According to Bloomberg News, as a shortfall of goods and sneakers continue to exist, it is being noticed that there is an increasingly intensifying game between the resellers and the retailers.
Some many clients and individuals are selling off assets worth millions of dollars in more than a thousand transactions and all in just a matter of minutes.
The deployment of automated shopping software also known as “bot” programs that include Cybersole, Kodai, and GaneshBot has taken over the sneaker market and given rise to a bot economy and some experts believe that it may wreak havoc on several retail segments when a holiday shopping season approaches. To make matters worse, the retail segment supply chain is already disrupted due to the pandemic.
The supply chains everywhere have been dwindling due to pandemics. The use of Bot has increased and diversified into several categories during the Covid-19 pandemic as per Patrick Sullivan, the Chief Technology Officer working for security strategy at Akamai Technologies Inc. The company is one of the largest service providers of network and security services.
He also said that people will put in all efforts to “jump their line” and lay their hands on anything by seeking automation help to get anything that is of limited availability in the inventory. It can be ticketed for a concert, sneakers, tennis shoes, vaccine reservations, and now just about anything mundane.
Corporate big brands like Walmart Inc are seeking assistance from Akamai to stop the users of the bot from “gobbling up” the inventories that are available in limited proportion like Sony Corp’s PlayStation 5 console. This PlayStation 5 has been doing its rounds in the markets for over a year but still sells at $300 higher than retail StockX.
Akamai witnessed early October what the consumers in the United States might be in for by seeing the surge in bot traffic during the online shopping spree that will take place in India for Diwali. It is a week-long festival starting November 4th. For at least 14 days, malicious bot activity surged by more than 55% thereby targeting companies. The bots were in form of “web scrapers, sniper bots” that were automated, abusers of login and checkout users.
A spokesperson for Akamai stated that it is a sign of things that might crop up for shoppers in the Europe and United States as well. Between 2002 and 2009, Wiseguy Tickers, a single company made $25 million-plus in profits fueled by bots. The greater number of tickets its software program secured for any event, the higher the controlled pricing, according to Bloomberg News.
As sneaker culture took over the fashion world and migrated online, stalwarts like Adidas and Nike struggled to cope up with fulfillment issues and server crashes. Despite the efforts taken by Nike, bots have to continue volatility to prevail in the market.
Akamai’s services are unparalleled but expensive and in recent years, with the proliferation of the bots and resellers in the market, more and more brands started hiring Akamai to keep themselves protected. As of now the clients of Akamai include Nike, Adidas, Yeezy Supply, and Walmart.
According to Bloomberg News, the bot developers will use their tools of machine learning and develop effective ways of hoodwinking or lying. When there are product launches taking place globally that usually unfold across different time zones in a 24 hour cycle, the strategies of the bots might evolve faster and is likely to be different from one country to another.
A secondary market for bot software has emerged over the years. The resellers that are not able to get a license for Cybersole or Kodai, usually access these programs from other companies like Tidal market that charge a fee of $10 per day for giving the resellers access to Cybersole and Easy Rentals, where resellers get access to Kodai at the cost of $150 for a week.
The bot developers do agree that for the bot users that are planning to target retailers, it is going to be a very Merry Christmas for them.
