I like the idea behind Amazon Smile but the execution is a bit underwhelming. I've spent tens of thousands of dollars at Amazon since joining Amazon Prime, but I've only generated $98.66 in donations -- a fraction of a percent. That's worse than just rounding up the price to the nearest dollar. What's the point? I get that Amazon's retail profit margins are terrible, but if they're only going to donate a totally insignificant percentage of their revenue, they shouldn't get any credit for it. Apparently Amazon came to the same conclusion.
My contribution through Smile was $102. I also thought this was very small for the amount I order, however, combined with other Smile customers donating to the same charity (Feeding America) Smile generated $846,092 in donations to the charity. That made me feel better about the combined effect.
> I get that Amazon's retail profit margins are terrible
Why do you think that? I get some 2-8% of the purchase amount via their Amazon Affiliate Program. Furthermore, their "Amazon Choice" or whatever it's called where they suggest 1 version of the product over the rest is often made by Amazon itself because they saw that someone else was profiting nicely off of it so they get in between and squash the competition.
If you want to see how much your Amazon Smile account has contributed, there's a web page: https://smile.amazon.com/charity/my-impact