The announcement of AmazonSmile’s closure comes as Amazon begins another round of job cuts. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amazon is shutting down its AmazonSmile charity program next month. The closure coincides with a variety of cost-cutting efforts announced by the e-commerce giant that includes laying off thousands of employees.
The AmazonSmile program functioned like an overlay for the standard Amazon site, allowing users to shop as normal, but select a charity to which the e-retailer donated 0.5 percent of the cost of all eligible products. Amazon claims that over $377 million has been donated through the scheme since it launched in 2013, but in its closure notice suggested this was not sufficient to keep the scheme running.
“After almost a decade, the program has not grown to create the impact that we had…
