The Yeezy Day was a nightmare as bots ‘ate’ the Adidas sneakers

Mr. West’s label has gone south — few average consumers were able to buy Yeezys, while bot users walked away with thousands of pairs.

August 2, otherwise known as Yeezy Day — an honorary holiday for hypebeasts — delivered a marathon of shoe drops through Yeezy Supply, Adidas’ website, and Adidas’ Confirmed app. Starting at 7 a.m. ET, new Yeezy releases and restocks were made available by the hour, giving consumers more chances to buy the hard-to-get models. The aftermath of the event, however, has left such consumers empty-handed — and pointing the blame towards bots, resellers, and poor management by Adidas.

Overwhelming demand caused Adidas’ Confirmed app to crash even before drops began, say multiple Twitter users. A similar issue produced an error page on Yeezy Supply, which cited a “security issue” preventing users from accessing its releases. “Yeezy Day was over before it even started,” wrote one disgruntled Twitter user, while another complained Adidas’ Confirmed app was worse than Nike’s well-hated SNKRS app.

Ironically, the “security issues” blocking off sites like Yeezy Supply and overwhelming Adidas are often used to prevent consumers from using bots — but instead, the error message impeded real people from buying any sort of Yeezys. Online, people are speculating that more bots bought shoes than actual consumers, while tweets from bot-users are practically proving that point.

Adidas needs to realize that the future of the sneaker industry isn’t just about giving consumers more opportunities to buy hot silhouettes: Such drops are worthless if resellers and bots get to them first. Whether through multiple checkout questions or ‘I’m not a robot” boxes, big name brands need to figure out a way to ensure sneakers go to real consumers — otherwise, they’ll end up only serving computerized customers, and actual enthusiasts will be forced to pay up or go sneakerless.

From: inputmag