Amazon is all set to say goodbye to its AmazonSmile charity program next month. The closure of the charity comes alongside the cost-cutting effort layoffs announced by Amazon. In January, Amazon confirmed layoffs for 18,000 employees.
The AmazonSmile charity program was similar to the standard Amazon site. There, users can shop as normal, but they can choose a charity to which the e-commerce giant donated 0.5% of the cost of all eligible products.
Amazon claims to have donated over $377 million through the scheme since its launch in 2013. The reason for shutting down the program was that it was not sufficient to keep the scheme running.
AmazonSmile Will Shut Down on February 20th
“After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped,” the company said in a press release. “With so many eligible organizations — more than 1 million globally — our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.”
Charities enrolled in the AmazonSmile program will still receive additional donations until the program closes on February 20th. Amazon also said that it will be making a one-time donation to all involved charities “equivalent to three months of what they earned in 2022 through the program.”
The closure of AmazonSmile comes right after the recent cost-cutting efforts by Amazon. Especially after Amazon became the first company to lose $1 trillion in market value in November 2022.
Amazon also announced the closing of its Amazon Care telehealth service and Fabric.com retail site, in addition to scrapping plans to build 42 new facilities.
