If you’re trying to shop ethically, you might be looking at the big retailers and wondering what the best options are. Both Amazon and Target are extremely popular stores, but which of them is more ethical?
Target has long enjoyed a reputation for being ethical, but there are some question marks over this currently. Amazon, however, is well-known for its poor treatment of employees, tax evasion, monopolization, and major privacy concerns. Target is a long way from perfect, but in many ways, it’s preferable to Amazon.
We’ll be using this article to understand more about how Amazon compares with Target in terms of its ethics, and which of these stores you should be supporting.
Is Target More Ethical Than Amazon?
Both Target and Amazon have some serious ethical issues, ranging from staff treatment to low wages, and more – but Target is better than Amazon in some ways. A few of the things we are going to look at in this article include:
- Employee treatment
- Tax evasion
- Monopolization
- Privacy concerns
Let’s break all of these areas down.
Employee Treatment
It might surprise you to learn that although Amazon has a reputation for treating its employees badly, it actually ranks better than Target in many aspects of employee happiness. The CEO of Amazon has an approval rating of 80 percent according to Glassdoor, while the CEO of Target only achieves 69 percent.
Amazon also enjoys better ratings on “Recommend to a friend” and “Positive business outlook.”
However, both companies are frequently slated for poor pay and terrible working conditions, with Amazon being particularly famous for long shifts, few breaks, and stringent rules.
According to some sources, Target has a reasonably good working culture, and overall, employee satisfaction seems to be higher. These things can be difficult to measure, and do not take Amazon’s overseas working conditions into account (although it should be noted that conditions in many developing countries are particularly bad).
Tax Evasion
One of the significant ethical issues is taxes: Amazon is famous for dodging vast amounts of money in taxes. It is thought that in 2021 alone, Amazon dodged over $5 billion in taxes.
Target, on the other hand, is not as notorious for tax evasion, although it doesn’t have a completely clean slate either. In December 2022, it avoided $15 million in corporation taxes, thanks to legislation changes in Florida.
Those are both significant amounts of money, but Amazon dodges significantly more in terms of its taxes – and this is probably one of the biggest reasons for its notoriety.
Monopolization
Of course, another of the major reasons to avoid using Amazon is because it has such a serious monopoly in so many markets. This drives inequality, prevents small businesses from entering the marketplace, and creates many other problems. It also gives sellers less choice, squashing innovation and creativity.
Its ubiquitousness is something that has made it popular, but it’s highly problematic for a wide range of reasons. Amazon spans the globe and has significant power and influence in many different countries.
Target is also generally considered a powerful store with a lot of reaches, but it doesn’t hold quite such a monopoly. It is responsible for driving away small businesses, reducing choice and diversity – but to a lesser extent. This is partly because it’s based on physical locations, and partly because it’s not an international store.
Neither Target nor Amazon is particularly ethical in terms of their monopolization, but Target is certainly smaller and less influential than Amazon.
Privacy Concerns
One of the other significant ways in which Target is more ethical than Amazon is in terms of privacy. Target certainly collects data about its users, but Amazon is known for some major data harvesting concerns. This is partly because of products like Kindle, smart TVs, Echo, Alexa, etc.
Many of these collect data on their users, listening in on conversations and mining for information that can then be sold to marketers and advertisers. Even things like smart doorbells have made headlines for taking pictures in unnecessary situations, destroying the privacy of customers who have no idea that their data is being compromised.
Amazon has also created facial recognition technology and has built a database of “suspicious persons.” This database includes convicted criminals – but many people are concerned about how this sort of database might be used, and what its existence means for privacy.
Target, a much smaller store with physical locations and less focus on smart products for the home, is not likely to raise nearly such major concerns about ethics.
Conclusion
Target is generally considered more ethical than Amazon, but this is arguable because Amazon has such a bad track record, rather than because Target is particularly good. Both leave much to be desired in terms of their ethics, and it’s important to bear this in mind if you’re interested in shopping more ethically.
