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Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

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Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#351

Post by Spivak »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #340
rpmisms wrote: post #322

Damn. I used AmazonSmile to support my favorite extremist group. (Firearms Policy Coalition) I wonder if that had anything to do with it...

I wouldn't be totally surprised, given the effort to get the FPC 501c3 delisted from smile last month. I thought part of what made Smile cool is that Amazon would forward my donations to such a wide range of organizations (eg my local church OR my local satanic temple). Talk about consumer choice.

Twitch also ran into this issue recently where blindly allowing donations to any registered charity ended up being a bad look for them. It think it was autism speaks (autism / neurodivergence is a disease that needs to be cured and "not technically eugenics", not popular with gamers, go figure) and the lgb alliance (a boring trans-hate group).

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#352

Post by CodeWriter23 »

I think this is a little short-sighted on Amazon's part.

PTA/PTOs were onboarding loyal Amazon customers via Amazon Smile because of the fundraising. In the last PTO I was involved with, Smile accounted for about 2% of our donations ($3000/year = ~$150K in household spending from our school).

To put that in perspective, about 90% of our $150K annual fund raise was direct donations from parents and local businesses, AND Amazon's contribution was 3 of the 60 MacBook Airs in the One-to-one laptop program our magnet was funding annually. Maybe we judge "effectiveness" on a different scale than Amazon but we sure appreciated their 5% contribution to that program.

Now these organizations will switch all that customer loyalty to Target Red Card.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#353

Post by bhelkey »

Retric wrote: post #335
giantg2 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where were those stats? I didn't see them in your comment history.

So wait you searched by comment history rather than say Google: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/tech/amazon-injury-data-study...

> The statistics *I gave* where in comparison to the average.

If you say you linked a statistic, it seems reasonable to me to assume that you linked a statistic.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#354

Post by arbitrage »

fakedang wrote: post #347
bombcar wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I'm surprised they're doing this; something must have bit them on the paperwork side, because $100-$200 for each tiny charity (think local dog shelter, local church, etc; even if they're 'branded' they're often independent charities) was a cheap advertisement for Amazon. Now that's over.

Because it came under the field of vision of some dumbass MBA who decided that saving a few millions would be worth more and a sizeable contribution to their end of year bonus figure. Source: I'm a dumbass MBA admittee.

> Source: I'm a dumbass MBA admittee.

Is the money that good?

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#355

Post by Spivak »

antiterra wrote: post #289

This seems incredibly poorly done from a PR perspective and there's no way to make this headline read well for them. Why not create and announce they're moving to something like "Amazon GiveBack" that gives some sliders to users to vote on the allocation? Sure, people could still call them out on how it's a reduction of what they're donating, but there's a much higher chance the headline reads well for them. As it is…

I would actually kinda love that in a let's just ride the wave of dystopia kinda way.

> Announcing "Amazon Frown": Every year we will donate $10 million dollars each to but you can stop us. Select your most hated group and 1% of your purchase amount will be reduced from the donation.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#356

Post by ja3k »

To be honest I hated the nags. Little pop ups on amazon.com and occasional e-mails that didn't even have unsubscribe links. If you want to donate to charity great, but as your customer I don't want to hear about it.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#357

Post by __derek__ »

perlgeek wrote: post #296
spookthesunset wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which charities should be remain?

You can select which charity to support on smile.amazon.de at least. So pick the top 10% or 5% or whatever charities that were supported by the most customers.

Yes, I'm sure all the charities below that line would respect the decision and not ask their donors to raise a stink to keep them in the program.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#358

Post by [deleted] »

giantg2 wrote: post #331
satellites wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that price and convenience is at the cost of quality and employee safety. And honestly not even worth it as a consumer even if you don’t care about the ethical issues. I’ve been severely disappointed with the quality of the average item on Amazon over the last few years, to the point that I have stopped using them completely. Even Walmart is better, which is saying a lot.

I don't think I've had too many quality issues. The vast majority of the brands you buy at Amazon are also at Walmart or Walmart.com. If you're having issues, then you probably need to start evaluating brand vs seller. For your current discussion, you need to compare buying the same exact item from each. The big win in my eyes is being able to buy from Amazon Warehouse for a big discount.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#359

Post by giantg2 »

Retric wrote: post #335
giantg2 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where were those stats? I didn't see them in your comment history.

So wait you searched by comment history rather than say Google: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/tech/amazon-injury-data-study...

So wait, you lied about providing prior metrics.

It's important to be looking at the same numbers when having a discussion about those numbers.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#360

Post by super256 »

Retric wrote: post #303
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There warehouses are significantly worse than average in terms of injuries per hour. Per man hour? Amazon is rich and super high volume relatively speaking. I got the impression their warehouses were pretty damn good compared to other warehouses handling consumer goods because the cost of hiccups is so high and they have a huge target on their back.

They don’t seem to be very concerned about injuries. One example that comes to mind is storing 40 lb bags of dog food such that people had to duck and lean over and drag them under a low shelf, that’s practically designed to cause back injuries and in fact caused multiple in a single warehouse.

> They don’t seem to be very concerned about injuries. One example that comes to mind is storing 40 lb bags of dog food such that people had to duck and lean over and drag them under a low shelf, that’s practically designed to cause back injuries and in fact caused multiple in a single warehouse.

I used to work for Amazon a few years ago. I'm uncertain whether it was 12 pounds or 12 kg, but when a *tote weights more than this, you are supposed to handle the tote with two people.

*A tote is a small container of items, like this yellow one: https://media.wired.com/photos/593256d9aef9a462de9820d8/mast...

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