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Older sneakerheads fondly remember the days of lining up outside their local sneaker stores to secure the hottest releases throughout the year, even if those in the know were getting their pairs through the backdoor. With the advent of online shopping and the major push from brands like Nike to focus on DTC release methods, those looking to resell sneakers many times will utilize a bot (an automated program to secure multiple pairs of sneakers faster than humanly possible) and no site is fully protected from these methods. After adding language directly targeting resellers to their Terms of Service, Nike has just openly addressed how bots are dealt with on the Nike SNKRS App and provided figures for the number of bots targeting their servers. Needless to say, Nike is making a concerted effort to provide users transparency and begin to put botters and resellers alike on notice.
According to an Inside SNKRS post directly from Nike, they utilize a “variety of tools” that spot automated bot accounts - including telemetry measurements, account verifications, and IP reputation. Depending on the particular release, Nike admits that bot submissions can make up “10%-40% of total submissions,” however, they claim that “all get marked invalid before winners are selected and removed from the launch.” This totals as many as 20 million bot submissions across the globe.
Even though The Swoosh claims that they are on the offensive on a daily basis developing methods to prevent programs from gaming the system, with the ever-evolving bot market we finally have an admission from Nike themselves that “it’s likely that a small minority of bot submissions may slip through the cracks for any given launch.”
This post comes just about 2 weeks after the Air Jordan 1 High “Chicago” saw its return in “Reimagined” form, a release that was riddled with errors including not being able to sign into SNKRS accounts and submission buttons not working. The demand for this release was so great that it is possible a large number of users on top of an even larger number of bots caused the app to have these errors, however, it took many users nearly an hour to find their results - meaning Nike may have been blocking out bot entries during this time.
As of late, we have also seen a large number of restocks hit Nike’s website and standard app where many of the most hyped-up pairs were botted before a manual user even had an opportunity to head to checkout. Overall, Nike is actively working to prevent bots from gaming the system, though they still will cause problems and The Swoosh is evolving as quickly as it can. Keep it locked to our Twitter and the Sole Retriever mobile app to stay updated on the latest news, releases, raffles, and more in the sneaker and streetwear world.
UPDATE: Nike has updated their article in regard to bot activity on the SNKRS App, now claiming "bot attack can make up about 10%-50% of all entries." They have also stated that they stop "as many as 12 billion bot calls attempting to game SNKRS launches globally" every month. Going forward, users should also begin to see a screen during launch periods that outlines when and how Nike removes bots and validates entires - rolling out over the coming months. Nike has also removed the claim that they stop all bot entries during a release, now stating they "Nike removes the majority of bots from launches."
