Many believe that using a bot to purchase limited edition product is cheating include many companies such as Nike, adidas and even retailers like KITH.  COMPLEX did a write up on ‘How Sneaker Retailers Are Fighting to Beat the Bots‘ as did HYPEBEAST and PSFK.  They have acknowledged that its an issue that could potentially ostracize consumers that won’t use Bots or those that don’t know anything about them and ultimately are cheated out of the opportunity to buy a limited edition launch – then relying on paying crazy re-sale prices to those that hoard these limited edition items-. This makes it all the more surprising that someone on NIKETALK recently posted a screen shot of an online customer service rep named ‘VINCE’ from Ralph Lauren ENCOURAGING the purchase and use of Bots on their site.

While you really have to chuckle just a little its amazing to see a rep from the brand casually declaring that if you want to purchase a limited edition item from them you should look to investing into a bot to ultimately cheat others out of a FAIR opportunity at purchasing an item.

I wanted to make sure that after reading this it wasn’t a widely embraced idea at the brand so I decided to contact a rep at Ralph Lauren’s online chat and the rep I spoke with didn’t even know what a Bot was but said that she would notify management of our discussion.

 I think we all know Ralph is new to the HYPEBEASTING SCENE -where individuals are ultimately prepared to go to jail for the opportunity to purchase an article of clothing- and where even Raekwon, the guy that created the most significant pop culture moment for your relaunched product couldn’t even catch a break until Just Blaze allegedly connected the dots for them– but maybe just maybe someone at Ralph Lauren should acknowledge a problem with people using bots and use this opportunity for a solution -as many companies have- instead of encouraging it. While it may not be illegal its still cheating, and ‘that ain’t Ralph’, or is it?