The captcha idea got me thinking, wouldn't it be simpler to add captcha upon check out instead? Or that won't work at all? idk, just thinking out loud.
GLWB! Will be missing this one due to financial reasons.
The point is to have everyone go through a manual entry barrier that prevents automating add to cart > info entry > checkout, in an instant. Botting would still get people to the end faster than human input, so all they have to do is enter the captcha themselves at the end when prompted.
Appreciate the writeup. I will for sure try to incorporate some of that come GB time. I was thinking password protected site, and password being published on my IG maybe! We will see!
I don't think that would do much though. Shopify websites like yours are easily botted and people already know the product page URL, so once they have the password into the website, they could just automate everything else from there since the bot would already know exactly where to go.
Here's an example generated captcha link that you might post on IG or here on GH, essentially you would have multiple of these links for each Pandora variation, the last string of random characters in the link is an example of what I mean to make the URL more obscure:
So the process would be:
1) People in waiting room...
1) GB starts. You post the multiple generated captcha URL links on your IG or GH
2) People have to carefully read each URL for the Pandora variation they want
3) People manually type the URL they chose to get to the product page
Shopify has a captcha feature you can enable during checkout to add another barrier if you want, and you change the product URL handle easily so it should be a fairly simple process on your end as well.
Of course, not to forget that the product should be hidden on your website and only accessible via those given URL links. I think this is pretty straightforward and would effectively eliminate those sneaker bot script kiddies.
This could all just be done for the first 5-10 minutes or so for serious buyers, and then just have the product visible on the website after that if there are any left.
I hope this doesn't seem all too complex (which it isn't). I'm really just tired of that FCFS 'refresh until the product goes in stock' format, and want something done different for once so its fair for everyone. If there is a better way or a fault in this idea feel free to chime in.
