineers working at Amazon are making closer to $320k (including benefits, bonuses, etc.). >

That is pretty low Amazon. If I had a rubber hose, I would beat you… >

Better than jumper cables, I guess >

I can see the difference the Smile program has made for the charity I chose -- their website's homepage has a section dedicated to displaying the amount of money that has been donated to them via Smile. Now that Amazon's charity program is going away, I am going to directly donate money and items to my chosen charity. I am not going to use their Amazon wishlist feature, even if the charity bothers to make a list. This is because everything ordered from Amazon needs to be vetted and returnable, and I don't think I should shift that labor onto the volunteers who work for the charity. (The Amazon email I received made the suggestion that charities make Amazon wishlists, so that patrons could ship them wishlisted items, as a replacement for their Smile charity dollars. I think this is a bad idea for a couple other reasons as well.)
​
edit: I meant to emphasize how bad an idea I think it is to just buy random items for charity from a wishlist. I do already donate money and items to my charity, a pet charity in Western Washington. What they get from my Amazon purchases has been declining year over year because my dissatisfaction with the Amazon shopping experience has been increasing more and more. >

Mine went to Josephine’s Rattery, loved buying ratcessories that donated to rats >

$377 million is what Amazon Smile has donated since 2013. 
Last quarter they earned $2.87 billion. 
.0003% of their profits is too costly? >

Got to right the share price so bezos can continue riding gigantic cocks >

Disgusting. I am revolted. Amazon has so many tiny, underserved charities dependent on the little bit they're able to glean from this program. I used to order more from Amazon knowing that, hey, at least a pittance will trickle down to the tiny pet rescue I like to support. 
And now the causes they serve will suffer. Many will shutter. 
I know I won't be the only one canceling if they follow through on this. >

As a director of a tiny pet rescue, thank you for your support. Our smile donations were not large, maybe $50-100 every quarter, but it was almost zero effort. >

Just another reason I won’t be renewing when our prime is up this year >

Before smile I used a browser extension to make purchases that made a donation >

What was it called? >

Might be Give as you Live. >

The very week Bezos launched the most expensive sailing yacht in world history… >

I’ve noticed more and more that things I order from Amazon are not up to par, quality wise, in my opinion. I think I’m going to take a break from them for awhile. >



“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.”


Come one Amazon spokes drone just tell the truth: you wanted the 500 million back. It wasn’t about the effectiveness of your altruism. >

Saw the email earlier. I loved being able to donate a bit to my local wildlife rescue. Makes me sad >

Just cancelled my Amazon Prime membership. Tit for tat, motherfucker. >

I canceled mine before the price hike. I don't miss it at all. I just ordered a new item that showed up opened and used. The same kind of shit happened with Prime too. Why would I pay extra for terrible products and service? >

So you can be upset faster and watch the worst version of Lord of the Rings ⁽ᶦⁿᵛᶦⁿᶜᶦᵇˡᵉ ᶦˢ ᵃᶜᵗᵘᵃˡˡʸ ᵃʷᵉˢᵒᵐᵉ ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰ⁾ >

Amazon can go fuck themselves. >

“Amazon cash on hand for the quarter ending September 30, 2022 was $58.662B.” Since the program cost $37.7 million, they would have only been able to fund it another 1,556 years. >

I’d like to think they’ll lose a lot of customers over this but they won’t. They did the math, and abandoning these charities made fiscal sense in their warped algorithm. 
I’ve been Amazonless for a few years now and can tell you A) it feels great to not spend my money at a company that treats their blue and white collar workers—and now charities—like shit and B) it’s possible to buy that [enter random thing you think can only be found on Amazon] via other sites. The 2nd and 3rd pages of a google search always have small companies selling that [thing]. >

So lets see
Spotify dunks on amazon music.
Their video library is meh to an extreme.
"Guaranteed 2 day shipping" comes with a huge asterisk. And the compensation for breaking that promise has gone from extending prime membership months to "take a 1 dollar music/movie credit and like it, bitch" after 30 minutes complaining to customer service. 
They increased prime's cost for fewer benefits
They're fucking over streamers on twitch this June, the split's going to be brutal.
And now my flippant purchases to avoid a trip to the store don't even help a cause (Cloves syndrome, a medschool student told me about it once and it has become my goto charity, please donate)?
Man there really is no good fucking reason to keep prime, huh? >

I don't often buy from Amazon, even when they are the cheapest option, but I justified my occasional purchases because of the Amazon Smile program. Since a little money went to a cat rescue, it wasn't so bad, right? But with that gone, forget it. I'll buy directly from sellers and local businesses. And there's always WalMart and eBay. >

The smile program worked, even if a charity received a few hundred dollars it was a good gift for that charity. With Amazon doing this is mean, plain mean. A billion dollar company & they can't continue the Smile program & do other charitable works. You know Amazon is ensuring they will have all the tax breaks, etc. so they won't lose our. >

But don't worry because "charities will still be able to seek support from Amazon customers by creating their own wish lists."  Direct quote from the email.  Jesus Christ.  So tone deaf. >

Using Amazon feels more dirty than my local Walmart at this point. >

A friend of mine works for the company Benevity, where they manage corporate donations like this. I imagine this is why there were a ton of layoffs today... >

I donated to my kid’s elementary school. This sucks. >

Hey! I've got an idea.
How about, instead of simply complaining about Amazon no longer giving to charity, we take this opportunity to focus on ways we can cut out the middleman and support these charities directly?
I do not personally know any good ways, so feedback will help a lot on that front. I also know that it can be difficult to find charities that actually do what they say on the tin, so some way to vet them for efficacy would also be helpful. >

Amazon is becoming less attractive as time passes.  I still have Prime but I may discontinue as I rarely use any of the Prime perks and the annual fee is tad high. >

Huh. Welp seems like I need to cancel my Prime account and look into alternative ways of obtaining my daily goods. 
If we all do this the likely outcome is that we help small and local businesses, improve wages in our communities, reduce waste (significantly), and engage with each other in more meaningful ways. 
We need to enact an annual “cancel prime” day until we drive it into the ground. Bring back communities, get rid of companies that are responsible for income inequality. >

There was no way to do it through the official app as far as I know, and that certainly wasn't an accident >

Just had to go to smile.amazon.com and it was the same website as the other. Once I got used to it it was easy to remember >

Philanthropy is just a marketing tool for companies like Amazon. They never cared about the causes. Idk who I mean by they, I'm sure some employees did. >

Same company that could afford to send its owner on a joyride in space a little while ago right?