You see it every day in the comments of Instagram or Twitter accounts for your favourite store and it reads something like this: “your site sucks, bots took it all”.
This continued perception to blame bots does nothing but hinder the average consumer and we’ll explain why throughout this article. You have control and you need to take advantage of it.
In the past two weeks we have seen two incredibly limited releases from CLOT: Nike Air Force 1 “Black Silk” and Air Jordan 1 Mid “Fearless”. The first pair released at one single store in the entire world with a total of 2,000 pairs available online and the second received an early release with 3,200 pairs online. A quick check of the JUICE Store Instagram shows the same common complaints from customers who missed out.
“Impossible to get”
“Bots ate”
“the bots ate them up”
“No fucking way possible to ever get a W on these”
“All ate by bots as always”
“Fuck this trash store, not even putting measures to prevent bots”
“???”
You Do NOT Need a Bot
One of the more common questions we get from prospective and new members is “Do I need a bot?” or “should I get a bot?” and the answer is no: It’s a waste of your money.
Uneducated consumers continue to blame the stores they shop with for their inability to acquire high in demand products that they want. The truth is you don’t know what you’re doing. It is 100% possible to purchase high in demand shoes manually. You do NOT need a bot to succeed.
You’re not used to digitally fighting tens of thousands of people for 1 of 100 pairs in your size. As silly as it may sound, shopping online for limited products is a skill. Like any skill you can train, practice and get better at it with time and the right tools. 2019 has proven that to be true and 2020 will only help improve those odds.
Bots Are Being Stopped
A lot has changed this year that has made it more advantageous for manual users. At the root of this change and improvement is Shopify. Shopify is the platform used to create over 1 million e-commerce stores around the world. That includes our own Sole Savy member store and some of the most well known brands and stores such as KITH, Dover Street Market, Undfeated, Travis Scott, CLOT and many more. To a lesser degree we can also thank companies like Nike and adidas as they continue to invest in improving their own digital experience for customers and eliminating bots. The path they have taken to prevention is based on raffle systems which leaves the user with less control compared to the changes Shopify has implemented.
Anti-Bot Is Introduced
That is why our focus here is on Shopify as its sheer dominance over the e-commerce space leads to their system improvements having a widespread impact.
Shopify began implementing a new system earlier this year called “Anti-Bot”. Anti-bot was created by the Shopify engineering team to do exactly what it’s named after: stop bots.
The root of Shopify’s motivation to do this lies somewhere in between improving the manual user experience and ensuring their platform never suffers instability or another crash like it did in August 2018 during the Kith Coca Cola release.
Has it worked?
Absolutely. I’m told by multiple retailers that are currently using anti-bot that they have seen a drastic and clear improvement for their online releases. This has included lower risk of fraud, no multiple orders by a single user and slower check out times and sell through speeds because they are being done by humans.
Through out this year Shopify has developed and implemented various techniques such as checkpoint to hinder the success rate of bots. It has worked so well they can now differentiate the difference between a human and a bot in real time.
Blue is 🤖 and green is 🙋🏽♀️💁🏻♂️ trying to buy products from popular Shopify shops. We know the difference and now letting humans skip to the front of the line. pic.twitter.com/NWE4QrCwcF
— Jean-Michel Lemieux (@jmwind) March 5, 2019
The first major updates sent bot users and developers into a panic.
Hello @ShopifySupport @Shopify we are so so sorry for what we have done. Please forgive us. You win.
– Sneaker Twitter
— BKANTHA (@bkantha1) May 25, 2019
At that same time frame manual users saw an increase in their success.
https://twitter.com/sockjig/status/1132357875940990976
The Current State of Botting
This of course forced bot developers to start creating work arounds. The problem for these developers, as talented as they might be, is they’re fighting a corporation with billions of dollars on the line.
Cyber Update Review:
8.4/10
Despite 4.0, cyber still has not found a good enough shopify anti bot solution to make it any good on a majority of shopify. While it’s AIO sites improved a lot, very few work now and Cyber feels like just another bot washed up by Shopify changes.
— chegg (@RealChegg) August 4, 2019
And the updates from Shopify keep coming:
S/O @jmwind pushing that anti bot update this morning, first one in a while… long overdue
— crazyray™ (@therealcrazyray) December 6, 2019
The comedy in the “bots took it all” comments is that bot users aren’t even succeeding themselves these days. When you weigh all the variables and compare the two methods, it is more advantageous to purchase shoes manually.
sneaker botting really sucks now lol idk wtf to do anymore smh
— chegg (@RealChegg) November 23, 2019
Setting up 4 servers and 8 bots just to touch one pair of shoes on Shopify pic.twitter.com/efFaqHWpGw
— crazyray™ (@therealcrazyray) November 21, 2019
Bot users (sometimes) spend thousands of dollars just to acquire a bot and then hundreds of dollars per month on servers and proxies hoping to be able to hit on even one pair of shoes. Their dollar investment per release is drastically higher than a manual user and they have zero guarantee they will get the product they want.
https://twitter.com/sockjig/status/1198327864589832192
If you want to see the struggle bot users have dealt with on releases this year watch this video from the Travis Scott Air Jordan 1 High release by Botter Boy Nova.
This video showcases Botter Boy Nova using bots that currently cost nearly $10,000 to acquire and use.
Where We Go From Here
Buying limited edition and high in demand products is a complete culture shock to the average consumers expectation and experiences. Shopify is leading the way in technological improvements to help manual users. With the amount of spending being done online ($126 Billion in Holiday 2018) these type of improvements are expected to continue from Shopify and other corporations responsible for product sales online.
From my discussions with retailers and stores, Shopify’s anti-bot technology is only being offered to select merchants on their platform during its testing period. Over the last few months we’ve seen new features implemented and its clear this is still a work in progress — one that’s working very well. I would expect this to become available to other merchants when Shopify is finished their product development.
There Are No Guarantees
Don’t be mistaken, there are no guaranteed “Ws” and some stores (looking at you Foot Locker) suck at stopping bots. Regardless, it’s a much more enjoyable experience when you have control and know what it takes to succeed.
At the end of the day it beats being in the below situation spending hundreds of dollars to have no chance at success.
https://twitter.com/slightlyice/status/1202981098625675265
