2020 Bowman Mega Box

[lseecon]

notification feature on target---poof disabled?

[ThoseBackPages]

none today

[Bulldog55D]

Originally Posted by lseecon

notification feature on target---poof disabled?

Notification is working again.

[mossoholic]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

You said you think none were sold through the Target app. That’s not true. First load always has a max 99 per order. Subsequent reloads drops that down to 5. There were two reloads this morning. We missed out because (mostly) the bots beat us. Just have to live with it.

If the Mega Box was an actual reload not a single person without a bot will get one from Target app if it stays this way. I had the app open for Bowman packs and blasters (which you had about 10 seconds or so to get) and clicked the Mega Box as soon as notification came up. Meaning I didn't have to load the app or open my phone. Was on the page in 2 seconds and you couldn't even click to add to cart for the mega box.

[In the bag]

There’s a link on the Target Mega page that ask how they can improve the page. I have replied multiple times about the bot usage to buy all the inventory. If more people reply to that link maybe something will actually get done about the bots

[brothertona]

Nothing can be done about the bots unfortunately. I guess they could kill auto-complete -that would slow things down a bit - you wouldn't be able to save your information in for crazy fast transactions.

[KhalDrogo]

Clearly some of you don’t buy (or try to buy) basketball retail products. This is the new norm for popular retail products. You have almost no chance without a bot.

[BOT]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Clearly some of you don’t buy (or try to buy) basketball retail products. This is the new norm for popular retail products. You have almost no chance without a bot.

Glad to see someone here understands lol

[mjwoop]

Originally Posted by brothertona

Nothing can be done about the bots unfortunately. I guess they could kill auto-complete -that would slow things down a bit - you wouldn't be able to save your information in for crazy fast transactions.

Digital analytics tools have bot identification capabilities, and if you can identify them, then you should be able to figure out how to block them if you need to do so. Hopefully Target will decide that it's in their best interest to do this.

[mossoholic]

You guys may not know but with Optic on Target app for 2 weeks it was impossible. Then there were about 6 or 7 real chances to get it because they changed something. You had to click a bunch of times to add to cart and the product was available for a minute or two. The 4 times I was available to try and get it I got an order in each time. Now on Mosaic instead of you being able to click a bunch of times and add to cart you can click 10,000 times and it won't add when it says ship it. The bots must have done something to block orders now but that strategy did work on Optic to combat the bots.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by mjwoop

Digital analytics tools have bot identification capabilities, and if you can identify them, then you should be able to figure out how to block them if you need to do so. Hopefully Target will decide that it's in their best interest to do this.

Stop getting your hopes up. They will not stop the bots.

[ThoseBackPages]

why would Target stop sales?

[13goyankees13]

Originally Posted by brothertona

Nothing can be done about the bots unfortunately. I guess they could kill auto-complete -that would slow things down a bit - you wouldn't be able to save your information in for crazy fast transactions.

That's not true at all.

Bots can place orders faster than any human so they could come up with the fastest time a human could possibly buy and cancel any orders placed before that. Once an address has a few orders placed and cancelled they can restrict that address from buying highly in-demand products online.

From what I understand most of the bots are still having all of their orders shipped to the same address so they could easily find addresses that got multiple orders and cancel all of the orders to that address, and potentially ban that address if it keeps happening.

It's not perfect but they could also use CAPTCHA. It would at least slow bots down and stop some of the worst bots.

Or, at the very least, don't sell any online other than preorders before there is high demand if they know bots will get it all and send it all to stores. People will still buy up the shelves but then at least it's people visiting the store and not bots.

There's no magic button they can press to stop bots but if they wanted to, they could slow them down significantly. I'm surprised they haven't already. I work for a retail company that has some products where MSRP or sale prices are cheap enough that people want to buy as much as they can get to resell and my company stops most fraudulent orders. It's not perfect and sometimes people will get around it to buy a few more than they should be able to but the repeated big orders from bots where someone is getting hundreds of an item get cancelled.

[mjwoop]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Stop getting your hopes up. They will not stop the bots.

Then we should stop buying anything from them, both online and in their stores. There are plenty of places to buy goods in our society. We can't control what other humans or companies do, but we all control how, when, and where money leaves our pockets and goes to someone/someplace else.

[LittleJimmies]

Originally Posted by 13goyankees13

That's not true at all.

Bots can place orders faster than any human so they could come up with the fastest time a human could possibly buy and cancel any orders placed before that. Once an address has a few orders placed and cancelled they can restrict that address from buying highly in-demand products online.

From what I understand most of the bots are still having all of their orders shipped to the same address so they could easily find addresses that got multiple orders and cancel all of the orders to that address, and potentially ban that address if it keeps happening.

It's not perfect but they could also use CAPTCHA. It would at least slow bots down and stop some of the worst bots.

Or, at the very least, don't sell any online other than preorders before there is high demand if they know bots will get it all and send it all to stores. People will still buy up the shelves but then at least it's people visiting the store and not bots.

There's no magic button they can press to stop bots but if they wanted to, they could slow them down significantly. I'm surprised they haven't already. I work for a retail company that has some products where MSRP or sale prices are cheap enough that people want to buy as much as they can get to resell and my company stops most fraudulent orders. It's not perfect and sometimes people will get around it to buy a few more than they should be able to but the repeated big orders from bots where someone is getting hundreds of an item get cancelled.

It's been said a thousand times, Target/Walmart/Topps/Panini don't care whether you or a bot buys the product. And the idea of any of them spending money to implement bot-fighting features that will net them $0 in additional revenue is naive.

[mjwoop]

Originally Posted by LittleJimmies

It's been said a thousand times, Target/Walmart/Topps/Panini don't care whether you or a bot buys the product. And the idea of any of them spending money to implement bot-fighting features that will net them $0 in additional revenue is naive.

That's true, unless there's a broader risk of completely losing customers to competitors (or in the case of Topps and Panini, having a large number of customers completely leave the hobby).

[GlenSepper]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

why would Target stop sales?

Simple, really.

Target cares not one whit who gets the product, only that it sells.

It's not Target's concern that the nature of the product allows for retail arbitrage.

[13goyankees13]

Originally Posted by LittleJimmies

It's been said a thousand times, Target/Walmart/Topps/Panini don't care whether you or a bot buys the product. And the idea of any of them spending money to implement bot-fighting features that will net them $0 in additional revenue is naive.

Why do you think they have exclusives for well under market prices?

They could double the prices of Bowman megas and people would still buy them all up. A big part of why they have the exclusives and don't jack up the price is because they want people to think of Target favorably and because they hope that people will go to Target, either the website or a store, for a mega box and come out with more than that.

If bots are buying it, they're not buying anything other than what they're set up for. Target is losing out on revenue because if they truly limited them to 5 per person and had them up for a while, they'd have more casual collectors buy and also buy extra products. That's the whole reason they have the "recommended" section.

I'm sure it's not worth the cost for cards alone but I would think it is when you include other things such as Nintendo Switch.

[brothertona]

But they didn't do this when Nintendo Switches were taking off either though. They let bots grab up all of those as well.

[GlenSepper]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Stop getting your hopes up. They will not stop the bots.

I believe I saw you post the actual market value of these is ~USD100. If correct, then not a bad profit for running some code.

Until that spread closes there is absolutely no way to stop enterprising people from trying to take advantage of it.

[KhalDrogo]

I am not changing my life (we shop every week at Target) because Target hasn’t been effective at stopping bots. You guys realize these bots have been around for years longer than Target/Walmart/Panini has had to deal with them? Blaming Target is like blaming MLB for not being ahead of Balco.

Everyone is upset because they can’t get Mega. So am I. Love opening it. But it is what it is.

[LittleJimmies]

Originally Posted by 13goyankees13

Why do you think they have exclusives for well under market prices?

They could double the prices of Bowman megas and people would still buy them all up. A big part of why they have the exclusives and don't jack up the price is because they want people to think of Target favorably and because they hope that people will go to Target, either the website or a store, for a mega box and come out with more than that.

If bots are buying it, they're not buying anything other than what they're set up for. Target is losing out on revenue because if they truly limited them to 5 per person and had them up for a while, they'd have more casual collectors buy and also buy extra products. That's the whole reason they have the "recommended" section.

I'm sure it's not worth the cost for cards alone but I would think it is when you include other things such as Nintendo Switch.

You are putting way too much thought into how much thought Target puts into their baseball card merchandising strategy. They do not, and should not, care about something that ultimately accounts for 0.1% of their revenues and wouldn't matter if it dissapeared completely tomorrow.

[babybull]

Originally Posted by LittleJimmies

You are putting way too much thought into how much thought Target puts into their baseball card merchandising strategy. They do not, and should not, care about something that ultimately accounts for 0.1% of their revenues and wouldn't matter if it dissapeared completely tomorrow.

This! Card collectors/flippers whatever are a miniscule part of the Target business. C'mon, you guys are smarter than this.

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by mjwoop

Then we should stop buying anything from them, both online and in their stores. There are plenty of places to buy goods in our society. We can't control what other humans or companies do, but we all control how, when, and where money leaves our pockets and goes to someone/someplace else.

where else can you buy Bowman Mega at SRP?

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by GlenSepper

Simple, really.

Target cares not one whit who gets the product, only that it sells.

It's not Target's concern that the nature of the product allows for retail arbitrage.

exactly