Very few people are aware of the rapidly developing market industry of reselling limited-edition sneakers released by famous brands like Adidas or Supreme. In recent years, this market evolved into a multi-million dollar industry and it’s forecast to continue growing. However, there is a catch that not many are aware. This market developed with the help of sneaker bots connecting through sneaker proxies to apparel selling websites during releases of limited-edition sneakers. In this informative article, Chris from BestProxyProviders, explains what are sneaker bots, proxies for sneakers and how anybody can be part of the rapidly growing reseller marketplace.
Coping sounds like a strange word, but this is the action of actually automating and buying limited-edition sneakers online through sneaker bots. Basically, when you cop, you set your sneaker bot and connect it through proxies for sneakers to shoe selling websites. And then you wait for the start of the release period.
In other words, coping means automating the buying process. And contrary to popular opinions, you don’t need a lot of technical skills to start coping online.
All you need to do is to set up a sneaker bot. Luckily, there is enough information available online in places like Reddit so you can learn how to set up a sneaker bot within minutes.
Sneaker bots (or buying bots) are not a requirement for buying sneakers online. But they became a must for anybody looking to get their hands on limited edition sneakers. This is due to the fact that these sneakers are released in low quantities. For example, Kanye West boosted in an interview that Yeezy (his shoe brand created in collaboration with Adidas) sold out all 40.000 pairs in less than 1 minute.
With such a limited supply and high demand, trying to place an order manually and expect to buy one or more pair of shoes during their release is almost impossible. This is where sneaker bots come into play.
A few sneakerheads understood that they can’t buy their desired pair of shoes during peak times on release. So, they started developing alternative ways of standing a chance and getting an edge over other buyers. And from here to developing a sneaker-buying bot it was a matter of time.
From here onward and after several developers managed to create bots for automating the buying purchase to help those passionate buyers stand a chance, a new issue arose. How can one connect his bot without issues?
Because, even if somebody buys a bot for coping, it’s likely that he won’t manage to connect it to shoe selling websites because his Internet connection’s real IP address might be blocked and geographically-restricted by apparel selling websites. This is where sneaker proxies come into play. But, before getting into what these proxies are, we need to talk a bit about private proxies.
A proxy, either a private or public one, is a server that handles a user’s request and forwards it to his desired websites. In other words, a proxy acts as a middleman for a user’s requests:
In this way, the user masks his own IP address. And at the same time, the website sees only the proxy’s IP address and location (a website doesn’t know if the request comes from a proxy or from a real user).
To put it simply, by using a proxy server, the user’s real IP address and location are kept private. And a website will see only the proxy server, being unaware of the person originating the request.
Proxy servers were developed as a security and privacy tool. However, with the development and progress of the Internet, websites started serving users with local or custom content. For example, Google (for the same search term) will display certain results for users located in California and other results for users located in Florida.
This is when marketers started recognizing that they can use proxies for research or marketing purposes. For example, a marketer located in Florida and using a proxy server located in Los Angeles will receive the same search results as anybody located in California, because Google will recognize the proxy server’s location as the place from where the user performs the search query.
In the same way, public and private proxies started to be used also by consumers and businesses looking to get fair prices and un-altered by regional pricing models. Here is when those looking to buy sneakers recognized they can use sneaker proxies to connect to shoe selling websites and cop even if they are not located in the US.
These proxies for sneakers started to be used not only for getting fair prices but to actually stand a chance to connect to sneaker selling websites. Furthermore, there is a slight difference between these proxies and other private or public ones.
Like many dedicated packages for restricted websites, where is required an account to log in, sneaker proxies are virgin private ones. Meaning their IPs have never been used before for connecting to sneaker selling websites. This means, that by buying proxies for sneakers, their users are able to connect without any issues to shoe selling websites during time-sensitive releases of limited edition items.
However, unlike other dedicated packages, private proxies for sneakers are sold in large packages, usually, the whole IP range or subnet is sold as one package. This is due to the fact that sneaker and apparel websites are some of the most restrictive websites.
When these websites detect suspicious behavior, they block a whole IP range.
For example, a student sharing his dorm room Internet connection with other students might not be able to connect and buy limited-edition pair of sneakers because somebody before him had an abusive behavior towards the shoe selling website and his connection and account were banned, together with the whole IP range. And now, anybody connecting to the shoe-selling website through the same Internet connection will be blocked.
That’s why, when somebody buys sneaker proxies, he makes sure that he will be able to connect to sneaker websites. And there’s nobody else using a single IP address from that range.
In other words, buying such a package, a sneakerhead wants guaranteed connetion and access to shoe selling websites during limited-edition release times.
While sneaker proxies are called as such, technically, they aren’t very different than other types of proxies. These are HTTP/HTTPS proxies, meaning that they are able to connect to websites and anybody using them can connect to any website in the world.
The difference between them and other, (cheaper) packages is in the name. By visiting any proxy provider, we can see they tailored their packages on offer by the name of the website where their IPs are guaranteed to work.
In other words, by buying proxies for sneakers, you don’t get a technical miracle, different than cheaper ones, but you will get working proxies that are guaranteed to connect to shoe-selling websites like Adidas or Supreme. A guarantee that SEO or social media proxies don’t have.
Anybody can start coping online. There are no technical skills required. Most sneaker bots have intuitive User Interfaces and they are no different than any automation software.
Moreover, using sneaker proxies is just as simple as copying the IP address into the designated proxy configuration of the automation bot.
There are a few YouTube tutorials that you can use for educational purposes on how to start coping sneakers online. But, it must be mentioned that, while coping sneakers with buying bots and proxies guarantee to connect you during release times, they don’t guarantee that you will be able to actually get a pair of limited-edition shoe with each release.
However, once you acquire a few pairs, you can easily resell them at 5 times their release price on websites like StockX.
If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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