Celebrating 10 years of collaborations with Nike SB, Concepts decided to throw it back to where everything started by re-imagining their first ever sneaker creation with the brand giant.
Dubbed the “Purple Lobster”, this bright and bold royal purple incarnation of the Dunk Low Pro pays homage to the original “Red Lobster” sneakers the two brands made in collaboration.
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Long story short: these sneakers are extremely sought after by both genuine sneaker collectors and resellers alike, with the re-sell value jumping up to at least $250 USD from the retail price of $130 USD.
With the sneaker market being super competitive in this day and age due to this reason, resellers are amping up their skills and tactics to snag a pair purely to make more money off of them.
Bots are now being utilised to aid resellers in adding a pair to their cart to automatically purchase. For those who are unfamiliar with the notion, Wikipedia defines an internet bot as being “a software application that runs automated tasks over the Internet…at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.”. Therefore, this often means that those who are after the shoe to actually wear them or to keep them as a collectable, miss out completely due to an unfair disadvantage.
Although technically not yet illegal, using bots for sneaker purchasing is becoming a problem for buyers and retailers, who have started to take a stand against bots.
LA-based skate retailer The Berrics Canteen have introduced a tactic to teach bots a lesson during their release of the “Purple Lobster”, by creating a $9,999 placeholder for the sneakers. Bots usually place the order and checkout so fast that there’s no time to review the price by the buyer, so as a result, someone literally spent $10,000 US dollars on ONE pair of sneakers.
Sneaker fans everywhere are now calling action to be taken by brands like Supreme and the Nike SNKRS app to put similar actions into place, making limited sneaker buying an easier and fairer process.
They’re also hoping for The Berrics Canteen not to refund the bot-user, probably creating the biggest L ever taken.
It’s safe to say the customer won’t be getting the “Purple Lobster” any time soon.
Cover image via Concepts.
