Scalper bots are common among most online retailers, especially those selling limited-edition goods or goods on hot offers like electronics, sneakers, and others. Unlike the human users who have to use a manual method for purchasing these goods, these bots have an automated way. They become essential to automating the process and buying the products on offer in bulk and on the first line, and later the users sell them at a profit on eBay or similar sites.
These bots come in different types depending on the website they are targeting and the mechanism of action they use. However, by scooping the entire inventory, these bots are a great source of annoyance both to the companies and the human users. In addition, they also cause traffic on the website, which affects the user experience, as it impacts the website’s speed and performance.
Therefore, it’s imperative to consider having proper website security approaches to control them. Read through the article to understand how scalper bots work and the most common types.
What are scalper bots?
Scalper bots are specially designed softwares scalpers use to purchase products and limited-edition items or goods on offer on the first line as soon as they’re online. The softwares uses automated programs to purchase the item faster than the human users on the websites. After purchasing these goods on offers, the scalpers can sell the goods on other ecommerce sites at a profit after the offer is over. For example, scalpers can program the scalper bots on sites such as Nike and Xbox to purchase in bulk the products or services instantly after the companies release them for sale.
The scalpers design these bots to mimic human users, making it hard to control or stop their activities on the websites. These bots cause frustrations among the human users as the bulk buying at the first line leads to shortages of these goods, which they later sell at a higher price on other ecommerce sites. It’s common with the tickets, sneakers, electronics, and the playstation console.
Different Types of Scalper Bots
Scalper bots pose significant problems to different ecommerce sites due to their malicious activities. These bots may hurt the customers’ experience or brands. They usually snap up the entire inventory of products on hot offers, later selling these products at third-party sites at inflated prices. To understand how scalper bots work, the online retailer needs to understand the categories these bots come in. Below are the common scalper bots all online retailers must be aware of when looking to stop them.
1. Monitor bots
Monitor bots are the common scalper bots among most sites. These bots perform the essential functions of constantly checking the sites to identify restocks and new releases of different products. After realizing a new stock or release, they alert the group or users about the stock. Then the user uses other types of scalper bots to buy the limited-edition products or stock in bulk.
2. Sneaker bots
They are specialized softwares the scalpers use to monitor any stock releases, especially on sneakers websites. The sneaker bots are very common in leading sneaker websites such as Nike and other sites. These scalper bots constantly and regularly check the restocking and offer on the different sneakers to ensure they alert the user or owner immediately the stock becomes available.
3. Add to cart services bots
These are bots the users prefer to pay for the goods and products after purchasing them in bulk. The users manage these bots correctly and with much care as they comprise the essential part of the process. The bots enable the user to pay automatically for their slot after presenting all purchase elements for payment on the website.
Account creators
The sneaker bots operator has recently adopted these bots to help them tackle the rising cases of websites or companies selling their merchandise via lottery or raffle systems. The account creator bots create up to thousands of accounts daily by making the accounts sign-up process automatic. They use a different proxy for the registration of different address IPS and geographic locations. Creating the different geo locations and IP addresses is to help them get the products in favor of the user or bot operator.
How Scalper Bots Works
Scalpers use the scalper bots to position themselves in better positions to snap up or get first on the queue to covet all bulls of limited-edition goods. These bots have different categories of tasks they should follow to achieve the best results. Let’s look at how scalper bots work.
1. Monitoring the target websites
The first step of working is usually monitoring, spinning, or dropping checking the target websites, applications, and even the Twitter feeds. The bots check to identify any exciting offers or restocking of the company’s products. The bot uses particular identities and geographic locations to mimic the human users to constantly check for limited-edition products such as electronics, sneakers, and many others.
The bots notify the bot operator in case of any changes on the websites by sending notifications. Nevertheless, the constant monitoring and checking of the websites causes high traffic, hurting its speed and performance.
2. Add to cart
After identifying the release of the offers, the scalper bots add the desired item or product to the cart. The bots have an important specialized strategy that allows them to add the purchases in bulk without the website security approaches detecting and blocking them. The bots use proxy to get different IP addresses and geographic locations to mimic human users and have a clear reputation. Thus, the website allows them to make multiple purchases.
3. Autocomplete checkout
After selecting these products or items successfully, the bot operator will automate the scalper bots to make the payment. The scalper bots log into the guest account using all the information necessary for logging in to the account. After logging in, they complete the order by paying the amount from the different credit cards options available.
Final Thoughts
Scalper bots are a serious source of annoyance among consumers and websites of different limited-edition goods or having hot offers for products like sneakers or electronics. So, how do scalper bots work? These bots operate by monitoring the target websites to check any releases of offers, adding the products, and making payments. These boots come in different categories that websites or companies should understand and look for suitable technological mechanisms to control their harmful activities.
