A group called Amazon Anonymous has launched an online campaign, urging shoppers to boycott the online retailer between December 1st and Christmas.
Shoppers can visit the site and declare the amount of money that they would normally spend on Amazon, but are taking elsewhere this year - so far the total is over £2.7 million (€3.4 million).
The group has four main grievances: Working conditions, wages, tax avoidance, and the effect that the e-commerce site has on high street retailers.
Workers rights
Amazon has faced long-running criticism over its treatment of workers in its 'fulfillment centres' - the warehouse complexes where orders are processed. Amazon Anonymous claim that the wages paid by the company to some workers in the UK are below living wages (basic level of income needed to cover essentials).
Amazon defend their wage rates, but campaigners say that they only responded to issues concerning contracted workers - the group claim that the company uses thousands of temporary contract workers who are paid lower wages.
The campaign's website features a page of anonymous reports by workers who offer first-hand accounts of their experiences working with the company.
While the veracity of these unattributed stories can be questioned, the allegations are corroborated by a number of undercover media reports. BBC's Panorama sent reporter Adam Littler undercover in Amazon's Swansea warehouse for their special Amazon: The Truth Behind the Click.
During one shift Mr Littler walked 17.7 km over a 10.5 hour period, he said that he found the experience dehumanising. He was working as a 'picker' - gathering goods to be bundled together and shipped - ironically the same job is being done by robots in some of Amazon's warehouses in the US this Christmas.
The BBC report included input from experts who suggested that the working conditions were bad enough to cause physical and mental illness.
Amazon responded to the BBC's investigation by releasing a statement which began: "We strongly refute the charge that Amazon exploits its employees in any way. The safety of our associates is our number one priority, and we adhere to all regulations and employment laws."
Carole Cadwalladr, a British author and journalist, wrote a piece for The Observer, also based on experiences working undercover at the Swansea warehouse.
US journalist Mac McClelland did a similar story for Mother Jones in 2012, under the headline "I was a warehouse wage slave."
British Taxman
In 2012 it was discovered that Amazon had paid no corporation tax in the UK on sales of over £7.6 billion. The company was taking advantage of Luxembourg's generous tax structures for foreign companies - Amazon was one of the companies mentioned in the recent LuxLeaks report, which alleges that Luxembourg has been involved in industrial-scale tax avoidance.
Amazon's tax affairs have been investigated in Germany, the US, China, Germany, France, Japan and Luxembourg.
In 2013, Amazon paid 0.1% corporation tax in the UK. British NGO, Ethical Consumer has been running its own Amazon boycott for two years now - specifically over the company's tax payments.
In response to these claims Amazon has always maintained that their payments are legal. One statement from the company said: "Amazon pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operates within. Amazon EU serves tens of millions of customers and sellers throughout Europe from multiple consumer websites in a number of languages dispatching products to all 28 countries in the EU. We have a single European headquarters in Luxembourg with hundreds of employees to manage this complex operation."
Independent retailers
The British Booksellers’ Association claim that Amazon has been causing local bookshops to close at a rate of one per week. The Amazon Anonymous campaign highlights the link between the site's low prices, and its wage rates and working conditions.
