Just like the rest of us, Corteiz founder Clint419 has had enough of the f***ing resellers. From sellers on Depop raising their price markups to resale sites that buy up limited drops and rack the prices up hundreds, we’re sick of new releases being hijacked. But is there an actual solution to the reselling problem? It seems Corteiz has found one.

This comes after Corteiz, the London-based streetwear brand known for its viral marketing techniques, cancelled over a thousand orders of its sold-out Corteiz x Nike Air Max 95s. Why? Because they were bought by bots.

The brand’s founder Clint419 posted a pic on his personal Instagram standing in front of a wall of orange shoe boxes, captioning the post “F*** THE RESELLERS. F*** THE BOTS. ALL THE CANCELLED PAIRS. 110s FOR £110. THIS SATURDAY @ RTW SPORTS. LUNDUN.” and we think his message was clear: don’t buy sneakers to resell them.

In all of the fashion industry, but particularly in the sneaker market, limited releases are regularly selling out in a flash because of bots that are able to click through to “buy” faster than humanly possible. They’ll then put the items on resale sites that double, triple, and even quadruple the original prices.

Whilst most people consider the reselling epidemic to be genuinely exploitative and unfair, very few brands other than Corteiz have actually attempted to combat the issue. In 2016, The BOTS Act acknowledged the issue in ticket reselling and gave primary sellers the right to take back tickets from resellers; but in fashion the problem’s been pretty much left unaddressed.

Although some people might just consider sneaker reselling slightly annoying, it can also have more damaging effects, even becoming unethical in some instances. For example, in February 2021 Nike dropped the Nike Go FlyEase, a sneaker designed with auto-lacing to make it more accessible to disabled individuals.

Whilst the auto-lacing sneaker was originally priced at $160 on Nike’s website, bots bought out the drop and increased prices to around $400, meaning it was no longer an accessible price, therefore completely going against the purpose it was designed for.

To be honest, as much as we respect Corteiz’s stunt, it’s probably not going to make resellers think twice about using bots in the future; I mean, nine times out of ten it works for them with major success. However, maybe if more brands kick up a fuss and recall products bought up by bots, a legal solution will have to be brought in similar to the one used for ticket selling. Till then though we’re best to just avoid caving for the skyrocketed resale prices. Basically, boycott resellers and f*** bots.

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