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Amazon will discontinue its charity program called AmazonSmiles as the company continues to find ways to cut costs, which have included mass layoffs.
The e-retailer’s charity allows shoppers to donate a percentage of eligible purchases on the site to their chosen charity organization.
In an announcement, Amazon states it plans to wind down AmazonSmiles by Feb. 20.
On its website, the e-commerce giant says it “will continue to pursue and invest in other areas where we’ve seen we can make meaningful change—from building affordable housing to providing access to computer science education for students in underserved communities to using our logistics infrastructure and technology to assist broad communities impacted by natural disaster.”
Amazon claims that the charity program did not reach the success it had envisioned with the average donation to charities being less than $230. The e-retailer said it has donated close to $500 million to charities since the program’s inception in 2013.
“After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had originally hoped,” the company said. “With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.
