Sneaker bots are becoming increasingly widespread as digital marketplaces and online shopping gain popularity. So, what are sneaker bots, and how do they work? What are the functions of sneaker bots, how to use sneaker bots, and what is the price of sneaker bots?
Aside from that, there are questions like, is sneaker bot legal? What are the impacts of sneaker bots on consumers and businesses? Read further and understand various aspects of sneaker bots explained.
What is a sneaker bot?
A sneaker bot, commonly known as a shoe bot, is a software-based structural component used for purchasing limited edition stock on various online selling websites worldwide or in geographically banned regions.
These shoe bots can complete the purchase of your desired item faster than a human can. Due to that, b0t users can complete their purchases way before genuine buyers and succeed in snatching their wanted products from their desired online stores in no time, especially if they can access sneaker bots free from various sources.
As the purchase is complete through a sneaker bot, it is totally upon the buyer to use that product or item for himself or to resell it at a higher price to a diverse client base.
In the start, sneaker bots were developed to help their operators purchase a significant quantity of limited-edition items from online selling platforms. Still, today, sneaker bots are mainly used to make purchases in geographically banned regions to gain more profits from online selling platforms.
How do sneaker bots work?
The operation of a sneaker bot is not complex, and it is effortless and convenient to use a sneaker bot. For the operation of a sneaker bot, bot users need to put certain information necessary for any purchase, such as personal information, credit card details, and shipping address.
Once the information is uploaded in the bot, users should specify which item they want to buy from their online selling platform, and that can be done by uploading a keyword, specific product list, and URLs.
As the necessary information regarding a purchase is uploaded in the sneaker bot, the check-out process is automatic and the bot completes all the purchases faster than any human can.
Sneaker Bot Architecture
To operate a sneaker bot, there are several required components, such as:
The bot is software used for performing bulk online purchases.
Proxy Server is a tool to hide your IP address and help the bot access the online content on the same website multiple times.
Proxy clients that provide IP addresses provide multiple unique IP addresses to make the bot seem like numerous users on the same website perform the same action for the purchase.
A proxy helps the bot mask its IP address, or else a website can analyze that all requests come from the same source.
Are sneaker bots legal?
Technically speaking, sneaker bots are legal as no laws determine their use of buying items. However, in certain conditions, sneaker bots can be illegal like if the bots are used in any fraudulent activity or online scams like stolen information of debit/credit cards.
Moreover, many developers market and sell their bots on their websites and online selling platforms, publicly listing their features and prices.
However, most online retail stores like Adidas and Nike are familiar with sneaker bots and have updated their online protection policies regarding using them. These updates are mostly the change in coding designed to judge between AI and human users.
Do sneaker bots impact customers or businesses?
There are various ways in which sneaker bots can have a significant impact on online consumers and businesses. This is the primary reason why there is a high sneaker bots price in many regions because they simplify and expedite the purchase process.
Damaged Brand Reputation
Sneaker bots damage an online business on a significant scale because the bots make it look like there is no more stock to buy for real customers and leave a negative impact on the users of any online brand.
Sneaker bots prevent users from purchasing items in high demand, so most customers think that their desired online brand cannot meet their buying requirements and move to other similar stores for their shopping needs.
Loss of Revenue
Understandably, bots bundled all the available stock in any online store, and that scenario left the real customers empty-handed. This results in the loss of revenue as the online selling platform loses its real customers that other offered products can’t bring back.
Loss of Brand Loyalty
Even though online stores profit by selling limited-edition products to bot users, they still lose the consumers’ loyalty as genuine consumers can return to their usual shopping brands and buy other products online. A bot user usually doesn’t recommend an online store to friends or family, so brand owners must spend more energy and resources to get real customers.
Increased Infrastructure Cost
As sneaker bot users start to purchase items from an online store, the store experiences excessive online traffic, which costs them more bandwidth and infrastructure costs. Bots cause massive disruptions in online traffic, around 100 times more than human users.
Distorted Web Metric
Fake traffic of sneaker bots makes it difficult for websites to understand the consumer behavior of real consumers. In addition, bots mislead companies about the demand for their products, leading to poor production and inventory management decisions.
Can businesses detect sneaker bots?
In today’s world, bot makers know all the back doors in corporate systems to avoid detection and how to bypass all the security protocols installed by the websites. Various technologies are used to bypass the security of a retail selling website,
- Fake Browser Fingerprints
- Simulated Human Behavior
- Residential IP Address
- CAPTCHA Bypass
- Low Request Volumes per IP Address
Fake Browser Fingerprints
Most sneaker bots create custom HTTP fingerprints that appear and act like genuine users. For example, they use specific browser features to create fake users and delete certain navigation paths, web driver paths, and more.
Simulated Human Behavior
For simulating actual human behavior, a sneaker bot imitates the behavior of a genuine user. Instead of completing a purchase at the fastest speed, a sneaker bot operates slower, simulating human activity but still buying the goods faster than an actual human.
Residential IP Address
Various bots use data center proxies, but advanced bots rely on residential proxies because they are less abused and have better reputations, making them harder to detect as a sneaker bot. Many people also use sneaker bots alongside a VPN to cloak their IP addresses. For example, users in the United States or other regions can use VPNs to make it seem like they are using sneaker bots in Canada.
CAPTCHA Bypass
A sneaker bot can easily bypass all the CAPTCHA phrases, and for that, they use various methods to bypass it,
- Use of human assistance- many offshore people can solve a CAPTCHA phrase at a meager cost.
- Using image classification algorithms to solve all the image-based CAPTCHA puzzles.
- Using generative adversarial networks (GAN) to create solutions for CAPTCHA puzzles.
Low Request Volume Per IP Address
As a result of using residential IP addresses, the number of requests on a specific IP is reduced. Unlike bots that operate through credential stuffing attacks, sneaker bots do not need to generate multiple requests.
Sneaker bots can be parallelized with different browser instances that use multiple residential proxies. By this method, each IP the bot uses has an average number of requests.
How can businesses prevent sneaker bots?
Sneaker bots’ creators continuously work to mimic human behavior as closely as possible to avoid detection of the bots by the websites. However, companies are also working on their security protocols to prevent sneaker bots from purchasing online and ensuring fairness for all. And tries to avoid bots of sneakers in various strategic ways.
Filter Bots with Web Traffic Management
One of the sneaker bot filtering tools is virtual waiting rooms. These waiting rooms can examine how the visitors interact with the website and their browser type and version. They might ask to solve CAPTCHA that’s easy for humans but designed to be challenging for bots.
This arrangement usually spots the sneaker bots and evens the odds by queuing all users, humans, and bots, neutralizing the speed advantage of bots.
Block known sneaker bot traffic
Most bots use outdated browser versions, and businesses can counter sneaker bots by implementing various CAPTCHA puzzles to identify browsers that have not been updated for a long time.
In addition to that most unwanted web traffic originates from public data center proxies, requiring CAPTCHAs for visitors with data center IP addresses before entering the waiting room. This method significantly reduces low to medium-sophistication bots.
Conduct after-sale audits
Another strategy for preventing bots from using online selling websites is to increase human oversight of the process. IT teams can conduct web traffic audits to detect suspicious web traffic and help a business learn whether any purchases made on the website were done by the same IP address, indicating the sneaker bot’s activity.
As the bots are detected companies can cancel the purchases made by those bots and restock the products on the website once again.
Use Bot Mitigation Software
Using bot mitigation software is the most effective way to prevent sneaker bots. The software helps keep bot attacks in check and provides oversights on how bots operate. Moreover, the software also deals with the prevention of other types of attacks and supports lasting customer satisfaction.
With the help of bot mitigation software, companies ensure that genuine users can get a fair chance of buying their desired products, creating a robust client base.
Conclusion
In the article above, we have discussed what is a sneaker bot. How does it work, and how can businesses prevent it? All the companies have various strategies to prevent sneaker bots.
Yet, developers always up their game to make these bots undetectable by adopting new technologies and trends to counteract the security protocols at company websites. With all those challenges, companies should also find innovative approaches to stay ahead of all those sneaker bots’ users.
