It’s just before 10 A.M. on Friday, April 3.
MarkAnthony Flores sits on his phone waiting for the clock to hit 10 so that he can try his luck on the latest release on Nike’s SNKRS app, a ritual usually reserved for Saturday mornings. This Friday, however, is special, as he anticipates the release of the Nike Air Zoom Spiridon Caged 2.
This particular shoe is a new take on the model that originally released in 2003. The shoe is a collaborative effort between Nike and streetwear brand, Stussy, featuring a muted colorway of beige with black Nike swooshes on different areas of the shoe.
When Flores opens the app, the screen goes red with Nike’s Swoosh logo and Jordan Brand’s Jumpman logo flashing across the screen, before the white screen with all of Nike’s upcoming releases pops up. A “coming soon” link on the bottom right of the screen of the Spiridon. Once the clock strikes 10, he refreshes the page, the “coming soon” link changes to the show the shoe’s $160 price, indicating that the purchase can be made. Flores presses the link, and with his information saved on the app, just has to click on the “buy now” button at the bottom of the screen to complete the transaction.
The process takes no longer than 15 seconds, but he must now wait for the confirmation notification to verify that he was quick enough to finish the purchase.
Two minutes later, the ever familiar prompt pops up on the screen.
“Sold out.”
Flores is beaten by sneaker bots once again.
This is a ritual that sneakerheads just like Flores go through on a regular basis.
The bots that sneakerheads are competing against are programmed to complete the same process they do in milliseconds. These bots run on any computer as an automated script. For most bot services, however, they will typically be run on a server dedicated strictly to these bots, to ensure the quickest transaction time they can.
Sneakerheads who like Flores try their luck on sneaker drops, a common term used by sneakerheads to refer to a sneaker release, without the assistance of a computer, have become increasingly frustrated with the usage of bots in the sneaker community, as the demand for sneakers has frown, but the supply has not.
“Bots are the devil that destroyed the once fun hunt of Saturday morning drops,” says Flores.
Many in the sneaker collecting community share similar sentiments to Flores. A social media search of keywords like “SNKRS,” a brand’s or sneaker’s name on a release day will bring up thousands of results expressing frustration over missing out on a pair of shoes, many of which are expletive filled rants directed at the brands and the bot users.
For most collectors, these bots have turned the sneaker community on its head and affected how they feel about the pursuit of sneakers themselves.
“I’m all for fair play,” says sneaker collector and former Nike employee Jonathan Griggs, “if the sneaker gods are in your favor that day then you’re good, but to see a shoe sell out in five minutes due to bots sucks.”
Bots have become more prevalent in the sneaker community as the internet has become a more essential part of our everyday lives. With people becoming increasingly dependent on their cell phones, sneaker brands have begun moving their release methods to phone applications, primarily Nike with their SNKRS app and Adidas with their self-named app.
While part of this move is due to our growing dependence on the internet, incidents taking place during the release of sneakers like the Nike SB Pigeon release in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in February 2005 have made the in person sneaker release a much more difficult process.
Sneakers weren’t the commodities that they are today back in 2005, but the interest level in them was growing, with this sneaker being the biggest release seen at the time. The shoe was a collaboration with designer Jeff Staple’s Staple and the shoe was to be released at his Lower East Side boutique Reed Space. The shoe was limited to 500 pairs, meaning that to get a pair, consumers were going to have to camp out over night. Some did so for three days. The morning of the release, hopefuls became restless, in part due people trying to cut the line. This led to some fighting in the streets and the release having to be broken up by police. The next morning, the incident made the cover of the New York Post with a cover that read “Sneaker Frenzy,” as well as being covered on major news stations like CBS. “A lot of people call this shoe the shoe that catapulted sneaker culture to the masses,” said Jeff Staple in a 2018 interview.
A Similar incident occurred at SoHo boutique, Supreme in 2014. This incident saw a near riot break out on the streets on Lower Manhattan over a pair of Nike shoes that were releasing in collaboration with the boutique. With droves of people descending upon the small Lafayette Street boutique and people trying to cut in line to get to the front to get a pair of these shoes, the mass group of people spilled into the street with small fights breaking out. This led to the street being shut down by police and the in-store release being cancelled and pushed to an online-only release.
Sneakers have become a large part of popular culture, both in the fashion community, as well as the office. The latest collaborations between fashion houses and sneaker brands can be seen on runways across the world during fashion week, and in offices where comfort is more welcome in the workplace. For some, however, sneakers have been a part of their lives for years, and mean much more than being just something that is put on feet.
“To me, sneakers are wearable art,” says MarkAnthony Flores. “sneakers are so big in society to me because of the fact of how many different people connect over one thing.”
People connect to sneakers in different ways, according to Flores. From a personal connection like being a signature sneaker from their favorite athlete, to being a status symbol, showing off both wealth and popularity, sneakers mean different things to different people.
According to NPD Group, a market research firm, the sneaker industry made $100 billion in 2018, up from $55 billion in 2016.
The bot industry saw an opportunity for profit in the sneaker community, especially amongst resellers, who view sneakers as commodities. These resellers invest much of their time and money into buying up large amounts of sneaker inventories from different retailers, in order to profit on each pair they resell on the secondary market.
The reselling process has become a much easier business with the introduction of online consignment markets StockX and GOAT. Instead of going to a sneaker consignment shop in person, a sneakerhead who missed out on a sneaker’s initial release, can go to one of these sites and find hundreds of pairs for sale, although they come at a marked up price.
While fairly new to the world of sneakers, bots have been prevalent for much longer in the ticket scalping community. These bots were used on sites like Ticketmaster to buy up large chunks of tickets for major events in order to be resold for profits, sometimes as big as hundreds of dollars. The use of bots in the ticket industry became such an issue that in 2016, the United States Congress passed the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, AKA BOTS Act, which outlaws the use of bots on ticket sites. It also outlaws the selling of these tickets on the secondary market. The act only affects the ticket market and doesn’t have any bearing on the sale of sneakers.
Bots are an easy commodity to find online. Two of the most popular options on the market are AiOBot and Nike Shoe Bot. Each claims to have a large success rate on their website and a large amount of different retailers reached.
Despite the ability to profit from them, bots can be expensive, leaving perspective users wondering whether the cost is worth it.
“It’s only good if you’re willing to invest a lot in proxy servers and buying at a high volume,” says Tim Husain, a former Supreme reseller. “For normal people only buying one pair, most shoes you’ll end up paying resell or getting nothing.”
AiOBot costs $325 to use, while Nike Sneaker Bot costs $499 a year for use, and those prices only account for the price of the bot. A user will still have to pay the price of the each shoe that they purchase on top of bot itself.
Brands have faced backlash and frustration from sneaker collectors who believe that they aren’t doing enough to combat the issue of bots in the business.
Flores has developed a growing sense of cynicism towards brands, feeling as though they only care about selling shoes and not about ensuring their loyal customers get pairs.
Some brands have made strides in trying to slow the usage of these bots. Nike, for example, have a specific type of sneaker release on SNKRS, known as a SNKRS draw, which is a raffle that gives users a time alotted window to enter the drawing for their more high profile shoes. Once this time is over, the system draws users at random, regardless of the time they entered.
Some brands have gone to more extreme methods, such as The Berrics Canteen, an online skateshop based out of Los Angeles. In December 2018, a Nike SB release in collaboration with Concepts, a Massachusetts based boutique, released a sneaker known as the “Purple Lobster.” When The Berrics Canteen listed the shoe on their website, they did so with the intention of releasing the shoe lottery style. The shoe was also listed for sale at a price of $10,000, as a placeholder. Manager Anthony Reyes told GQ in an article after the release, the point of the price was that no human would spend that amount of money on a shoe. Bots, however aren’t designed to make that type of cognitive decision. One transaction was made by a bot program for the shoes at the $10,000 price point. The canteen eventually refunded the user their money, but not before giving them a scare and mocking them on the brand’s Instagram page.
Many other sneaker sites use CAPTCHA programs, which makes users pick out pictures of objects or type out a code in order to continue to the purchase information page, a process that a bot can’t do.
While brands are becoming more diligent, the struggle to combat the bots is one that still continues as bot programmers adjust to the methods that are slowing down their products. The back and forth between companies and these bots may have no end in sight unless action is taken on this matter, like it was with concert tickets.