Nike declares war on resellers

It is common knowledge that resellers and their bots have ruined sneakers for everyone. There was a time when anyone could put themselves on hold on SNKRS and wait for a sneaker to be released and actually hope to be able to buy it without every model selling out within five seconds because of a legion of bots pre-programmed to buy everything before everyone else. It's a situation that has degenerated so much that by now buying a coveted sneaker model on Nike's site (from collaborative ones to special editions) is impossible, practically not worth trying, it's just easier to turn to resellers and their obscenely inflated prices. But that's about to change, at least in America. Indeed, in a new clampdown on bots and resellers, the Beaverton-based brand said that starting today orders placed through software or bots could be cancelled and that it could charge restocking fees, refuse refunds, or suspend accounts of users suspected of being resellers or exceeding the spending limits set by the brand. The change from the past (technically, buying for resell purposes was already prohibited) is that now the brand will take its own measures against resellers.

Indeed, the resell has now spread far beyond sneakers and classic streetwear: Chanel has imposed limits on the number of bags you can buy to combat resellers, so has Walmart in the United States, and, to this day, bots are used to buy concert tickets or PlayStation. And although Nike gained brand equity through a culture of resellers who made its products even more coveted and desirable, the situation was reversed when reseller margins actually became higher than Nike's margins - a situation that perhaps explains why the Beaverton brand, as well as luxury brands, look at the resell market as a threat. Not to mention how the literal gatekeeping put in place by bots, which prevent real users from buying their own pair of shoes, has created distrust of the brand and, in many ways, also fueled a thriving market of counterfeiters that is articulated through Instagram and Telegram pages, as well as eBay and elsewhere.