Concert tickets, exclusive shoe drops, and sought-after GPUs are just a few of the high-stake items that constantly get bought up by bots vs actual shoppers looking to enjoy a purchase. This was sadly the same experience for the highly anticipated launch of NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs, leading gamers (crypto bros, AI developers, and more) through a plethora of emotions - albeit mostly disappointment and frustration.
Inventory vanished across multiple retailers:
Newegg: Sold out in 20 minutes
Best Buy: Sold out within the hour
Micro Center: Leaks show incredibly limited stock for U.S.
These bots exploit weaknesses in e-commerce platforms to purchase coveted items faster than any human, often buying up entire inventories and reselling the products for 2 – 3x the MSRP on auction marketplaces like eBay. Bots dominate release-day traffic. It’s not just a few rogue purchases – automated traffic often overwhelms retailer websites during these launches. But how are big box retailers supposed to compete with this onslaught? Let’s take a closer look at how these bots are sniping your sought-after purchases.
How Scalper Bots Exploit Retailers’ Weaknesses
Why are bots so successful at snagging these products? In large part, it’s because they’re designed to exploit the gaps and weak points in retail e-commerce platforms. Scalper bots operate with ruthless efficiency and precision:
Hyperspeed automation: Bots can complete the entire purchase workflow (from cart to checkout) faster than any human. They continually scan for inventory updates and execute orders within fractions of a second. The moment a Ryzen 300 AI CPU or new GPU becomes available, an automated bot can add it to cart and check out multiple units at the same time it takes a human to click “Buy”. This speed advantage virtually guarantees bots get first pick of inventory.
Bypassing bot detectors: Many retailers deploy CAPTCHAs or basic bot filters, but sophisticated scalper bots are built to work around these roadblocks. Modern “all-in-one” (AIO) retail bots integrate CAPTCHA-solving services (often powered by AI or click-farms) to solve challenges instantly. They also spoof browser attributes and human-like behavior (mouse movements, delays, etc.) to evade detection. If an e-commerce site’s defenses rely on static rules or reputation (for instance, blocking known bad IPs or outdated user-agent checks), bot creators constantly update their methods to evade them.
Hitting every entry point: Bots often target not just the public product pages but any available endpoint. This includes mobile app APIs, direct inventory APIs, or backend endpoints that might not have the same protections as the main website. If a retailer’s mobile app fetches stock status from a certain URL, scalpers will reverse-engineer that API and hammer it directly, sidestepping any front-end UI limitations. We’ve seen cases where bots exploit vulnerable APIs or use scripts to continually refresh and grab items the instant they drop. Unless every avenue is secured, bots will find the unguarded door.
The playbook is always evolving, but the core strategy is clear: move faster and smarter than the defenses. Scalper bots leverage automation, scale, and stealth to exploit any weakness. They capitalize on first-come, first-served sales by being first every time, effectively creating an artificial scarcity that wouldn’t exist in a fair, human-only sale. Ironically, even scalpers compete among themselves – popular releases turn into bot-versus-bot wars where only the most optimized scripts succeed, as seen in “cook group” forums filled with frustrated bot users complaining about missing out. For retailers, this all adds up to a major security and performance headache.
How this impacts customers - loyalty and trust
For legitimate shoppers, the fallout is pretty immediate:
Damaged brand trust: The old adage fits nicely here, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". Customers aren’t going to keep trying when it's a clear losing battle. Many retailers have seen boycotts, bad-mouthing online, and other brand-damaging outcomes thanks to their lack of bot security.
Loss of secondary sales and engagement: If Best Buy can’t ensure a crucial GPU purchase for a PC-builder or gamer – why would you shop there for other items? Many customers would rather take their business elsewhere entirely than continue to fund big box retailers that don’t look after legit human shoppers.
Ethical and legal landscape: Public sentiment against scalping has even caught the attention of regulators. In the U.S., the 2016 BOTS Act made it illegal to use bots for ticket scalping, and there are calls to extend such laws to retail goods. While legislation (and its enforcement) is still lagging for merchandise like electronics, the very existence of these discussions highlights how serious the problem has become.
In short, scalper bots create a lose-lose situation: customers are alienated and forced either to wait or pay exorbitant resale prices, while businesses suffer brand damage and miss the deeper benefits of serving real customers. The only winners are the scalpers and bot operators who walk away with quick profits. This dynamic makes it imperative for retailers to fight back and restore some fairness to high-demand product releases.
How Fastly can help against the rising tide of bots
The continued success of scalper bots highlights the shortcomings of legacy defenses like basic CAPTCHAs and bot detection. Fastly Bot Management is our award-winning, flagship bot solution that protects your website, applications, and valuable data from unwanted automated traffic. Our bot-specific features and mitigation techniques enable you to:
Automatically detect and classify bots through a variety of methods, including client fingerprinting, known bot signatures, and traffic patterns
Instantly mitigate bots through interactive or non-interactive challenges, rate limiting, blocking, and more.
Gain real-time visibility to track bot trends, identify new threats, and see what bots were blocked as well as why
And because Fastly operates at the edge of the network (within its powerful content delivery network), it can scale to handle massive traffic spikes that come with major launches. Whether you’re dropping a limited-edition GPU or opening orders for a new AI-powered laptop, Fastly’s Bot Management can absorb the surge (legit and malicious alike) without taking down your site – all while filtering out the bad actors.
The Future of hype drops
High-demand product launches will always attract swarms of eager buyers – unfortunately, in the digital era, many of those “buyers” are automated scalper bots. The impact of retail bots on recent tech launches has been dramatic: instantaneous sellouts, frustrated customers, and an explosion of resale price gouging. This is more than just an annoyance; it’s a threat to customer trust and business integrity.
If you’re a retailer struggling with bot-driven purchases and traffic - let’s talk about what modern bot defense can do for you. Fastly Bot Management offers a highly effective, low-overhead solution for bot mitigation, safeguarding your web applications, data, and brand reputation. Take control of your online environment and ensure a secure and reliable experience for your customers.
