Nike not entirely unselfishly plans to crack down on resellers
Nike Re-seller Crackdown
If you're a sneakerhead or just want to buy some new sneakers from Nike, you've heard of and used Nike's SNKRS app. Through this app you take part in raffles for the right to buy shoes and with a little luck get hold of a pair of the new limited collector's items. Lately, the complaints have been getting louder about the botters and resellers who use automated scripts and accounts to become as many accounts as possible in the lottery pot to in turn grab as many shoes as possible.
[@nicekicks on twitter]
This is exactly the problem Nike is aware of and an adjustment of the terms and conditions should now deter resellers and botters. Previous versions of Nike's terms also already prohibited items from being purchased for resale. However, after the adjustment, the company is also allowed to cancel orders that are suspected to have been placed by bots. It can also refuse refunds, charge restocking fees and suspend users' accounts if it has reason to believe they are resellers. There will likely be a rejection of orders if an account has an excessive number of returns or has exceeded a limit on product purchases. To enforce the changes to the terms and conditions, Nike will probably also use an automated tool to check all placed orders and evaluate whether an order was placed automatically or by a real user. How exactly this is done we do not know. But we are sure that this will be similar to what sneakerstores did with Shopify and Botprotection.
[https://hypebeast.com/2021/4/nike-refurbished-circularity-modelitiative-expands-with-new-nike-refurbished-circularity-program-info]
It's probably not just about Nike wanting real sneakerheads to get the sneakers, but also about Nike not having to hold the sheer inventory of returns from resellers in a market that is a bit unpredictable right now. Because not least because of the huge cost of inventory the Nike's shares recently by 10%.
