A weeklong Amazon boycott, driven by a viral grassroots movement’s call for an “economic blackout,” ended Friday. But the boycott seemed to have little impact on the price of Amazon (AMZN) stock throughout the week.
After the boycott’s launch Friday, March 7, Amazon stock underwent a transient 2.12 percent dip, with shares dropping from an opening price of $199 to a low of $193, though it subsequently rallied, ending the session higher at $202.
Trading remained stable throughout the week, fluctuating between $191 and $202. When the bell rang Friday morning, the stock opened at $197.38.
While Amazon is down roughly 20 percent from its Feb. 4 high of $243, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq entered correction territory this week, indicating the decline is likely driven by broader economic factors and general market weakness — not necessarily the boycott’s impact on shareholder sentiment.
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Grievances and goals of the Amazon boycott
John Schwarz, founder of The People’s Union USA, urged Americans to boycott Amazon and its vast network of affiliated companies — including Zappos, Ring, Whole Foods, Kindle, Audible, Twitch and Prime Video — for one week starting March 7.
Critics accuse Amazon of stifling small businesses, exploiting workers and aggressively opposing union efforts while raking in billions in annual profits.
Amazon holds the lion’s share of all U.S. e-commerce sales, and with $638 billion in 2024 revenue, the retailer is on track to surpass Walmart this year as the country’s largest company by revenue. Amazon is also on a short list of companies worth $1 trillion or more, with a market cap of $2.1 trillion as of March 12. It also ranks as one of the largest employers in the country.
Schwarz took to Instagram on March 6 to rally support for the boycott, calling it a way to “send a message loud enough to shake up the system.”
On Feb. 28, The People’s Union USA led a separate 24-hour economic blackout, encouraging consumers to refrain from making purchases anywhere all day. The group is planning additional blackouts and boycotts, including a boycott of Nestle from March 21 to March 28 and Walmart from April 7 to April 13.
Meanwhile, another retail heavyweight, Target (TGT), is facing its own consumer protest. A separate initiative, dubbed the “Target Fast,” launched last week as a 40-day boycott led by Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of a baptist church near Atlanta. Unlike the Amazon boycott, which focused on labor and business practices, the Target protest is a response to the retailer’s decision to scale back some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
How Amazon’s recent performance compares to other Mag 7 stocks
Amazon’s tepid stock performance this week comes amid a broader market pullback fueled by investor fears over tariffs imposed on goods from Canada, China and Mexico enacted by President Donald Trump last week.
That said, Amazon is faring better than some other Magnificent 7 companies. By the closing bell on March 13, chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) was down 24 percent from its 2025 high, notched on Jan. 7.
Meanwhile, both Alphabet (GOOG), parent company of Google, and Meta (META), parent company of Facebook, were down about 20 percent from their 2025 highs.
Shares of Tesla (TSLA), the electric vehicle manufacturer co-founded by Elon Musk, saw the sharpest slide, falling 43.6 percent since the beginning of the year, a stark departure from the intense rally the stock experienced following Trump’s appointment of Musk to the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Why analysts are still bullish on Amazon, despite headwinds
Amazon may have faced pressure from consumers this week, but favorable fundamentals signal a sunny outlook for the company, despite potential regulatory burdens on the horizon.
For shareholders, the recent turbulence may be temporary. Amazon seems poised for strong future performance, underpinned by solid earnings and favorable Wall Street sentiment. Several stock analysts expect the company to report its second most profitable year ever from an operating-income perspective.
Analysts remain overwhelmingly bullish on Amazon stock. TipRanks data reveals a “strong buy” consensus, with 47 Wall Street analysts issuing buy ratings and no sell signals in the past three months. The average 12-month price target of $270.33 per share represents nearly 37 percent upside from Friday’s opening price, signaling strong confidence in the stock’s future.
In the company’s Q4 earnings, revenue climbed 10 percent year over year to $187.8 billion, exceeding consensus estimates of $187.3 billion.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to show impressive growth and a healthy operating margin, while the company’s burgeoning advertising segment also expanded in 2024, with revenue climbing 18 percent year over year.
Amazon is expected to report Q1 earnings on April 29.
However, legal headwinds for the tech titan remain.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is moving forward with a lawsuit, initiated under former Chair Lina Khan, that accuses Amazon of deceptive enrollment and cancellation practices for its Prime service. The trial is expected to kick off in September.
The FTC is also preparing for a separate antitrust case against Amazon scheduled for October 2026, for which economic arguments were presented in court last week.
Facing significant agency staffing and budgetary challenges, a lawyer with the FTC asked a federal judge on Wednesday to postpone its September trial against Amazon, according to the Associated Press.
“Our resource constraints are severe and really unique to this moment,” FTC lawyer Jonathan Cohen told a U.S. district judge during a status hearing. “We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on the case team.”
However, Cohen withdrew his request for a delay shortly after making it, and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson reaffirmed the agency’s focus on the consumer protection case against Amazon later that day.
“I have made it clear since Day One that we will commit the resources necessary for this case,” Ferguson said in a statement.
Will the Amazon boycott make a difference?
By avoiding making Amazon purchases for a week, organizers hoped to showcase the collective power of consumers in influencing corporate decisions.
But like many grassroots efforts, the “calculated strike” against Amazon lacked cohesion. While consumers voiced their frustrations on TikTok, there were no formal protests at Amazon warehouses in the U.S. or its corporate headquarters. It’s unclear whether the one-week protest had any meaningful impact on the company’s bottom line.
This isn’t the first attempt to boycott Amazon, either. Similar calls mounted during Prime Day in previous years — including 2019, 2021 and 2022 — often in response to concerns over poor working conditions for employees.
The hashtag #BoycottAmazon also trended on social media in August 2024 after Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos overruled his editorial team and killed the newspaper’s endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Whether The People’s Union USA’s efforts will make a dent in Amazon’s profits and sales remains to be seen. But an analysis by Momentum Commerce revealed no discernible impact on Amazon sales during the first day of the boycott. In fact, sales were 1 percent higher than the average of the previous eight Fridays.
Editorial Disclaimer: All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into investment strategies before making an investment decision. In addition, investors are advised that past investment product performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation.
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