Shoe bots ruining your shopping experience? What the fuss in boots is this?
Remember the days thousands used to camp out to buy the latest Air Jordan’s, Yeezy’s ? Thanks to e-commerce tech; now you can sit at the comfort of your home and order them online. Just that, there is a small problem.
Welcome to the world of SneakerBots, where the bots are out to frustrate sneaker heads and outmatch them online. These Bots are run by “sneaky” people to place fake orders and take out the whole inventory — in a blink! This angers genuine users and frustrates them to the extent that some take to social media to vent their anger.
Due to lack of real-time anti-bot protection on websites, hackers are able to send innumerable bots to scrape the inventory. A genuine user is usually met with an error page or a sold-out sign for his troubles. Especially for the sneaker heads who are so eager to buy these masterpieces of their idols are left in murky waters. These shoes bought by the bots are later on sold on the black market at a much higher price.
Sneaker Bots can be easily used by anyone online with little bit of tech knowledge. The bots now are now much more simplified and are packed into a browser extension. Thus making anyone with the latest browser and this tool to steal the deal away from genuine customers. A simple search on the browser extensions store will give you a list of Sneaker Bots, which can be bought for as low as $5. There are professional companies who offer services for Sneaker Bots ranging from anywhere around $100 — $325. There are brand specific bots as well such as Nike Shoe Bot, Adidas Bot etc.
Bots hurt e-commerce businesses at a very large scale everyday. Sneaker bots are no different, they can employ a tactic called Cart Abandonment. This is to primarily fill up shopping carts with the inventory, and then abandon them.
With the holiday season around, e-commerce businesses with the lack of intelligent anti-bot protection solutions are the most vulnerable.
So, what bot prevention techniques do you use to stop these bots?
Originally posted on ShieldSquare.com
