Sneakers are among the most sought-after collectible items. They’re also a prime target for scalpers.
Grand View Research values the global sneaker industry at $86 billion and predicts it will reach $128 billion by 2030. The resale market is also going strong, with Cowen Research estimating it will grow to $30 billion by the end of the decade.
Such popularity makes sneakers an easy target for bots, or software applications that can replace humans in performing certain tasks. Sneaker bots can accelerate the checkout process, wait in a virtual line or even fill out billing information.
Sneaker bots took off in 2012, when Nike released its Air Jordan Doernbecher 9 shoes on Twitter. Nike required users to direct message the company for a chance to reserve the shoe. What followed was the creation of bots that messaged Nike when they found keywords like “RSVP now,” and “Doernbecher.” The bots were able to react faster than humans, beating out customers for a chance at the shoes.
Sneaker bots now represent big business for the people behind them
“In 2022, I made a gross profit of $131,000,” said “Botter Boy Nova,” a sneaker bot developer and YouTube creator who goes by that alias due to security concerns.
Jesper Essendrop, CEO of Queue-it, agrees. His company specializes in controlling internet traffic with virtual waiting rooms.
Essendrop said that when looking at “sales of high-profile goods like sneakers,” 40% to 95% “of all traffic coming into web shops is from bots.”
In 2021, cybersecurity software company Imperva found that nearly 23% of retail site traffic came from bots with malicious intent. And CHEQ, another software vendor in the space, found that 1 in 4 Black Friday shoppers in 2022 were fake.
There are currently no laws against using bots to buy sneakers or other retail goods. But legislation, such as a bill called the Stopping Grinch Bots Act, authored by Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., has been introduced.
“Bots are like a thorn in my side,” said Richie Roxas, who collects New Balance sneakers. “I’m now competing with them all the time for special releases and collabs.”
Top sneaker brands like Nike, Adidas and New Balance are under constant attack from bots. Nike says its SNKRS App receives an average of 12 billion bot calls, or entries trying to game the system, a month.
On the SNKRS App, a customer can submit an entry to a drawing by selecting a shoe and a size. Nike then selects participants at random to buy the shoe. A lot of these customers are actually bots.
According to Nike, bots can make up to 10% to 50% of entries depending on demand. For example, in the 2023 release of the Travis Scott x Air Jordan 1 Low OG “Olive,” nearly half of the entries were bots. But Nike told CNBC it has up to a 98% success rate combating bots in the high-demand launches.
Nova and other bot creators have been less successful in recent years, but they still find loopholes and ways to bypass anti-bot measures like CAPTCHA systems. One workaround is called jigging, which is when a creator slightly changes an address, name or other identifying information.
“People are successfully able to still bot Nike SNKRS,” said Nova. “However, the way in which you have to go about it, you have to really understand how the Nike filter works.”
Nike did not comment on whether customers are still able to successfully use bots on the SNKRS app.
Watch the video to learn more about sneaker bots and how companies like Nike are handling them.
This photo illustration created Jan. 7, 2025, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo.
Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty Images
Meta is seeking to stop the promotion of a new memoir by a former staffer that paints the social media company in an unflattering light, including allegations of sexual harassment by the company’s policy chief.
An emergency arbitrator ruled Thursday that Sarah Wynn-Williams is prohibited from promoting “Careless People,” her book that was released Tuesday by Flatiron Books, an imprint of publisher Macmillan Books.
The memoir chronicles Wynn-Williams’ tenure at Facebook from 2011 through 2017. During that time, she became a high-level employee who interacted with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-COO Sheryl Sandberg and Joel Kaplan, the company’s current policy chief. In the book, Wynn-Williams alleges that Kaplan made a number of inappropriate comments to her, which she then reported to the company as sexual harassment.
“This is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” a Meta spokesperson previously said about both her book and complaint.
Wynn-Williams also details in her book the company’s various attempts to enter the Chinese market, including building tools that would censor content to appease the Chinese Communist Party. Wynn-Williams addressed some of these China-specific claims in a whistleblower complaint that she filed in April with the Securities and Exchange Commission, NBC News reported.
The emergency arbitrator ruled in favor of Meta after watching a podcast appearance of Wynn-Williams in which she discussed her memoir and her allegations that Meta was attempting to “shut this book down.”
“The Emergency Arbitrator finds that, after reviewing the briefs and hearing oral argument, (Meta) has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams, and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief,” the filing said.
Additionally, the arbitrator ruled that so much as Wynn-Williams can control, she is prohibited from further publishing or distributing the book and from further disparaging Meta and its officers or repeating previous disparaging remarks. The arbitrator also ruled that Wynn-Williams is to retract her previous disparaging remarks.
The company has previously dismissed Wynn-Williams’ claims as “out-of-date” and said that she was fired for “poor performance and toxic behavior.”
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone shared the emergency arbitrator’s ruling in a post on Threads, saying that it “affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”
“This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry’s standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years,” Stone said.
Meta alleged that Wynn-Williams violated the non-disparagement terms of her September 2017 severance agreement, resulting in the company filing an emergency motion on Friday. The emergency arbitrator then conducted a telephone hearing involving legal representatives of Meta and Macmillan Books, but not Wynn-Williams who did not appear though she was given notice, the filing said.
Wynn-Williams, Flatiron Books and Macmillan Books did not respond to requests for comment.
Lip-Bu Tan appointed chief executive officer of Intel Corporation
Courtesy: Intel
Intel said on Wednesday that it had appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO, as the chipmaker attempts to recover from a tumultuous four-year run under Pat Gelsinger.
Tan was previously CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software used by all the major chip designers, including Intel. He was an Intel board member but departed last year, citing other commitments.
Tan replaces interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and MJ Holthaus, who took over in December when former Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger was ousted. Tan is also rejoining Intel’s board.
The appointment closes a chaotic chapter in Intel’s history, as investors pressured the semiconductor company to cut costs and spin off businesses due to declining sales and an inability to crack the booming artificial intelligence market.
Intel shares rose over 12% in extended trading on Wednesday.
Tan becomes the fourth permanent CEO at Intel in seven years. Following Brian Krzanich’s resignation in 2018, after the revelations of an inappropriate relationship with an employee, Bob Swan took the helm in Jan. 2019. He departed two years later after Intel suffered numerous blows from competitors and chip delays. Swan was succeeded by Gelsinger in 2021.
Gelsinger took over with a bold plan to transform Intel’s business to manufacture chips for other companies in addition to its own, becoming a foundry. But Intel’s overall products revenue continued to decline, and investors fretted over the significant capital expenditures needed for such massive chip production, including constructing a $20 billion dollar factory complex in Ohio.
Last fall, after a disappointing earnings report, Intel appeared to be for sale, and reportedly drew interest from rival companies including Qualcomm. Analysts assessed the possibility of Intel spinning off its foundry division or selling its products division — including server and PC chips — to a rival.
In AI, Intel has gotten trounced by Nvidia, whose graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the chip of choice for developers over the past few years.
In January, Intel issued a weak forecast even as it beat on earnings and revenue. The company pointed to seasonality, economic conditions and competition, and said clients are digesting inventory. The prospect of tariffs was adding to the uncertainty, Zinsner said.
Intel said that Zinsner will return to his previous role of CFO. Holthaus will remain in charge of Intel Products.
Intel was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in November and was replaced by Nvidia, reflecting the dramatic change of fortune in the semiconductor industry. Intel shares lost 60% of their value last year, while Nvidia’s stock price soared 171%. At Wednesday’s close, Intel’s market cap was $89.5 billion, less than one-thirtieth of Nvidia’s valuation.
Roomba vacuums by iRobot are displayed at Best Buy store on January 19, 2024 in San Rafael, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Shares of iRobot plunged more than 30% on Wednesday after it said there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in business.
The Roomba maker’s financial outlook has darkened since Amazon abandoned its planned $1.7 billion acquisition of the company in January 2024, citing regulatory scrutiny. Since then, iRobot has struggled to generate cash and pay off debts.
Massachusetts-based iRobot has been restructuring since the Amazon deal plunged into uncertainty. The company has laid off 51% of its workforce since the end of 2023, and iRobot has looked to reignite revenue growth by overhauling its product lineup. The company on Tuesday launched eight new Roombas in the hopes of “better positioning iRobot as the leader in the category that we created,” CEO Gary Cohen said in a statement.
“There can be no assurance that the new product launches will be successful,” iRobot said in its Wednesday earnings statement, citing limited consumer demand, tariff uncertainty and heightened competition.
“Given these uncertainties and the implication they may have on the company’s financials, there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months,” iRobot said in its earnings report.
The company’s fourth-quarter revenue sagged 44% year over year to $172 million, missing estimates of $180.8 million, according to FactSet. The Roomba maker posted a net loss of $77.1 million, or $2.52 per share. Excluding a one-time “manufacturing transition charge,” iRobot had a loss of $2.06 a share, exceeding the $1.73 per share projected by analysts surveyed by FactSet.
In July 2023, iRobot took a $200 million loan from the Carlyle Group to fund the company’s operations as a stopgap until the Amazon deal closed. The company amended the loan for a temporary waiver on certain financial obligations, which requires iRobot to pay a fee of $3.6 million.
As part of Wednesday’s report, iRobot said its board has initiated a strategic review of the business and is considering alternatives that could include refinancing its debt and exploring a potential sale. The board hasn’t set a deadline for when its review will conclude, the company said.
The proposed merger, which was announced in late 2022, would have allowed iRobot to scale and better compete with its rivals, Jassy said. Several of the fastest-growing robotic vacuum businesses are based in China, such as Anker, Ecovacs and Roborock, all of which have eaten into iRobot’s share of the market.
“We abdicate the acquisition, iRobot lays off a third of its staff, the stock price completely tanks, and now, there’s a real question of whether they’re going to be a going concern,” Jassy told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in an interview last April.