As a seasoned retail industry expert and an admittedly picky online shopper myself, I‘ve watched Amazon‘s explosive growth with equal parts awe and concern. There‘s no denying that the e-commerce giant has revolutionized retail, logistics, and cloud computing while amassing a market valuation of over $1.7 trillion. For many busy consumers, Amazon‘s unparalleled selection, low prices, and lightning-fast shipping make it an indispensable convenience.
However, I believe this convenience has come at a dire cost. As Amazon extends its tentacles into industry after industry and exerts unprecedented control over our economy, more and more shoppers are questioning the company‘s impact on workers, small businesses, the environment, and our local communities.
A recent survey found that nearly 40% of consumers have a negative opinion of Amazon, with one in five actively avoiding the platform. As an expert in consumer behavior, I‘ve dug into the top reasons driving this growing Amazon backlash. Here‘s what you need to know before you click that "Buy Now" button again:
Decimating Small Businesses
It‘s no secret that Amazon has left a trail of destruction through the retail sector. A whopping 82% of small businesses say Amazon‘s dominance is a major threat to their survival. By ruthlessly undercutting prices, rapidly expanding into new product categories, and self-preferencing its own brands in search results, Amazon has shuttered tens of thousands of local shops and independent retailers.
As one New England bookseller told the Wall Street Journal, "I‘m surrounded by Goliaths and it‘s very frightening… The only level playing field we have is the shop-local movement." For every $10 billion in revenue Amazon gains, an estimated 133,000 retail jobs are lost. And when local stores close, communities lose out on sales tax revenue, charitable giving, and that intangible Main Street vitality.
Squeezing Suppliers and Sellers
Amazon‘s oft-touted marketplace platform was supposed to empower small businesses to reach new customers online. In reality, it has enabled Amazon to offload costly inventory management while still maintaining an iron grip on sellers. The company often charges a 30% commission on sales and a 20% fee for advertising, eating into already-thin margins.
As one merchant told Vox, "It‘s a control thing for Amazon…We are only allowed to exist because they let us." The platform is also rife with bad actors peddling counterfeits and manipulating reviews to get an edge. One study found that up to 60% of reviews in certain product categories are fake. Honest sellers end up punished for a problem Amazon created.
Mistreating Workers and Squashing Unions
Underneath Amazon‘s cheery orange smile logo lies a much darker labor reality. Numerous investigations have found injury rates at the company‘s warehouses nearly double the industry average, thanks to relentless quotas, insufficient breaks, and lack of medical care. Workers have reported urinating in bottles and suffering miscarriages to avoid being disciplined for "time off task."
When employees at an Alabama warehouse tried to organize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) last year, Amazon pulled out all the stops to crush their efforts – from enlisting the Pinkerton spy agency to posting anti-union flyers in bathroom stalls. The company was later found to have illegally retaliated against two activist workers. As RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum put it: "Amazon‘s behavior throughout the hearing process demonstrates exactly why workers are seeking a union."
Harming the Environment
With its sprawling network of planes, trucks, and data centers, Amazon‘s operations emitted a staggering 60.64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2020 – a 19% jump from the previous year and more than the entire country of Ireland. The sheer number of individual packages shipped for ultrafast Prime delivery creates mountains of plastic waste and cardboard. By one estimate, Amazon generated an additional 26.4 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2019 alone.
Despite pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2040, climate activists argue Amazon is still not doing enough to shrink its oversized environmental impact. Initiatives like adding electric vehicles still pale in comparison to the larger structural waste encouraged by Amazon‘s emphasis on speed and consumption. As environmentalist Matt Hulse warned: "Plastic pollution, delivery emissions and data center energy use will continue to soar until we address the root problem of overproduction and overconsumption."
Spying on Customers
Amazon‘s entire business model is built on sucking up as much personal data about its customers as possible, often in frighteningly invasive ways. The company tracks not only every purchase you make but also which items you search for, which deals you click on, and even how long your cursor hovers over a product. All this data is blended with information Amazon buys from third-party brokers to create an intimate dossier used to target you with ads.
As Wired‘s Adrienne So put it: "When I‘m on Amazon, I often feel like I‘m one click away from the sort of purchase that will haunt me with regrets and targeted ads for the rest of my life." Alexa smart speakers and Ring doorbells bring this surveillance apparatus right into your home, compiling voice recordings and video footage that can be accessed by employees or subpoenaed by police. Is stocking up on toilet paper really worth surrendering your privacy?
Manipulating Search Results
Another way Amazon tilts the playing field is by giving preferential treatment to its own private label products, as well as those sold by merchants who pay hefty fees for advertising and fulfillment services. An investigation by The Markup found that Amazon placed its own brands in the highly-coveted "buy box" even when the same product was available for a lower price from another seller.
By some estimates, Amazon now has over 100 private label brands competing with the very merchants it‘s supposed to be supporting. Anti-trust scholar Lina Khan has argued that this creates a troubling conflict of interest: "Amazon is exploiting the fact that some of its customers are also its rivals." This self-preferencing not only makes it harder for shoppers to find the best deal but also reinforces Amazon‘s monopoly power.
Enabling Unsafe and Expired Products
As Amazon has scaled its marketplace to include millions of third-party sellers, troubling reports have emerged of counterfeit, expired, and even dangerous products slipping through the company‘s lax oversight. A CNN investigation found over 4,000 items for sale that had been declared unsafe by regulators, including sleep mats linked to infant fatalities and toys containing excessive lead. Other shoppers have received expired food, knockoff cosmetics, and medication without childproof caps.
While Amazon claims to invest heavily in anti-counterfeiting efforts, critics argue the company has shirked responsibility for actually vetting sellers and enforcing violations. "The underlying problem is Amazon does not take full responsibility for the goods posted by sellers on the Amazon marketplace," said Harvard Business School professor Feng Zhu. With so many middlemen in between the brand and the buyer, it‘s hard to know what you‘re really getting.
Poor Customer Service
For a company that claims to be "Earth‘s most customer-centric company," Amazon can make getting help a frustratingly impersonal experience. Many shoppers complain of overseas representatives who seem more interested in sticking to a script than solving problems, promised callbacks that never come, and maddeningly long phone trees.
Since over half of products are now sold through third-party sellers, Amazon will often absolve itself of responsibility and tell you to take up any issues with the merchant directly – leading to language barriers, unresponsive vendors, and runarounds. One survey ranked Amazon 16th out of 20 retailers for customer service, below Walmart, Etsy, and Nordstrom. For shoppers used to the human touch of a local mom-and-pop, Amazon‘s "your call is important to us" purgatory can be infuriating.
Avoiding Taxes and Bullying Local Governments
As Amazon has expanded across the country, the company has strong-armed local governments for billions in tax breaks, subsidies, and other sweetheart deals – even as it avoided paying federal income tax entirely in 2016 and 2017. One analysis found that Amazon receives an estimated $760 million per year in state and local subsidies for its distribution facilities, an average of over $7 million per location.
But research suggests these deals rarely deliver the promised jobs and economic benefits for communities. When local officials have dared propose making Amazon pay its fair share, the company has responded with hardball tactics – threatening to cancel projects, backing anti-tax referendums, and even firing politically active employees. As tax fairness advocate Mike Meno put it: "Amazon‘s dominance has come at the expense of state and local governments‘ ability to provide for the common good."
An Overwhelming and Cluttered Website
For a company famous for its elegant simplicity, Amazon‘s actual website feels stuck in the dial-up era. The design is a confusing hodgepodge of tiny thumbnails, cryptic acronyms, and garish sponsored banners hawking everything from the Amazon credit card to one-time cleaning supplies. It takes an average of six clicks just to buy a single lightbulb, according to UX research firm Bagaar.
The product taxonomy is so inconsistent and the titles so stuffed with SEO keywords that it‘s often impossible to tell what you‘re really buying. As journalist John Herrman memorably put it: "Amazon is a bizarre bazaar, and like all bazaars, it‘s both entertaining and overwhelming." In its quest to be everything for everyone, Amazon often feels like it‘s built for algorithms more than actual human shoppers.
Lack of Discovery and Inspiration
Perhaps most frustratingly for an aesthetically-minded browser like myself, Amazon has a serious discovery problem. With its endless (and I mean endless) aisles, soulless product pages, and non-existent visual merchandising, the site has all the charm and character of a Soviet supermarket. Searches for a cute dress or a unique birthday gift return an avalanche of shoddy brands, outdated styles, and suspiciously cheap prices.
The recommendations rarely inspire excitement or introduce you to up-and-coming designers – just slight variations of products you already bought. There‘s no strong brand identity or sense of an actual style perspective behind the screen, just a cold attempt to maximize clicks and conversions. It‘s nearly impossible to "browse" in the traditional sense of the word. As Big Tech critic Cory Doctorow put it: "Amazon is like a flea-market paralyzed by choice."
As shoppers, we have incredible collective power to push companies to do better and hold them accountable for their impact on the world. Every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of future we want to live in. By taking our business to more ethical alternatives — whether local brick-and-mortars or purpose-driven online shops — we can curb Amazon‘s worst excesses and create a more just, sustainable marketplace.
So the next time that Amazon order sits in your cart, take a moment to reflect on what your values are. Is getting those leggings in two days really worth all the hidden costs? With a little more intention, we can all be the conscientious consumers our planet desperately needs.
