The Fight for Sneakers (nytimes.com) 201
When Bodega, a streetwear shop in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, released a hyped, limited-edition New Balance 997S sneaker in 2019, the entire stock sold out online in under 10 minutes. There was one problem, though: About 60 percent of Bodega's sales went to shoppers gaming the system with bots, timesaving automation software used to speed through checkout. The bots had claimed hundreds of pairs of New Balances for a single customer; many other shoppers failed to secure just one. From a report: "We got destroyed by bots," said Jay Gordon, one of Bodega's owners. "It was making it impossible for our average customers to even have a shot at the shoes." Shoppers armed with specialized sneaker bots can deplete a store's inventory in the time it takes a person to select a size and fill in shipping and payment information. For limited-release shoes, the time advantage afforded by a bot could mean the difference between disappointment and hundreds of dollars in instant profit. In the case of Bodega's New Balance drop, one person managed to buy a pair of the $160 sneakers before the product page was even live. Others seemed to navigate the site with superhuman efficiency, zooming from product page to purchase confirmation in 30 seconds.
Though Bodega had limited each shopper to a maximum of three pairs, the store found that it was about to ship 200 pairs of New Balances to several addresses in the same apartment building in New Jersey. To most customers, bots are the bane of online shopping. But for sneaker brands and retailers, the relationship is more complicated. Thanks to resale sites like StockX and GOAT, collectible sneakers have become an asset class, where pricing corresponds loosely to how quickly an item sells out. Sophisticated sneaker bots, which can cost thousands of dollars, are key to creating the artificial scarcity that makes a sneaker valuable and, in turn, makes a brand seem cool. It all raises a big, difficult question: If the bots lose, who wins?
Though Bodega had limited each shopper to a maximum of three pairs, the store found that it was about to ship 200 pairs of New Balances to several addresses in the same apartment building in New Jersey. To most customers, bots are the bane of online shopping. But for sneaker brands and retailers, the relationship is more complicated. Thanks to resale sites like StockX and GOAT, collectible sneakers have become an asset class, where pricing corresponds loosely to how quickly an item sells out. Sophisticated sneaker bots, which can cost thousands of dollars, are key to creating the artificial scarcity that makes a sneaker valuable and, in turn, makes a brand seem cool. It all raises a big, difficult question: If the bots lose, who wins?
Creating scarcity (Score:5, Interesting)
Sophisticated sneaker bots, which can cost thousands of dollars, are key to creating the artificial scarcity that makes a sneaker valuable and, in turn, makes a brand seem cool.
Sounds to me it's the sneaker brands creating the artificial scarcity, not the bots. The bots are just taking advantage of it.
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A limited run that isn't the normal production line isn't "creating artificial scarcity." Setting up specific production for a specific design means materials cost, worker-hours production cost. Factories can only produce so many shoes per day, so ramping up a limited run that is nonstandard is not a "free" activity.
Just like how you don't have an unlimited number of seats at a concert. You have at most the number of chairs in the venue, plus a certain amount of spacing perhaps for some standing-room-only
Re:Creating scarcity (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the losers are any idiot that is willing to pay $160 or even more for a pair of fucking tennis shoes.
I mean, hey, its a free country and spend your money as you wish, but really that much money for a pair of fucking tennis shoes?
I've spent a lot of money on stupid things in my past too, but geez....this kinda takes the cake.
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I assume you mean that the sneakers currently out there include features that justify the apparently inflated price? Can you elaborate? Is it something cool like being able to walk up walls? Hoverjets? Bulletproof?
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Ok, but actually makes the shoes worth that much from a utility perspective. I understand about market forces and branding and things being worth what people are willing to pay, etc., but what would make them worth it for someone who simply wants a shoe? What special features or advantages do they have that justify the price?
Re:Creating scarcity (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I have.
I shoot a lot of major concert festivals in the New Orleans area....well, I did prior to covid screwing things up.
But anyway, in preparation for last time to shoot, I needed some new shoes...with good support and all for long 4 day runs of running between stages, often on concrete but some times through grasslands...but on my feet all day with a lot of camera equipment.
I picked up a replacement pair of Nike Air Monarch IV's...to replace ones that have served me well, but were getting a bit long in the tooth.
I went to Academy Sports and got a new pair for I think roughly $60 or so.
These things work great, give good support (I have flat feet), good cushioning, traction...all around good shoe and they seem to last for years.
So....WTF am I missing by not looking for these $160+ shoes that bots are "stealing" from people trying to buy them online?
Is it now "insane" to actually buy athletic shoes based on performance?
Re:Creating scarcity (Score:5, Insightful)
Scalpers and their fucking bots jack the price up but add zero benefit to the consumer.
The answer is simple: Auction them.
If you really must have them on the first day then be prepared to pay though the nose. Now gradually reduce the price over the course of a week until they all sell.
They won't ever do that though because the point of this isn't to make money from shoe sales, the point is to get your brand name all over the Internet, including "News for Nerds".
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Or buy them in person. If you're not in the shop then you don't get a pair. Any company named "Bodega" should be familiar with the concept of in-person shopping.
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Or buy them in person. If you're not in the shop then you don't get a pair.
Ticket scalpers solved that “problem” decades ago. There are always people who have nothing better to do and are willing to stand in line for the promise of a pittance.
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They won't ever do that though because the point of this isn't to make money from shoe sales, the point is to get your brand name all over the Internet, including "News for Nerds".
Maybe the point is for the company to stand out by creating something fun and unique for its customers rather than just shoveling the same shit everyone else wears. I mean can you even recall the name of this single shop in Boston without going back and checking the article? I know I can't and I only read the article maybe a couple hours ago.
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Scalpers and their fucking bots jack the price up but add zero benefit to the consumer.
The answer is simple: Auction them.
If you really must have them on the first day then be prepared to pay though the nose. Now gradually reduce the price over the course of a week until they all sell.
They won't ever do that though because the point of this isn't to make money from shoe sales, the point is to get your brand name all over the Internet, including "News for Nerds".
You're solving the wrong problem.
The point of the artificial scarcity isn't to maximize profit for the single release, it's to balance short-term profit with building a loyal customer base.
For that particular sneaker they probably could have charged $200, $250, or even more and still have sold out, and they probably knew that.
Instead they "undercharged" to make sure their loyal customers, the ones who support their brand and generate buzz, could still afford them and feel like they were getting a good deal.
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Then you destroy all the good will your brand has.
Remember that these ultra rare sneakers are just halo products that help sell the high volume ones. If they all go to bots it destroys the halo effect.
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You might choose the limit in order to create artificial scarcity. You might also do so because you don't have enough capital or wildly underestimated demand.
Re: Creating scarcity (Score:2)
etting up specific production for a specific design means materials cost, worker-hours production cost.
...all of which will have been paid for and set up even before the first shoe leaves the conveyor belt. So why not just keep going, until all bots are satisfied, and your webshop is on line waiting for real orders?
It's not like the material they're made of is unobtanium or anything, to make them truly limited.
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I have zero sympathy. None.
If your life revolves around owning a particular pair of sneakers then you deserve to be ripped off.
I do Have some sympathy when this occurs on things like concert tickets, but sneakers? Pass me the tiny violin.
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Some ticket sellers now require you to bring the credit card used to purchase the ticket in order to get admission.
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No the real problem is people are stupid. The sneaker companies "artificial scarcity" are about tiny tweaks in visual style. Just checked the New Balance Bodega 997S does not look appreciably different from any of their other shoes, and while investigating StockX to see how stupid people are my girlfriend came up and said "oh wow are my shoes worth that much?" looking at a $1000, only to find that pair had a minutely different trim and a slight pink tinge to the N logo. For the record she bought them for $9
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I play MtG, and my wife has asked "how much is that card worth? It's just a card/piece of cardboard." So I can understand and relate (even if I wouldn't buy a shoe for that much either). Just replace "shoe" with an item from your favorite hobby, and you should be able to understand the issue here.
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I play MtG
The Reserve List ... that's a shit show in of itself, grrrr. I mean, there is something kinda neat about the Mox Diamond I got for $28, and the 3 Power Artifacts that I got at $26 each being worth many times that, but OTOH it is frustrating that others who might want to experience that might have a very hard time due to the entitled twats using the game like a stock investment.
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It isn't like bot defense is a solved problem. A couple CAPTCHAs...
This. A captcha on every step of the purchase would eliminate the 'bot' problem.
Re:Creating scarcity (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of these bots are designed to use the store's own APIs to add items to the cart and purchase them, kind of creating their own new page for the site and getting around CAPTCHAs. Its why a good bot isn't cheap to buy because of the work needed to get around the CAPTCHA.
You could add million CAPTCHAs, but when the bot knows how to use the store's own API's to purchase anything, it won't matter one bit.
Re: Creating scarcity (Score:2)
A captcha on every step would also eliminate most of the customer problem. So let's call it a win-win?
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Yes, doubles down on the address conditional. An instance where I can only assume that 70 unique accounts with 70 unique credit cards were used.
But we all know incompetence is usually faster than malice so probably not. Once they get their heads out of their ass and use the three layers it should stifle 90% of the problem, good enough.
Re:Creating scarcity (Score:4, Insightful)
A possible solution for this is pre-registration with some sort of identity verification. It has privacy implications, of course, but it would be the only really effective way to enforce limits on how many each person can buy, etc. Still doesn't stop people from from finding shills register so that they can buy under their name, but it does add a barrier for the scalpers.
Other possible solutions involve doing things like pushing the release back a month or two to have time to build up a stockpile so that the supply is too abundant for the scalpers to make money, but it's not realistic to expect companies to do anything like that.
It's not clear to me that the idea of raising the initial price, creating a heavy early adopter penalty, would be all that beneficial for either the company or the consumers.
Re: Creating scarcity (Score:2)
A possible solution for this is pre-registration with some sort of identity verification.
Great idea, "let's make the customer jump through even more hoops." /s
How about: stop the "limited edition" bullshit? Why "limited"? Just put as many on the market as any and all bots would buy, and then some. Despite costing $160 or so, they're not exactly difficult to make. Should be $10-20 tops, in material and labor.
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Sure, simply eliminating limited edition products would be a good solution. What I was proposing was just one possibility to solve the scalping problem in the context where there is a limitation. Such a solution might also work for other things that are limited, but not arbitrarily as in limited editions. Things like tickets for performances or for transportation or for products that the manufacturer just can't produce fast enough for demand. In fact, various performances and many forms of transportation do
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A possible solution for this is pre-registration with some sort of identity verification.
A better solution is proper pricing.
Either raise the price to fit the demand to the supply or make more of them to fit the supply to the demand.
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The real losers in this case were Sony. Their pricing was inefficient
Not really. Like the article summary mentions, scalpers themselves drive demand. The limited supply and the scalpers further limiting it are helping drive demand. If it were possible to just buy a PS5 at a store whenever you wanted, demand would be far lower: there's no really compelling reason to buy a PS5 right now. There's something like three exclusive games for it out.
However, thanks to scalpers buying every single PS5 that comes to market within seconds, it means that if you want a PS5, you need to gr
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scalpers themselves drive demand.
There is no evidence of that. The scalpers are immediately reselling the products at a higher price, so they aren't changing the supply available. That is only possible if the manufacturer is intentionally setting the price below the market-clearing level.
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There are ways around it - impose a delay of 5 to 20 minutes between requesting the item and getting an email with a one-time link and a captcha where the transaction can be continued. That would make it a lot harder for bots while of course create an inconvenience for humans.
New Balance? (Score:2)
Uncles everywhere rejoice, your favorite shoe is now collectible.
Didn't read the article yet but... (Score:3)
If you had a pretty limited run of something, and found when comparing shipping addresses that some places were getting way more than household limits - why not cancel those orders and randomly tell people who had tried to order and failed that they had the option to buy if they wanted?
Re: Didn't read the article yet but... (Score:2)
Because then people will work around that and ship to several different addresses and use different credit cards or game the system or new restrictions some other way.
What ever new restriction you come up with, it has been tried and gamed. Ultimately, the harder the restrictions the more hype thus the more black market money to be made - thus more interest in finding a workaround. People have no shame and will show up with 40 homeless dudes to queue the night before to buy your supply, or they will game the
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Because then people will work around that and ship to several different addresses and use different credit cards or game the system or new restrictions some other way.
What ever new restriction you come up with, it has been tried and gamed. Ultimately, the harder the restrictions the more hype thus the more black market money to be made - thus more interest in finding a workaround.
All of this is true.
However, I wonder if there are algorithmic ways to detect bot-based purchases. Using only the data available to the merchant server along with some oracle to determine true versus bot buyers, I wonder if some DNN could be trained to detect the bots. In a way, this would sort of be similar to a captcha, but instead of an explicit query and response, the entire checkout process and data are the query and response.
It would be an interesting game of cat and mouse if the bots had access to
Re: Didn't read the article yet but... (Score:2)
Interesting proposal, I do know for a fact that these sneaker bots are working around all sorts of CAPTCHAs and ways of detecting a bot. Thatâ(TM)s part of the reason why they are rather expensive to rent, the good ones have a lot of work put into them and great support and immediately patch for stuff you might be throwing at them.
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If you had a pretty limited run of something, and found when comparing shipping addresses that some places were getting way more than household limits - why not cancel those orders and randomly tell people who had tried to order and failed that they had the option to buy if they wanted?
Not sure where you live, but that kind of action is illegal in many countries once money has changed hands. The seller is bound to fulfill the order by contract law in most countries.
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IANAL, but it's fairly common for online sellers to include terms of sale such as a limit of N per person and no automated purchases by bots, and they reserve the right to cancel any orders for any detected violations of those rules; I think those terms are perfectly legal in most jurisdictions.
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"Not sure where you live..."
Come on, it's SuperKendall. Where do the most entitled and ignorant "programmers" live?
"The seller is bound to fulfill the order by contract law in most countries."
SuperKendall isn't concerned with what law requires. This point is wasted on him.
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How do you know these were "presales"? You openly admitted that you hadn't read the article.
"However even if they had already been charged there has to be some way for the supplier to cancel orders in the event of a mistake... I am sure I've seen WalMart and Target do this for online orders."
Well, if SuperKendall has seen it then it must be law!
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Why not prevent those orders from being placed to begin with? Surely, being the whiz IOS programmer that you are, this would be no challenge for you? Not surprised your answer is a band-aid though.
What is surprising is you not taking the pro-scalper position. Trump sure would, Musk too. Steve Jobs would. All your idols would fully support such exploitation. Maybe you need to read more Ayn Rand.
scalpers need to lose big some times / be stuck (Score:2)
scalpers need to lose big some times / be stuck with an big load of items they need to get rid off at an loss.
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ticket lottery can work better vs an buy rush for (Score:2)
ticket lottery can work better vs an buy rush for things that can sell out fast. Maybe even force an buy limit tied to an real name.
They had ALMOST ten minutes??? (Score:2)
Judging from the insanity of other artificial scarcity sneaker sales in the last couple of years, âoein under ten minutesâ sounds like a shamefully long time when usually the scalpers and other vultures empty the supply within seconds. Those must have been sneakers with very low hype and interest.
Unfortunately the same arms race of trying to ban sneaker/shopping bots has been hitting craft beer which has become nothing but a money making machine for some cash starved individuals and other vultures
Bad launch price (Score:2)
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Maybe they like the idea of normal people being able to afford the shoes and not just the affluent.
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So they should go back in time and fix a problem even major websites arent sure how to fix?
You're not making any sense.
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fix a problem even major websites arent sure how to fix?
Are you absolutely sure they don't know how to fix it, or they just don't see the need? What incentive does the retailer have to fix this "problem"? They sold all of their shoes, didn't they? Yes, I'm sure someone at Bodega was disappointed that some people that wanted shoes didn't get them, right up until they got their bonus check. Don't think for a second that they haven't done the math and came to the conclusion that there is more money to be made by ignoring the problem than fixing it.
You mention th
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Are you absolutely sure they don't know how to fix it, or they just don't see the need?
Are you absolutely sure they don't want to fix it, or they just don't know how?
This is a single shop in Boston, not Ticketmaster.
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If you really believe that, you're hopelessly naive. They could sell more shoes, end scalping and have normal people buy their shoes simply by producing more of them. It works even if they can't have them all ready on day one. The promise that everyone who wants a pair will be able to buy one soon is enough to deter excessive scalping. Scalpers do not like to end up with heaps of unsold inventory while the price for it quickly drops below the price they paid (because resale value is lower than new from the
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If you really believe that, you're hopelessly naive.
Nope. Releasing a limited edition item and not wanting it to go to resellers are not at all mutually exclusive. Particularly when dealing with smaller shops like this one often times they actually like and value their regular customers and want to see their product go to people who will value the item more than some one whose just going to flip it to make a buck.
Believe it or not, the world does not operate exclusively on capitalistic principles.
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If they like and value their regular customers, they know who they are and can very easily solve the "problem". Sorry, if you believe they're doing limited editions for anything but the hype, you're naive. The hype depends on people not getting what they want and people jumping through hoops or paying much more than retail to get it anyway.
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Sorry, if you believe they're doing limited editions for anything but the hype, you're naive.
And you're an ass whose claiming to know the motivations of others when you really have no idea at all. All you're doing is extrapolating from your own pessimistic world view.
I mean, at least I've been civil up until now.
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A limited edition is obviously not meant to satisfy the people who want the thing that's limited. A limited edition is not the same as "we couldn't get enough manufacturing capacity so you'll have to wait a bit, but then we'll sell you one". None of the arguments about "regular customers" and "normal people" adds up. They know their "regulars", the "normal people" who buy their non-limited-editions, and could just sell to them first. The fact that they don't tells you all you need to know. It's sad that you
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A limited edition is obviously not meant to satisfy the people who want the thing that's limited.
How is that obvious? Personally, I like unique things and I don't think I'm the only one. By releasing a unique shoe they are providing something unique to their customers thus filling this niche.
The fact that they don't tells you all you need to know. It's sad that you have to learn all this from strangers on the internet. Your parents should have taught you that. Do not believe the hype.
It's sad you're an ass who needs to slander people who have contrary opinions rather than have your opinions float on their own merit. Your parents and teachers should have taught you better. You're whole quote here at the end just screams to me "why should I take this crying child seriously?"
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You don't need to limit it if you want to sell it to everyone who wants one. You instinctively understand this, because you want "unique" things. You just fail to see it from the perspective of other people who want the same, but, in order to satisfy your desire for uniqueness, must not get what they want, because an unlimited edition would destroy the uniqueness. It's kind of sad what passes for uniqueness with regard to sneakers anyway, but you do you.
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Between the insults and not being able to at all grasp what you're trying to say here I'm done with this thread.
You're turning a rave into Disney World (Score:2)
They set the initial price too low. They should have looked at resale sites how much similar products cost. Set launch price to 10 times that a slowly lower the price until the sneakers sell out.
That's a great way to alienate your audience. A sneaker company wants to sell cool sneakers to cool everyday people. If you sold it for 1600 on day 1, then it just wouldn't be cool for most sneaker customers. At that point, it's clear it's a cynical exploitation move. Pay $60 more for a limited edition and it's fun. Cool people will do it. Few would think you're a total idiot for paying $60 to have something unique and special. Pay $1,500 more for a custom color scheme and it's just fucking stupid.
First thing is (Score:2)
Just buy them off the person who buys all of them, and pay whatever you think those sneakers are worth.
Seriously though, making sneakers collectable is pretty dopey.
This is what brick and mortar is best for. (Score:2)
Re: This is what brick and mortar is best for. (Score:2)
Then the vultures will show up with 40 homeless dudes to queue the night before so they are first in line and if you limit it to 2 per person, they will just show up with more and still clear you out. Plus now the brick and mortar store has to deal with seriously upsetting the neighbors because 200 shady people are camping your store all day or all weekend.
So then you think you should make an elite circle of âoetrustedâ clients who pinky promise donâ(TM)t sell to the black market. Which also
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I was never into fads and limited editions, so this sort of doesn't apply to me anyway. It's a suckers market.
Re: This is what brick and mortar is best for. (Score:2)
They do use raffles already, that at least eliminates the homeless camping out front but people are then organizing an absurd amount of people to sign up for them and end up with most of the sales yet again. Plus the hype and black market value just increased. Canâ(TM)t win against greed. Best approach I have seen so far was producing just enough that it is still special but saturates the market enough to crash the black market value.
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What you describe is a hell of a lot less practical then just using bots. I mean, going around hiring enough homeless people to buy a bunch of shoes for you? Are you kidding? Seems like the avalanche of problems you'd likely experience in trying to do this would make it not worth the money at all and that's assuming they don't just walk off after you hand them the money to buy the shoes. I also don't remember people recruiting the homeless to buy scarce products being a problem before the internet.
The poste
Re: This is what brick and mortar is best for. (Score:2)
Neither am I kidding you nor making this up. There is whole Facebook groups for organizing enough people for that, donâ(TM)t even need homeless, and plenty of students or other bored folks are making a buck (letâ(TM)s say $50 or so depending on product and effort) while the person organizing them then has the black market access and makes their own investment back and then some.
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So now you're presenting the idea of paying substancial sums ($50 on a $160 purchase) to do this and you don't see how that is even more massively less practical then bots?
I mean sure, some people might even do what you describe but going that route has far bigger hurdles to get over then just using some bots.
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Sounds like a great wealth redistribution scheme.
COVID put a dent in that + bot detection (Score:2)
Put all limited editions in an actual physical store with no online ordering for pick up. Online sales are great for most things but not limited quantity items.
True, but with COVID, non-essential retail stores were closed last year in most states (not run by idiots), including the one mentioned here. Do you want to expose your staff to probable COVID carriers (if you met sneakerheads, you'd know what I mean) who are probably not down with mask laws just to keep your $160 shoes from being scalped by the scum of the earth?
The only solution is bot detection. Any bots used to buy scalp sneakers and game consoles are also used to break into systems. Solve the pr
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Easy to fix - but its no really a "problem" (Score:2)
2) start the price at $100K and decrease 20%/day until they all sell . If the high prices "look bad" then donate anything above $100/pair to a charity
3). Make more sneakers
But of course this isn't a problem is it. The entire goal was to generate press coverage, so this just gets them more free advertising.
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But of course this isn't a problem is it. The entire goal was to generate press coverage, so this just gets them more free advertising.
This.
I've never even heard of this brand but now it's on "News for Nerds" and next time the prices will be even higher.
These bots are an inevitable pox on us (Score:2)
These things afflict all manner of commerce. Tickets, retail goods, you name it, if someone can engage in arbitrage and find profit in scarcity, they will and do.
I'm not very charitable towards the marketers, like Ticketmaster, that seem to have colluded with scalpers, permitting bots etc. to run rampant, and even to profit from the scalping. But it's all about the money.
Any real fixes? Blaming this on supply misses the point I think, if they could make a million pairs of these sneakers, then the value and
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if someone can engage in arbitrage
This is not arbitrage. Arbitrage is buy in a location of plenty and selling in a location of scarcity. This is creating a global scarcity by corning the market then jacking up the price. This is creating a spike in demand by depleting the supply and then making a profit price gouging on the sale of the items.
The Fix Is Inconvenient (Score:2)
0. Start with the easy technical solutions: Ban VPN IP ranges, ban AWS/Azure/GCC/GoDaddy/EIG ranges, ban IP ranges from countries you're not going to ship to anyway.
1. It starts with the Credit Card companies. A "Limited Edition / High Demand" solution needs to be put in place so that vendors can register particular sales like this. Secondary credit card uses get declined. Also, let the CC companies do some extended validation, ensuring that there's no other suspicious activity on the card. "But Voyager529,
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Couldn't you just implement a captcha for each item being sold and limit a single IP to a single item?
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Couldn't you just implement a captcha for each item being sold and limit a single IP to a single item?
Not with carrier-grade NAT you can't. This would make a complete mess for mobile phone users since it's highly exceptional for a smartphone to get its own public IP address (and rarer still for it to get a public IPv4 address). Starlink is all CG-NAT, as is Hughesnet. Libraries, Starbucks, and other public places would be similarly limited in oddly inconsistent ways.
There are plenty of other examples where users aren't getting WAN IPs unique enough to block them after the first purchase, which is why it see
Bad news (Score:2)
It is not fixable. Sorry, this is not what we want to hear, but think about it.
About 10 years ago there was a shortage of hard drives. Here is the account of Blackblaze how they overcame the restrictions (i.e.: scalped the HDDs):
https://www.backblaze.com/blog... [backblaze.com].
And today's story also lists something similar. One apartment complex receiving hundreds of pairs. So 3 pairs per person, 100 units on the block, each agreeing, say $10 to receive a package. How can you prevent that?
Or making up a list of (retailers
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Nope, there is no viable solution.
There's always a solution, it's just a matter if the purchasing public will tolerate the hurdles. For sure, you'll never eliminate bots completely, but there are dozens of good ideas up and down this page that could easily be put in place to severely limit it. The only reason they haven't: They don't want to. Why would they care? They sold their overpriced crap, and they got more free publicity. Win-win, for them anyway.
Not that Sneakers (Score:2)
The movie is much more aligned to the Slashdot audience. I mean, sneakers are mostly for going outside, right, and who does that these days?
Simple solutions? (Score:2)
1. Captcha's are a pain but could help cut done bots; especially if you mix up the types, such a "Identify all of X in picture," "Identify all that aren't X," etc.
2. Check IP addresses and not let duplicate ones connect until one is done or limit each connection one sale per connection.
3. Limit sales to one per credit card and address; and only ship t the billing address.
4. Require a unique phone number per shoe and call to verify sale.
Problem with these are they cost money, take time, and will eliminat
How to price it (Score:2)
For some limited-availability items (not known with certainty in advance) some people are willing to pay much more.
Do we allow consumers to share the original low price, or allow sellers to create a public auction evironment?
Does it matter if it's a necessity (basic potatoes or rice), or a luxury (fashion clothes)?
Problem? (Score:2)
can deplete a store's inventory in the time it takes a person to select a size and fill in shipping and payment information.
Yeah, as a store, I would HATE to sell all of my inventory in minutes!
Re: (Score:2)
Should have made more sneakers. If they were really lucky, the bot makers would forget to program quantity limits into them.
Re: (Score:2)
You are extremely shortsighted and it is your kind of thinking that results in businesses failing.
Didn't we have this problem with concert tickets? (Score:2)
Remember when we could go to live concerts?
Anyway, this used to be a common problem with concert tickets. Tickets would go on sale, scalpers would immediately buy everything, and regular fans would not be able to buy at list price. The scalpers would then resell the tickets at the market-clearing price.
No kidding this is happening with limited-edition sneakers. It's going to happen with any limited edition anything.
Beanie Babies (Score:2)
Sneakers are the Beanie Babies of today. Let them take them all...
Next story (Score:2)
Mandatory 5 minute checkout (Score:2)
Why not have a mandatory 5 minute wait (timed by the server, not client side) from the time when an item is added to the cart?
Who cares? (Score:2)
The people who actually pay the scalper's prices are stupid and need to get punished anyway.
Childish fight for toys. (Score:2)
Cry me a river. Trifles are THE ideal place for profiteering as they are a want not a need and the purchaser is already wasting money so why not waste more?
I remain unaffected because I don't waste money on such nonsense.
no thanks (Score:2)
Similar to High Frequency Trading in stocks (Score:2)
When Joe Sixpack places an order to buy 100 shares of an obscure finite element analysis company like ANSS from Topeka Kansas, these guys take advantage of the nano second delays between Chicago and New York and run ahead and make a few nano dollars.
Especially for thinly traded stock Joe Sixpack never gets his trade executed at the market price he sees when places the or
Easy solution has existed since at least the 90s (Score:3)
There is an easy solution to eliminate bots and snipers. I remember using the system back in the 90s. Make it an auction, set the minimum increment to at least 5% of the current price and don't close bidding for at least 1 hour after the last bid. It completely eliminates snipping and bots. You can tweak the increment or how long you keep the auction open after the last bid but it makes it easy for a person to compete with a bot because the only way to steal the auction or keep the auction open is to keep bidding and driving up the price.
Re: (Score:2)