

“It was incredibly clever and incredibly effective in bringing in new customers,” said Josh Lowitz, whose Chicago-based consultancy, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, estimates that Amazon Prime membership rose to about 168 million this year from about 17 million in 2013.Now you can support The Health Trust without lifting a finger - or at least not more than one.ĪmazonSmile, the simple and no-cost way to donate to a favorite charity like the Health Trust, now works on the Amazon Shopping app for iPhone and Android. Many people became familiar with Prime after their houses of worship, clubs or other local organizations promoted AmazonSmile in bulletins and newsletters as a vehicle for donations.

Bezos’ brief trip to space in 2021 in a spacecraft built by his rocket company, Blue Origin.Īmazon’s Prime membership service, which provides discounted and expedited delivery among other benefits for an annual fee, greatly expanded during the lifetime of AmazonSmile, and some analysts say that the service may have gotten a boost from the charity program’s popularity. “I appreciate that Amazon has done this for several years, but going on a rocket ride is expensive and companies need to prioritize,” he said, making a joke about Mr. Foster said his opinion of the company had soured a bit.

While Amazon’s decision to shutter AmazonSmile was unlikely to curtail his use of the shopping service, Mr. “We are always looking at ways to increase our impact,” he said, adding that with so many beneficiaries, the company’s “ability to have an impact was often spread too thin.” After discontinuing the program, Amazon will instead refocus on bigger investments in areas such as affordable housing, computer science education and disaster relief, the company said in the blog post announcing the decision.

