
German sneaker shop tricks bots by selling images of sneakers - martin_a
https://www.golem.de/news/ddos-onlineshop-trickst-kaufbots-mit-teuren-produktbildern-aus-1908-142999.html
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martin_a
Translated it for you via DeepL:

The online shop of a small shoe shop in Frankfurt records almost 700,000 hits
when a rare sneaker is on offer. Bots buy them in bulk and later sell them at
even higher prices. Recently, however, they only buy pictures of the shoes - a
trick that seems to work.

The co-founder of the skater shop Bonkers Martin Schreiber has developed a
strategy to trick bots and automatic scripts when buying online. Instead of
coveted Nike shoes, he simply put their product images online for 10 euros
each - including a matching description. Bots nevertheless ordered them a
thousand times automatically.

The reason: Online shoppers buy limited edition shoes like the Nike SB x Parra
within milliseconds and later sell them to collectors for a multiple. This not
only generates frustration among customers, but also up to 700,000 online
accesses to the shop, which look like a DDoS attack. Schreiber told the German
skatemagazine Soloskatemag in an interview: "So we said that we would now also
show our middle finger and sell digital pictures of our shoes.

## 7.000 Euro for 100 pictures

The trick seems to have worked, because several buyers have often bought
pictures of the products - 70 Euros for seven pictures each. Apparently one of
them was a person who placed 100 orders and spent 7,000 euros. The complaints
and cancellation requests via Paypal were not long in coming. However, Paypal
did not refund the price because the product description was not misleading.
Finally, the product title had clearly indicated that these were pictures of
shoes and not shoes themselves. "But of course such a bot does not recognise
this," says Schreiber. He had refunded the money to some reasonable people in
the form of a voucher.

Schreiber had previously informed Nike of the action and obtained the
manufacturer's consent. It had also been announced well in advance in their
own blog and in social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook. He wants
more shops to follow this example in order to be a deterrent for bot users.
However, it is not difficult to program them with some rules and restrictions
to avoid such traps.

~~~
mytailorisrich
If they sell physical pictures of the shoes online I suspect that they have to
accept cancellations and returns and refund in cash (this is how it works in
the UK but I believe this is EU law so should be the same in Germany).

To play devil's advocate: In economics terms it means that this shop sells
these shoes too cheaply (i.e. for much less than what people will pay for
them) so that there is an opportunity to make money by "correcting" this. This
is called price arbitrage.

~~~
nabla9
Only if the consumer laws apply.

If somebody buys shoes in bulk to sell them again and does business, the
return policy may not apply. Especially if you mention "not for resellers" in
the page.

~~~
mytailorisrich
> _Only if the consumer laws apply._

Ah yes, good point.

Still, I think these bots should be taken as a hint that prices are too low so
instead of tricking them I would just increase prices.

