Did the Death of George Floyd Break Amazon’s Heart?
Was Amazon crying or pretending heard-broken?
Amazon wanted to support Black people, or people forced Amazon to support Black people. It is valuable for us to talk about.
May 31, 2020, 6 days after the death of George Floyd, Amazon wrote only two sentences to stand with the Black community on Twitter. Compare to other famous brands, for example, Nike created a one minute video with a much deeper meaning to show attitudes; Amazon did a bad job not only for the late action but also for the contents. However, this post on twitter is not the primary reason for this company to lose reputation.
After Amazon showed the supporting attitude, a T-shirt showing the death of George Floyd was available on its website. Even though Amazon said: “All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action including potential removal of their account, the product in question is no longer available.” However, an old vision of the T-shirt disappeared, a new vision came out. This new vision with a higher price is available right now. Amazon did not do or say anything about this new vision.
Besides, Amazon’s employees, especially Black people, did not satisfy the support statement because the company did not show any actions to show sincerity. On June 2, 2020, one day after Amazon’s twitter, a group of activist Amazon employees asked two questions to Amazon on Twitter: “Which police contracts have you cut? How many remain?”
Amazon has two products that close tie to police, including doorbell camera company Ring and facial recognition software Rekognition. When Business Insider asked if it would be suspending police contracts, Amazon was not immediately available for comment. After that, Amazon posted blogs about a one-year moratorium for police to use the facial recognition software. The reason was the technology usage issue; Amazon hoped the government could put stronger regulations to govern the use of Rekognition in this one-year moratorium. All blog posts did not mention Ring. Another event that happened make people continually disappointed. Christian Smalls, a Black warehouse worker who organized a protest at his New York warehouse, was fired after the protest walkout.
All of Amazon’s reactions could not convince people that the company’s statements expressing its support for the Black Lives Matter were authentic. Based on the fact, it is more likely Amazon supported Black people because it should be, because other brands supported them, because people gave pressures to brands. In my opinion, because of Amazon’s actions, the company will lose trust and reputation. However, amazon’s competitive advantages are very high; people’s lives rely on this company, especially during this particular time. Even though the company’s reputation was lost, the market share and revenue would not change much in the short term. If the company consistently loses customers’ trust, it will be a significant opportunity for competitors to enter the market in the long run.
