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Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

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Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#541

Post by kennyloginz »

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?

Magnet should give you a hint.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#544

Post by sincarne »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #497
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.

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…

Tax deductions for charitable donations are not a thing everywhere in the world. Here in the UK it kind of is, but the charity has to claim it, ands back 25p on each £1.

But more to your point: I have six committed monthly donors for the PTFA for which I’m treasurer. I have at least a couple dozen individuals signed up for AmazonSmile and Easy Fundraising.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#545

Post by sincarne »

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

This announcement falls into a category I like to call “we are closing to serve you better.”

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#546

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

kennyloginz wrote: post #543
Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #505

It always annoyed me you had to explicitly go to smile.amazon.com. Couldn’t they just have made it a user preference or an option at checkout? It made me think they purposefully didn’t want people to use it.

This was to avoid paying google

Like a patent thing?

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#547

Post by themitigating »

andirk wrote: post #521
themitigating wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"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"

Where does this say anything about corrupt charities.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#548

Post by themitigating »

UberFly wrote: post #540
themitigating wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

How is that even disturbing? Can you elaborate?

That they use their view of the world in order to determine who to donate to

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#549

Post by garfieldnate »

I honestly really dislike the reasoning they gave. As a customer I don't care if Amazon's impact is spread too thin; in fact, I'm happy with that. I don't trust them to choose their own impact. I, as the customer, want to choose the impact, an AmazonSmile empowered me to do that.

Re: Amazon Closing AmazonSmile

#550

Post by iso1631 »

fooqux wrote: post #281
iso1631 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon in my country has an image problem. Sure people use it, but people hate it for "killing the high street" and other such nonsense. Facebook adverts picking random local charities and showing how much they've raised is far better, run them on amazon's front page too. The local hospice I choose has raised £3k via amazon smile. That's far better PR than them giving £1m novelty cheques to some remote city based cha…

>That's far better PR than them giving £1m novelty cheques to some remote city based charity. How is it better PR if hardly anybody knows about it?

Amazon runs a news story in local paper about how smile is benefitting $list_of_local_charities

The email they sent to me was they are going to take the money from my local charity and instead give it to ex Prime Minister Gordon Brown

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