Amazon Smile: Amazon donation program is discontinued

Amazon advertises the Amazon Smile donation program under the slogan “Shop and do good. On February 20, 2023, the donation function will be discontinued.

Amazon Smile will be discontinued

On February 20, 2023, Amazon will discontinue its donation program called Amazon Smile. In Germany, the program was thus more than six years active, in the U.S. it was even more than nine years. Over 27 million euros are said to have been paid out to charitable organizations in Germany and Europe to date.

But in a month’s time, the program will come to an end. Although there is still no indication of this on the official website of Amazon Smile, there is in the company’s own blog, in which Amazon has published the text of an e-mail sent to Smile customers.

It said the Smile program had not made the impact and yielded the amount of donations it had originally hoped for. In addition, with more than one million global organizations, the donation amounts per organization were too low, Amazon explains.

Henceforth, the company plans to invest in other areas where it believes it can make a real difference, it says. As examples, Amazon cites building affordable homes to give students access to PC education and wants to use its logistics infrastructure and technology to help areas hit by natural disasters.

To thank the organizations that were part of Amazon Smile, they plan to pay them a one-time donation equal to three months of the money they received through the program in 2022.

• More from Amazon: Amazon Inspire: Tik-Tok-style shopping feed launches in U.S.

Amazon Smile remained largely unknown

Although the amount of donations sounds impressive, Amazon Smile always ran a bit under the radar, especially in this country. Yet the system was so simple. Anyone who bought something via Smile automatically donated 0.5 percent of the purchase price to charitable organizations – without having to pay anything themselves, Amazon itself contributed the donation amounts.

Perhaps this is now for some still the possibility to use Smile again, until the service is switched off on 20 February. Until then, donations can still be collected, which will then be paid out to the organizations at the end.