Security News > 2021 > March > Retailers battle bots as new Yeezy shoes debut in March
Recently, the new Adidas Yeezy Boost 700 "Sun" shoes from Kanye West made their debut, raising concerns that bots were likely on a shopping spree as they traditionally are during weeks when a hot new brand is launched.
"Monitoring bots were indeed active both days while the checkout bots were active when the inventory was available to purchase. Using our advanced detection techniques, PerimeterX was able to block most of these sneaker bots at the beginning of the launch and prevent scalpers from buying the shoe in question," DeCarlis said.
The U.S. Congress passed the BOTS Act of 2016 to address purchasing and reselling concert or event tickets with bots, but coverage has not been extended to shoes or other limited edition flash sales, DeCarlis said.
"Automated shopping bots that buy up e-commerce products online are called denial of inventory and scalping bots. In denial of inventory attacks, bad actors use malicious hoarder bots to add an item thousands of times to a shopping cart over the course of a few days until the item's inventory is depleted," DeCarlis explained.
With Kanye West's Yeezy line unveiling a new slate of sneakers coming weekly in March, buyers have been eager to battle bots that will scoop up most of the inventory and then resell the shoes for double, and sometimes triple the price.
Many retailers now use Google captcha services to check if it is actually a human buying the sneakers, but bots are increasingly finding ways around this, Kent said, adding that sites like Kodai offer bot creation tools for about $175. The platform allows users to pick the store, pick the item, load in fake Gmail accounts and simply wait to click the captcha boxes.