Amazon Smile's Complexities
Amazon is a service utilized by most of the world. The e-commerce site provides a platform for 3 billion products to be sold. As the largest company in the world, the company has a multitude of platforms that value the company at nearly $800 billion. The staggering sticker price of the largest company provides a platform for Amazon to ride out its victory march and take advantage of its strength.
Amazon launched its charity initiative Amazon Smile in 2013 as a subsidiary of Amazon. The charity initiative operates with a unique URL, smile.amazon.com. Customers select a charity to support from almost one million charities. Amazon then donates 0.5% of the purchase price of select items from the website. The Amazon Smile shopping experience remains consistent with its sister site Amazon.com while allowing customers to support a charity of their choosing. While this service provides passive donations for charities, it also has negative impacts for charities. If customers utilize the Amazon Smile website, a fee is automatically donated to a charity of their choosing.
Amazon Smile’s 100 million customers a month are incentivized to shop on the site knowing they are donating a percentage everytime they make a purchase. If customers associate a positive action with supporting Amazon Smile, they’re likely to develop brand loyalty leading to many sales for Amazon. These small donations have added up to over $80 million in donations. While nonprofits welcome this money, many are concerned that customers’ donations will shrink thinking they’ve already contributed to the organization with their purchase. Nonprofits have yet to see a dropoff in donations, but Amazon Smile has been in operation for less than a decade. Additionally, the nonprofits are not given donor data preventing nonprofits from connecting with Amazon Smile donors to obtain new donation opportunities.
Amazon provides a platform for anyone in the world to sell products with Amazon Smile service allowing anyone to donate to a worthy cause. The mammoth company’s motivations behind the service may have been to eliminate their federal tax bill or to look better than they actually are. While many speculate about the reasoning behind Amazon Smile, utilizing the platform when making an online purchase is beneficial to all involved. Find an organization you like and connect them to your Amazon Smile account today.