New York
CNN
—
A grassroots movement’s call for Americans not to shop at major chains for 24 hours in an “economic blackout” last week went viral — and now, its organizer is launching a weeklong boycott against Amazon that starts Friday.
John Schwarz, the 57-year-old founder of The People’s Union USA, is calling on Americans to boycott Amazon and its companies, including Zappos, Ring, Whole Foods, Twitch and Prime Video, for one week.
The Amazon boycott is about “sending a message loud enough to shake up the system” and rattle the company, Schwarz said Thursday on his Instagram account.
“Amazon is one of the biggest, wealthiest, most powerful corporations in the world,” he said in a video. “It crushes small businesses. It exploits its workers. It fights against unions while raking in billions. It could make a positive difference in the world, but it chooses not to.”
Schwarz is leveraging the attention from the wider “economic blackout” on February 28. He told CNN in an interview last week that he hadn’t expect much traction for his post, which was viewed millions of times. Celebrities like Stephen King and Bette Midler encouraged participation, and reporters wrote and aired TV pieces about it.
On The People’s Union USA’s website, Schwarz calls the group “a grassroots movement dedicated to economic resistance, government accountability, and corporate reform,” adding that the “goal is to unite Americans against the corruption and greed that has kept us struggling for decades.”
Schwarz’s boycott call last week gained strength online because it has captured the visceral public anger with the American economy, corporations and politics.
Still, the “economic blackout” effort is relatively uncoordinated and nebulous. Experts on consumer boycotts and corporate strategy are dubious that it will make a dent in the bottom lines of the massive companies that it targets, let alone the vast US economy.
Last week’s efforts didn’t make much of an impact to those corporations’ bottom lines, according to Placer.ai, an analytics company that uses phone location data to track store visits.
The firm said that “many retailers experienced year-over-year declines in weekly visits throughout February 2025,” but attributed this to “post-holiday spending pullbacks, decreased consumer confidence, economic and tariff uncertainty, and unseasonably cold weather”
As a result, Placer.ai said, the February 28 event’s “specific impact is difficult to isolate, as most retailers saw year-over-year declines in line with recent weekly trends.”
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
