The anti-Amazon campaign group Amazon Anonymous says that more than 2,000 people have pledged not to shop at the online retailer this Christmas, just one day after it launched its latest drive.

The campaigners are asking supporters to avoid shopping at Amazon from 1-25 December, because “Christmas is Amazon’s busiest time of year – and it’s also our best chance to disrupt their business”.

“They don’t pay their workers a living wage,” claim Amazon Anonymous in their appeal to join the Amazon-free challenge, which launched on Tuesday. “They dodge their tax. They take money away from our local shops. So this year, let’s take our money away from them.”

As of Wednesday morning, 2,243 people had signed up, said the group, committing to withhold nearly £500,000 from Amazon. The figure is calculated by asking each supporter how much they usually spend on presents and combining the total.

“We’re expecting it to get much bigger,” said campaigner Jo Beardsmore. “This is just the start. Last Christmas, 65,000 people signed a petition calling on Amazon to pay its workers a living wage, and we’ll be asking all of those people to put their money where their mouth is and join the Amazon-free Challenge.”

Beardsmore said that the Amazon Anonymous team “want to send a strong message to Amazon, during their busiest time of the year, that if they don’t make a proper contribution to our society, we won’t give them our money”.

“Amazon’s business practices squeeze local shops out of existence. And they’re only able to make such large profits and dominate the market because of the way they treat their workers, and through their use of aggressive tax avoidance schemes,” said Beardsmore, referring to the fact that the retailer paid £4.2m in tax last year on sales worth £4.3bn, a situation described as an outrage by Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment on the latest Amazon Anonymous campaign. The retailer has previously said that “Amazon pays all applicable taxes in every jurisdiction that it operates within”.

Beardsmore said campaigners believe the boycott will have a definite impact. “Firstly, every penny not spent at Amazon will go to alternative shops. Secondly, Amazon have shown that they have a disregard for their own workers, and for the public’s views on their tax practices, so we’re speaking to them in a language that they can understand: their profit margin. If enough people get involved we can shift millions of pounds away from Amazon and to businesses that do pay their tax and do pay their workers properly. This is something that Amazon’s board and shareholders cannot ignore.”

Amazon Anonymous previously gathered more than 65,000 signatories to a petition calling on Amazon to “deliver the living wage in 2014”, at the time set at £7.65 an hour outside London. Amazon has said on its website that “in the UK, permanent associates start at a minimum of £7.10 per hour increasing to a median of £8.00 per hour after 24 months”. The petition, delivered to Amazon’s offices in February, was followed by an email campaign in which supporters directly contacted the company asking it to raise its baseline pay to the living wage rate. Amazon Anonymous also launched a dummy book on Amazon’s own site protesting about the company’s treatment of its workers.

The latest campaign acknowledges that “going cold turkey is hard”, but says that “by signing up you are pledging to do your best to avoid Amazon this Christmas”.

“Kindle usage is included at your discretion. If you accidentally break your pledge you may reset at any time,” says the plea. “Last Christmas we gave them our cash, this year let’s save it for something special.”