Amazon is Feeling Our Anger

Now it's running TV ads to boost its public image

Anger at Amazon is widespread, with a boycott targeting the company planned for March 7 thru March 14. (That’s besides the larger Peoples Union boycott of major companies on Feb. 28)

There are reasons galore: Jeff Bezos’s caving to Trump starting last Fall. Amazon’s recent scaling back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. The company's hostility toward labor unions.

Even without any media coverage of Amazon’s reaction, though, I have noticed evidence that Amazon is feeling the heat.

A week ago, I noticed ads running on MSNBC—and, I suspect, other cable channels—about the company’s “generous” salary and benefits.

In one ad, a young couple happily decides to splurge on dinner, apparently because their income from Amazon makes that possible.

Another ad showed a happy family, while telling the viewer that Amazon provides full-family health care coverage for all employees from day one.

Tonight, Feb. 25, I saw a new ad and was able to take two photos of it—shown below—documenting further claims about the company’s beneficence.

It’s nice to know that Amazon’s management is concerned enough about consumer resentment towards the company that it feels the need to run such ads.

To everyone who is applying pressure to the giant: Keep it up!

Meanwhile, things are not so rosy for small businesses that sell through Amazon. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit organization and advocacy group founded in 1974, “Amazon exploits and undermines small businesses.”

You can read more about this by downloading the 2021 fact sheet that ILSR published, entitled How Amazon Crushes Independent Businesses.

A couple of quotes on the organization’s website express the threats independent businesses face because of Amazon.

If you “actually add up all the ways Amazon nickels and dimes you… you can’t make money.” — Doug Mrdeza, founder of Top Shelf Brands, an e-commerce seller in Michigan

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“I paid that bribe [to Amazon] and the books reappeared.” — Dennis Johnson, co-owner of Melville House, a book publisher in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Jeff Bezos has given $1 million to Trump. And First Lady Melania Trump reportedly will walk away with at least $28 million as part of her $40 million agreement with e-commerce giant Amazon to produce a documentary about her.

So the likelihood is zilch that the Federal Government will crack down soon on any anti-competitive practices by Amazon

But boyotting Amazon is still legal—at least as of the day I write this.