By February 20, Amazon intends to end AmazonSmile, its giving initiative that enables customers to donate to their preferred charity with every purchase.
As part of its ongoing efforts to slash costs, Amazon announced on Wednesday that it will be ending its charity giving program, CNBC reports.
The Company Says It Would Like To Focus On Other Areas In The Future
The e-commerce giant stated in its announcement that nearly ten years after it was first introduced, the program has not gained the momentum to have the impact it had planned.
It appears that the program's inability to have a significant influence was due to the fact that there are more than 1 million qualifying groups in the world.
Since its debut, the initiative, which was introduced in 2013, has donated more than $377 million to deserving organizations worldwide.
"With so many eligible organizations -- more than 1 million globally -- our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin," Amazon details.
When customers use the AmazonSmile website to make a purchase, the corporation gives 0.5 percent of what they spent, at no extra cost to them, to the charity of their choosing.
Amazon will give participating groups the equivalent of three months' worth of what they made through the initiative in 2022 as a parting gift.
In the future, the business will concentrate its humanitarian efforts in other areas where it can actually affect change, according to Engadget.
The company provided a few examples of its future intentions, including spending $2 billion to create and maintain affordable housing.
It also includes paying for the computer science curricula for 1 million students across tens of thousands of schools, and supplying 12 million meals this year via food banks.
Read More: Amazon CEO Says Company's Layoffs Will Hit 18,000 Employees
Amazon's Move Is Allegedly In Response To Distress
Over the past ten years, the company has donated approximately $500 million to charities through AmazonSmile.
However, according to CNet, due to the overwhelming number of participating organizations, the average gift amount is only $230.
The news is the latest indicator of trouble for Amazon, which over the previous three years has had a significant growth spurt followed by a downturn in revenue and a $1 trillion market value drop.
Amazon announced a personnel reduction in November that will result in the loss of more than 18,000 positions in order to stop the losses.
It can be remembered that one of the businesses that benefited from COVID lockdowns in recent years was Amazon, which had to hire hundreds of new employees to meet demand.
Eventually, shoppers resumed their pre-pandemic shopping patterns, and Amazon reportedly undertook cost-cutting analyses to determine which products were not generating revenue.
As a result, Amazon reduced staff, suspended hiring, eliminated physical locations, and shut down business divisions, Engadget says.
It is also important to note that Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, recently put a stop to testing on Amazon Scout, the company's robotic home delivery project.
Related Article: Amazon Might Get Its Own Sports App for Streaming
