Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

aboutamazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 581 posts

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#521

Post by andirk »

themitigating wrote: post #500
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may see it differently having profited but I think good riddance. Shoppers shouldn't get the false sense they're doing something good by buying at Amazon. We spend $100 and they donate 50 cents but the remaining 99.5% of the money is spent in ways that do not benefit us common folk, often to the contrary. Better to be mindful what and where you buy, shopping at Amazon and then letting them do a small donation see…

People could donate before Amazon Smile existed why would that increase now it's gone? I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program. Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing. "I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world."

Why is that disturbing? There are a lot of "non-profit" "charities" that are corrupt.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#522

Post by andirk »

AdamH12113 wrote: post #388

I like the idea behind Amazon Smile but the execution is a bit underwhelming. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars at Amazon since joining Amazon Prime, but I've only generated $98.66 in donations -- a fraction of a percent. That's worse than just rounding up the price to the nearest dollar. What's the point? I get that Amazon's retail profit margins are terrible, but if they're only going to donate a totally insi…

> I get that Amazon's retail profit margins are terrible

Why do you think that? I get some 2-8% of the purchase amount via their Amazon Affiliate Program. Furthermore, their "Amazon Choice" or whatever it's called where they suggest 1 version of the product over the rest is often made by Amazon itself because they saw that someone else was profiting nicely off of it so they get in between and squash the competition.

Amazon is a pile, mostly.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#523

Post by jacurtis »

mouly wrote: post #424
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #352

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, A…

Does Target Red Card offer charity donations like Amazon Smile? Asking for our PTO.

You don't even need the Red Card. Go into your Target app, go to your account, click on "Target Circle" and then you scroll down to where it says "Vote for NonProfits".

I only learned about this a few months ago. I saw that I had accrued like 80 "votes" for non-profits. So you can go in there and distribute your votes to applicable non-profits in the area and presumably each vote is worth a fixed amount that is sent to them.

I know very little about the program other than using it as a consumer over the last few months. But hopefully that helps. I don't have the Target Red Card. But I use the app for savings, so I scan the app when I checkout at Target and i've been accruing these votes the whole time without realizing.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#524

Post by andirk »

themagician wrote: post #512
rcme wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the sins of Amazon are any worse than most other major U.S. retailers.

Most people either forget or were too young to remember the time when Walmart was king. Despite their many, many faults Amazon was (and still is) considerably better for almost everyone than Walmart was in the 90's and early 00's. Walmart would destroy communities, bankrupt manufactures, and paid their employees so little on average that many of them still needed food stamps. The damage that Walmart did in the period…

People are completely addicted to Amazon. Some of my friends and neighbors get things from them literally daily without thinking twice about where to shop. I do not get the allure of cheap Chinese product on my doorstep in 2 days nor do I understand getting overly charged fine dining on my doorstep upside down and cold. But everyone else is addicted to those services.

Sadly, I don't see Amazon losing any steam, but I sure hope it does.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#525

Post by rcme »

dymk wrote: post #520
rcme wrote: post #428

I don't understand all the people "calling bullshit" on the reason Amazon provided. Of course Amazon's reason is bullshit. Amazon knows their reason is bullshit. Amazon knows that you know the reason is bullshit. It's called saving face.

You want everybody but Amazon to skip the formalities of recognizing they’ve done something stupid?

No, I just accept general face-saving. Like if a friend at a dinner party gets up under the pretense of stretching his legs, I don't ask him how his trip to the bathroom was when he gets back to the table.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#526

Post by sunflowerfly »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #488
fortituded0002 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where's the reference to grade school coming from? It wasn't in the original post.

Do high school kids need macbook airs?

At least the old design (have not seen tear down of new design) seemed purpose built for schools It was relatively rugged with key components easily swapped. It was powerful enough to do many tasks far easier than an under powered Chromebook. A pool of Macbook Airs is relatively common. Most schools in my (relatively poor) area that issue students laptops tend to offer inexpensive Chromebooks.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#527

Post by nulbyte »

themitigating wrote: post #500
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may see it differently having profited but I think good riddance. Shoppers shouldn't get the false sense they're doing something good by buying at Amazon. We spend $100 and they donate 50 cents but the remaining 99.5% of the money is spent in ways that do not benefit us common folk, often to the contrary. Better to be mindful what and where you buy, shopping at Amazon and then letting them do a small donation see…

People could donate before Amazon Smile existed why would that increase now it's gone? I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program. Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing. "I doubt the average customer looks much into if what they do with the money even aligns with their own vision of a better world."

> I'm sure many people like the ease of donating through this program.

This is exactly the controversy. Customers are not making donations in these types of programs. Whether a portion of the proceeds are donated or not, the customer pays the same price. Hence, all of it is the retailer's income. The customer only influences to whom the retailer donates and how much. And because the customer is not the donor in the transaction, organizations do not get contact information.

Despite this arrangement, customers often consider themselves a donor anyway, and some have argued this can lead to a reduction in overall donations as a result.

> Finally the last part of your comment is so disturbing.

It is disturbing. Myths abound, and organizations sometimes struggle to educate donors about the basics of philanthropy, especially the larger numbers of donors with smaller pockets.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-amazon-is-smiling-and_b_4...

In the case of AmazonSmile, I think it's hit or miss. Plenty of organizations get paltry payouts. We've averaged less than $20 a quarter since we've been participating over the last four years, and almost of third of those quarters had no payout at all.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#529

Post by hyperhopper »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #513
joelesler wrote: post #387

As a board member of an organization that was benefiting from Amazon Smile, this is just the lamest set of excuses I've ever seen. Amazon should have said: "We're cutting this because we don't want to maintain it, it hasn't been staffed, and isn't focused in our core business (making money)" I would have believed that.

They couldn’t say that because saying it explicitly would hurt their core business

Which is ridiculous. Why would clear communication like that hurt their business?

Because that would lead to more customer outrage than this? What a ridiculous point we've reached as a society if we can't take clear communication and we give incentives to lie to us.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#530

Post by camdenreslink »

whoopdeepoo wrote: post #454
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #352

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, A…

Kinda off topic but why do grade school kids need a MacBook air?

Some schools seem to be 100% Apple for all computers for decades.

I would think a Chromebook would be more fit for purpose here though.

Post reply on HN