Sneaker Drops: The Ultimate Guide to Get the Ungettable Sneakers

The sneaker resale industry is growing by leaps and bounds, but not without challenges. With many sneaker drops every month, anyone in the business has to stay on top of the releases and cop as many as possible to turn a profit. Even if you’re not a seller, copping those coveted sneaker drops is no easy feat.

You can sit on your laptop refreshing the website again and again until the sneakers go live — but even then, your chances of buying them are pretty slim. Nike, Adidas, Yeezy, Louis Vuitton, and Balenciaga sneakers all frequently sell out in seconds.

At that rate, if you’re taking the manual route of buying sneakers, you might as well not make an effort because most of the time, you’re not walking away with that new sneaker drop.

All hope is not lost. You can use workarounds to cop any sneaker pair you want. The answer lies in sneaker bots and proxies.

How to Get Sneaker Drops

There are multiple ways you can cop limited edition sneakers online. However, the first step is to know:

• What sneakers are set to release
• The release date
• The release time
• Where exactly they will be released

Sign up for emails and newsletters

The best way to look for the latest drops is to sign up for emails. Many brands announce their sneakers with much fanfare to create hype. They do so through emails and social media posts. While you can be active on social media to get such news, signing up for the emails brings the news directly to your inbox.

The first thing to do is to sign up for emails from the usual sneaker brands and online retailers that sell limited-edition sneakers. However, you don’t want your inbox flooded with emails, so the sweet spot is at least five newsletters.

Sign up to receive emails from Nike, Adidas, Yeezy Supply, StockX, Sneaker News, and Hypebeast.

This also comes in handy when these top brands do surprise sneaker drops. With email notifications, you can be one of the first to know what sneakers are going live.

Join cook groups

Cook groups are online communities of sneakerheads, particularly sneaker resellers, sharing information and resources about sneaker drops and sneaker copping.

From industry insiders breaking release dates to experts on sneaker bots guiding how to work them, there’s much to be learned through these cook groups. You can even find early links through these groups.

Especially for a beginner, it might be difficult and time-consuming to navigate the rapidly changing sneaker and sneaker resale industry without joining a cook group.

Finding quality cook groups

There are many cook groups that you may be able to join. However, not all cook groups are the same, and not all accept new members readily. Some cook groups have even been monetized, so often you have to pay to join.

Twitter restocks are the most reliable way to find a useful cook group. But, unfortunately, even those are not that easy to find.

Some notable options include Sneaker Squad X (SSX), Endurance, and Notify.

Most such groups are sold out, so check regularly to see if any spots open up and join immediately.

Remember, joining a cook group is helpful, but you also have to do a lot of homework. You will typically receive a lot of learning material, such as guides that will help you learn the ins and outs of the sneaker resale market.

Get Nike SNKRS app

If you’re trying to cop Nike sneakers, the SNKRS app by Nike is one of your best resources. This is where you get news on the latest release dates and actual sneaker drops. The SNKRS calendar has all the release schedules, so any sneakerhead can prepare beforehand.

You can save your size and payment info and enable touch or face ID to make quick purchases.

There’s also an SNKRS draw, where you can participate to reserve a guaranteed chance to buy limited edition Nike sneaker drops.

Use sneaker bots

Copping the latest limited-edition sneakers has become virtually impossible without using sneaker bots, at least for those looking to buy multiple pairs for reselling.

All major websites have limits on the number of sneakers one customer can order, usually one sneaker pair per customer. With such limitations, it’s not possible to run a sneaker resale business or even grow your personal collection if all you want to do is get your hands on every last drop.

This is where sneaker bots come in handy, which basically scrape websites and buy sneakers for you — even in bulk.

Let’s talk about this in more detail in the next section.

How to Bot Sneaker Drops

Using sneakers bots to get the latest sneaker drops seems inevitable, but you need to know everything about these bots before getting one.

It’s not really a secret that sneakerheads use bots to cop sneakers. But even with a bot at your disposal, some sound knowledge and best practices can go a long way.

Just in case you’re not familiar with sneaker bots, these are web scraping bots that run through a website’s code to see how many of a particular release are in stock and can automate the checkout process using your info and credit card.

Consider the type of sneaker bot

Before you even begin looking for a sneaker bot, it’s important to know about the types of sneaker bots. While they all pretty much work the same way and have the same purpose, the difference comes in the sneakers (particularly the website) these bots can cop sneakers from.

Some of the many types of sneaker bots out there include:

• AIO bots (All-in-one bots)
• Shopify bots
• Nike bots
• Adidas bots
• Yeezy bots
• Footlocker sites bots
• Yeezy Supply bots
• Supreme bots

While most are specific to a brand or site, the AIO bots can work on all sites. These are obviously more versatile, but their capabilities vary greatly. Not all AIO bots are good, mainly because sneaker websites change so much.

If you want just one bot for all sites, an AIO bot is the obvious choice. It’s also more budget-friendly because otherwise, you’d have to get a bot for each sneaker brand you’re after.

First, figure out which type of sneaker bot you want. For instance, if you’re going to focus on Yeezys, the Addidas or Yeezy Supply bot should be your choice.

Getting the sneaker bot

Despite what you might have heard everywhere that everyone is using sneaker bots, it’s relatively hard to get your hands on one these days. Sneaker bots have also become limited edition like the sneakers they help you cop.

Did you know that people are even using bots to find sneaker bots?

That’s just the reality of it. But you can get yourself a reliable sneaker bot as and when it’s available. Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, follow the sneaker bots on Twitter, as that’s where they usually announce restocks.

The bots are usually software that you can also purchase from sneaker bot marketplaces. Since these bots are also numbered, many in the sneaker community buy them to resell for a markup.

Before paying for the sneaker bot, make sure to check it’s legit.

Using the sneaker bot

Buying a sneaker bot is one thing and using it is another. With time, you’ll get the hang of it. First, however, you need to ensure that you’re using it the right way.

The first and foremost thing to know is that to successfully cop sneakers through a bot, you’ll need proxies, multiple credit cards, and perhaps different email addresses. All of that takes time to prepare, so if you’re not already set up, don’t expect to become a pro sneaker reseller the very next day.

While the bots work similarly, there are nuanced differences in the websites they can target and what they need to check out the latest sneaker drop successfully.

How to Get Highly-Anticipated Sneaker Drops

Whether you want those Jordan redesigns or the next Travis Scott sneakers, your key to copping hyped sneakers is a sneaker bot with proxies.

A sneaker bot alone is not enough to cop sneakers, as websites like Nike, Adidas, and StockX have sophisticated algorithms in place that can identify your machine and block the IP address.

Use proxies with sneaker bots

However, when you use proxies, the bot can send requests through the proxy server, essentially masking your IP address. With more proxies, the bot can do multiple tasks without the websites getting wind of it.

This means that you may be able to cop multiple pairs of the same sneakers from the same site or a couple of them.

Regardless of the type of sneaker bot you use, you have to use it in conjunction with proxies to ensure they do their job right.

Best proxies for copping sneaker drops

When it comes to proxies for web scraping, including copping sneakers, you have three types of proxies to choose from:

• Residential proxies
• Datacenter proxies
• ISP proxies

Rayobyte provides high-quality proxies of all three types that you can use seamlessly with any sneaker bot. As a U.S.-based proxy provider, Rayobyte knows what it takes to get the job done without getting IP bans or reaching request limits.

Residential proxies are your best bet when copping sneakers with a bot. These proxies mimic regular users and can be chosen from a wide range of locations around the world. That way, you can even cop sneakers from regional websites of name brands. With these in your arsenal, every request will get a unique IP, improving your chances of getting those hot sneakers.

Datacenter proxies are relatively more affordable than residential proxies but still good enough to dodge those incredibly detailed bot detection algorithms websites have in place. If you’re looking to buy sneakers in bulk with a larger proxy pool, Rayobyte data center proxies cover over 26 countries, 9 ASNs, and 20,000 unique class-C subnets.

ISP proxies combine the qualities of both residential and datacenter proxies. These feature IP addresses provided by regional and local internet service providers (ISPs). With unlimited bandwidth and connections, these proxies from Rayobyte can provide the performance required for large-scale sneaker copping operations.

Where to Cop Sneaker Drops Online

If you’re wondering where to buy sneaker drops, brand websites are the obvious first choice. Brands like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and Puma often release limited edition sneakers directly on their websites.

If you’re after some designer collabs, those may be available on the sneaker brand website or the collaborating brand website. Many luxury brands like Balenciaga and Maison Margiela drop sneakers on their own website as well as retailers.

Here are the best retailers to cop sneaker drops:

• StockX
• Footlocker
• JD Sport
• Footaction
• East Bay
• SSENSE
• Flight Club
• Stadium Goods
• GOAT

Most Anticipated Sneaker Drops of 2022

Now that you know everything about how to cop the latest sneaker drops with a bot and proxies, you may want to be on the lookout for the following highly anticipated sneaker releases in 2022:

• Louis Vuitton x Off-White x Nike Air Force 1
• Comme des Garçons x Nike Air Sunder
• Travis Scott x Nike Air Max 1/Trainer
• Adidas EQT Elevation
• Nike LeBron 2
• Air Jordan 12 ‘Playoffs’
• J Balvin x Air Jordan 2
• Prada x Adidas Re-Nylon Forum
• Adidas Yeezy 1050
• Nike Air Max 97 “Silver Bullet”

Wrap Up

With the right bot and a reliable pool of proxies to use with it, no sneaker drop is out of reach. Still, it takes a lot of skill to perfect this process, even with the right technology.

Staying active on Twitter & Discord are very important because that’s where all the scoop is. Once you know when exactly a hyped pair of sneakers is dropping and on what site, you can line your bot and proxies to do all the hard work for you.

The information contained within this article, including information posted by official staff, guest-submitted material, message board postings, or other third-party material is presented solely for the purposes of education and furtherance of the knowledge of the reader. All trademarks used in this publication are hereby acknowledged as the property of their respective owners.