One of the major issues when it comes to any major sneaker release, particularly with Nike and the high demand for its countless Jordan Brand silhouettes, is the seemingly constant hurdle of preventing bots from essentially taking over a release.
So for something like an Air Jordan 5 Retro shoe that would attract the eyeballs from people of all ages, and sell out within minutes regardless of circumstances, the process is made significantly more difficult with the presence of bots scooping up the sneakers in large batches.
Nike has been well aware of this problem for ages now and made efforts to improve the process—especially for its biggest releases, usually found on SNKRS—in the name of diverting said bots.
But the good news is that Nike is making further, more aggressive efforts to do just that.
According to Nike’s announcement, they will be introducing “SNKRS Link,” which will basically serve as a partnership with creative influencers in the industry as a way of bypassing the traditional process of attempting to procure the shoes.
So, for its most coveted releases, “SNKRS Link” will come in the form of either an actual link or a QR code that could pop up through a wide variety of avenues that will bring the customer to the “SNKRS Link launch experience” within the SNKRS app itself, which would then provide additional instructions on the steps needed to be taken in order buy the shoes.
The gist of the new process is not unlike what the legendary sneaker brand tested out for the Nike SB Air Jordan 4 drop back in March, a shoe that was creatively released by way of a unique link through professional skateboarder Eric Koston’s Instagram story.
It’s not entirely clear how effective “SNKRS Link” will be, but adding further steps, redirects, and spontaneous prompts to the process certainly sounds like it would assist in getting the shoes in more hands of actual customers seeking the product rather than bots buying up in bulk, usually for the sole purpose of reselling at a premium.
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