American ecommerce giant Amazon is stopping its charity donation program AmazonSmile as it moves to cut costs. This news comes just days after the tech company announced layoffs that will affect 18,000 employees.
The program used to collect 0.5% of some products costs and donate them to charities and shoppers could access it through its own website, which looks like the main Amazon site, with the difference of the company tracking purchases and donating for you.
The program will be shut down officially on February 20, 2023. “After almost a decade, 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,” Amazon said in an email to customers.
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It had allegedly donated $400 million to several causes through the program since 2013. Now, charities who have benefited from AmazonSmile will receive a last one-time donation, which will be valued at three months of what they usually got.
This shutdown means that the ecommerce giant gets to save 0.5% on purchases of formerly eligible products and employees working on the charity storefront will be laid off. The company already informed affected employees before making the move known to customers.
After losing up to half of its market value over a year, Amazon shares prices has been on the rise in the past one month. Its massive layoffs and other cost-cutting moves have encouraged investors.
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