{"id":6511,"date":"2023-10-18T14:47:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T14:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/royadata.io\/blog\/?p=6511"},"modified":"2023-10-18T14:47:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T14:47:43","slug":"proxies-for-nike-and-supreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/royadata.io\/blog\/proxies-for-nike-and-supreme\/","title":{"rendered":"How People Use Proxies to Buy Nike and Supreme Shoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Proxies\n<\/picture>\n

If you\u2019re not big on shoe culture, you might wonder what I\u2019m even talking about here. If you are into the scene, you\u2019ll know what I mean when I say it\u2019s frustrating to get your hands on even a single pair for anything near actual retail price.<\/p>\n

Like any rare good, shoes from Nike and Supreme can bring a hefty price for those willing to buy them and resell them<\/strong>. Nike is, in fact, perhaps one of the best targets for a dedicated reseller. They\u2019re a hugely popular brand, so the quality and consistency of their product are unmatched. They have a very long history, so when they say they aren\u2019t going to release a particular shoe again, people can trust that to be true. They also have the resources to make unique limited-run shoes and release them to commemorate certain events.<\/p>\n

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Both Nike and Supreme has done this time and again, and it has proven to be a very lucrative<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The business model for those who have the time, resources, and aggressive natures necessary to procure those shoes. They make connections with shoe collectors around the world, who will pay often ten or more times the value of the shoe just to obtain it. Nike sells shoes to retailers, retailers sell them to middlemen, middlemen sell them to foreign dealers, and those dealers sell them to collectors or other, more high-end dealers, and so on up the chain. The price increases every step of the way.<\/p>\n

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The question is, how do these middlemen obtain these shoes so quickly?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Time and again, if you watch, you can see products sell out in seconds. Sometimes products will be sold out before the deal o\ufb03cially goes live on a website. It will go from a release countdown to a sold-out banner immediately. I\u2019ve seen this before for a whole range of products, from shoes to video games. It\u2019s not unusual, but it is tricky to pull off, one of the reason is lots of those resellers use the Nike bots<\/a> and Supreme bot<\/a>, manul is really hard to win the releasing.<\/p>\n

Most of us don\u2019t know how to game the system to get hold of these items. We try to be among the first to F5 a website and refresh it the instant a deal goes life, and we hope the website doesn\u2019t crash. We become pros at plugging in our payment information, or we rely on lurking on sites that already have that information saved. Amazon is notorious for this with some of its better black Friday and lightning deals.<\/p>\n

All of this is a subversion of what Nike expects the retail process to look like. They create a limited run of a shoe \u2013 something like 2,000 individual units \u2013 and they release them to select stores across the nation. The idea is to build hype about the shoe and push them out to specific retailers, where fans will camp out overnight just to get a chance at them.<\/p>\n

\"Wall\n<\/picture>\n

Nike has taken a very interesting stance on this whole thing, as well. On one hand, they don\u2019t comment on it directly. In a Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/strong> article, they simply say that \u201cIt\u2019s not underground anymore when you talk about it.\u201d It makes sense; they don\u2019t want to popularize the method, leading to even less availability of the shoes, and more frustrated fans having to buy them from third parties for insane markups.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Nike employees have been known to monitor and keep tabs on these sites and communities, those who harvest and sell these shoes at a markup, to use the data they acquire. The idea is, I guess, to treat these communities as focus groups. They can see when a larger or smaller product run has an e\ufb00ect on the value and popularity of a shoe. They can monitor the reactions to di\ufb00erent models, and essentially harvest a lot of free data they can use to improve future product ideas.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Nike can and will travel to stores in person to do spot checks on receipts to make sure stores are selling shoes normally, and not in bulk orders to a single person. The rumor is they will cancel a store account and pull Nikes from stores that do this, though it\u2019s unclear whether that has ever happened. Supreme has been known to do something similar.<\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s the scenario. The question is, how do they do it? How do these people, these middlemen, pull off buying so many pairs of limited-run shoes for their resale markets? When these shoes can be released all around the world, in extremely limited quantities, it doesn\u2019t make sense for a small two-man operation or what have you to be traveling internationally for a few hundred bucks in profit.<\/p>\n

The answer is, as it usually is these days, a matter of the Internet.<\/p>\n\n

<\/span>Sniping Products Online<\/span><\/h2>\n

When you boil everything down, there are only a few ways to buy a pair of rare shoes or any product for that matter.<\/p>\n

At first, you have one division; you can buy in person or you can buy online. Buying in person is obviously the most limited. You \u2013 or your representative \u2013 needs to be there in person the moment the shoes go on sale, ideally at the front of the pack, with the cash and the incentive to buy as many copies of the shoes as they can carry.<\/p>\n

They have to be willing and able to potentially be able to fend o\ufb00 a crowd of irate customers waiting in line behind them. They have to be able to convince the store to sell them as many as possible. It\u2019s all a huge potential hassle, particularly when you start dealing with agents around the world.<\/p>\n

\"Sniping\n<\/picture>\n

Related: Guide to Copping limited shoes with Bots and Proxies.<\/a><\/p>\n

Online is much easier, and yet also potentially much more complicated. You need to be able to buy the shoes online, for one thing. Nike doesn\u2019t always o\ufb00er their limited run shoes online, and they often have directives telling retailers not to list the rare models online at all. It\u2019s meant to drive foot tra\ufb03c to the store, not to get a quick run online and let the hype die.<\/p>\n

Online has a number of issues<\/strong>. For one thing, you have to consider the release date<\/a>. If a shoe sale goes live at midnight, is that midnight pacific, midnight eastern, midnight GMT? Is a retailer going to make an error and let the shoes go live 5\/10\/20\/60 minutes early?<\/p>\n

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Timing is crucial<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You also have to consider the site architecture. If you\u2019re buying from a big site or retailer, like Nike.com or Amazon.com, chances are their site can handle a massive deluge of traffic without issue. It might hiccup in the payment processing phase, though, so you need to watch out. For smaller retailers, small stores listing shoes online, the site can easily be taken down by a flood of people. This is e\ufb00ectively like a hype-driven DDoS<\/a><\/strong>; there\u2019s nothing you can do to stop it short of somehow getting in before the pack.<\/p>\n

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You need to consider the ethics of the store selling the product<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A site like Amazon or Nike isn\u2019t going to break street date \u2013 that is, the date and time the product is supposed to be available for sale \u2013 but a smaller storefront might not care, or might have an IT person in charge of the website that doesn\u2019t care. There\u2019s no sense in logging on at the launch date for a storefront that sold out two days prior.<\/p>\n

You need a method of payment that won\u2019t be declined, but that\u2019s generally not a problem for major credit cards or Paypal. A business account can be expected to be making decisions around the world, and won\u2019t be shut down because of it.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s also the limits on geographic availability<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If a particular rare shoe is, for example, released in both L.A. and New York City, chances are the release date is going to be rolling to account for the time di\ufb00erences. You need to be on point getting into each site right when it becomes available.<\/p>\n

Geography<\/strong> can also play a factor in web releases in that sometimes sites will have restrictions on the addresses to which they will ship or the IP addresses to which they will sell. If you\u2019re trying to buy a rare shoe from a storefront in Tokyo, an IP address from Iowa probably isn\u2019t going to do it.<\/p>\n\n

<\/span>The Role of Proxies Play<\/span><\/h2>\n

Proxy web servers are the perfect tool to solve almost all of these problems. Using one, you can make it look like your tra\ufb03c is coming from an area more local to the storefront, so you get more priority in placement and you have fewer jumps between \u201cyou\u201d and the storefront server. In reality, of course, you have more, because you\u2019re going through the proxy server<\/a>, but it shouldn\u2019t slow you down if you get a good local proxy.<\/p>\n

\"The\n<\/picture>\n

A proxy server will be able to show as coming from the right time zone and geographic location in order to buy a rare, limited product. And, in fact, that\u2019s what a lot of these web resellers are using. They buy the use of high-quality proxy server connections for their purchasing and buy up as many shoes as they can. Sometimes, if there\u2019s a limited quantity per person or per transaction, they will use as many as a dozen different proxies simultaneously to push through a bunch of di\ufb00erent transactions to obtain more units of the product.<\/p>\n

So, in order to get a leg up on the competition \u2013 who might be other resellers or just interested buyers \u2013 you need to use a proxy connection<\/strong>. Typically, you\u2019ll need to use numerous proxies, and test them beforehand. You never know if one particular proxy is going to be blocked from a site due to past abuse, or if it just won\u2019t accept payments properly.<\/p>\n

Ideally, you will test any proxy connection you intend to use at least a day before the actual release of the product you\u2019re looking to get. You\u2019re looking for a proxy that connects quickly, that doesn\u2019t have errors when buying a product, and that is secure enough that you trust it with whatever payment option you use. It\u2019s typically a good idea, even when you\u2019re using private proxies<\/a>, to use temporary payment information like prepaid cards or a limited PayPal account.<\/p>\n

There are two reasons to make a test purchase; first to test to make sure you can purchase successfully, and second to have your information in place on the site to minimize the amount of time it takes to make a purchase later when milliseconds can mean the di\ufb00erence between 2 units and 20<\/strong>. So, what does a proxy server need to fit your criteria?<\/p>\n\n

<\/span>Picking the Perfect Proxy<\/span><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve come up with a bit of a list of what you need in a good proxy if you\u2019re going to be attempting this kind of transaction. I\u2019m not about to make moral judgments upon it; as long as it\u2019s legal, do what you will. Here\u2019s what you should look for in a proxy server.<\/p>\n

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The editors recommends<\/strong><\/p>\n