Amazon Marketplace is the e-commerce platform where third-party sellers list products alongside Amazon’s own inventory. It accounts for more than half of Amazon’s retail sales and generates billions in fees, making it central to the company’s global dominance. The platform has been repeatedly linked to exploitative conditions for sellers, including high fees, forced use of Amazon’s logistics network, and predatory practices where Amazon replicates popular products under its private labels. Marketplace also facilitates the sale of counterfeit goods, unsafe items, and products tied to illegal or exploitative supply chains. By concentrating power over small businesses, Amazon Marketplace reinforces monopolistic control while profiting from systemic labor and environmental harms across global manufacturing.
Amazon is rated High Impact because its harms are systemic and interlocking.
Environmental Harm: Delivery fleets, aviation cargo, and data centers generate massive emissions and plastic waste, while public pledges mask lobbying against climate regulation.
Human Rights Violations: Workers face surveillance, injury-level quotas, and unsafe delivery speeds. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere face wage theft and coercion.
Military & Conflict Complicity: AWS is central to surveillance states. Project Nimbus embeds Amazon in Israel’s occupation and war crimes, supplying AI and data services to its military and government.
The result: consumer spending that powers a machine which entrenches inequality, accelerates climate collapse, and sustains state violence worldwide.
Amazon’s grip on e-commerce, logistics, and cloud computing makes it one of the hardest companies to fully avoid. A practical boycott starts with reducing retail reliance: buy directly from brands, use local cooperatives, or support smaller online shops. It's easy once you start.
Check out the marketplaces below.
BLK + GRN: a curated marketplace featuring all-natural goods by Black artisans, with rigorous ingredient standards and a commitment to community health.
Uncommon Goods: B Corp that supports artisans, uses eco‑friendly packaging, and gives back significantly
Earth Hero: B Corp, 1% for the Planet partner, climate‑neutral with eco‑friendly packaging.
Ethical Superstore: a one-stop destination for eco-conscious products across food, home, fashion, and more.
The Detox Market: a clean beauty retailer with strict ingredient standards, offering products free from over 2,700 banned substances, and supporting brands committed to sustainability and transparency.
Credo Beauty: clean beauty marketplace holding brands to its “Dirty List” of prohibited ingredients, prioritizing ethical sourcing, environmental responsibility, and ingredient transparency.
The Buy Nothing Project: a global network of hyper-local gift economies and a Benefit Corporation that enables communities to Give, Ask, Borrow, Lend, and Share Gratitude—all free from financial exchange—with the goal of building resilient, sustainable, and connected neighbourhoods.