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Every frat boy has their favorite anti-hero
Let’s be honest: It’s probably Jordan Belfort.
Maybe Tony Soprano or Scarface.
If you have a touch of class, there’s a chance it’s the crew from Ocean’s Eleven.
Here’s mine:
Meet Ken Lowson
Lowson is an infamous ticket-scalper, convicted felon (wire fraud) and - most important to our discussion here- The Father Of Autocheckout Botting.
During the 2005 Grammy’s, U2 made a public apology to fans while accepting their third award of the evening. They expressed apologies to their fans over the fact that many were unable to secure tickets to their limited-admission upcoming tour.
This tour was so limited that, at their New York show, there were only 500 general admission tickets available. By all records, only 4 fans were able to secure tickets to that show, direct from TicketMaster’s general admission release.
The other 496 tickets?
Ken Lowson got them all.
What Are Autocheckout Bots?
Autocheckout bots are what enabled Ken Lowson to single-handedly monopolize the ticket market during the early 2000’s. He utilized a software that was the equivalent of bringing an Apache Attack Helicopter to a bareknuckle streetfight…. where his opponents were also blindfolded.
But let’s shift the rest of this conversation away from my favorite mastermind-degenerate and towards the matter at hand: Autocheckout bots and how they can help you.
Autocheckout bots are software designed to help buyers purchase items online faster than any human could manually purchase on themself. They can target specific items, automatically add them to your online shopping cart, input all your shipping/billing information and then complete the transaction - 100% automatically and in a matter of milliseconds.
Oh… and it can do this THOUSANDS of times at once.
Above is a screenshot of one of the autocheckout botters in my reselling community - Divine.
He set his bot up to target the release of sneakers that you could buy for $110 and sell for $200. After fees and shipping, that’s a solid $60 profit for every pair secured.
While most mortals were furiously clicking “add to cart”, typing in their shipping/billing info and spamming “pay now” hoping to secure a single pair, his bot loaded the shipping and billing information of hundreds of different profiles and he was able to secure dozens of pairs in a single drop… with the click of a single button.
Are Autocheckout Bots Legal?
Yes and no.
Autocheckout bots are 100% legal for majority of reselling activity occurring within Amazon and eBay. The one place where autocheckout software has been outlawed has been in the world of ticket reselling… Ken Lowson ruined that fun for all of us.
However, autocheckout bots are perfectly legal for you trying to get your hands on the next hottest item with huge resale. Whether it was the PS5 and GPU boom, the newest pair of Jordans, or tons of coveted and profitable vinyl records - you are perfectly within your rights to use autocheckout software to help secure profitable items for the purpose of resale.
Do I Really Need An Autocheckout Bot?
No, you really don’t. I know plenty of six and seven-figure sellers who have never used a bot in their life.
New Question: Do Autocheckout Bots Help?
New Answer: If you resell some of the items I do, then 100% yes.
If you’re someone who is simply scanning items at Walmart and TJ Maxx shelves, then an autocheckout bot won’t do you any good.
If you’re someone who has swallowed the fairy tale “wholesale is the future, why would anyone still be doing online arbitrage?” bait hook, line and sinker, well - you don’t need one either.
If you are brand new to reselling, this should also not be a top priority.
So who should be using an autocheckout bot?
Autocheckout bots are predominately useful for sellers who are running into issues of obtaining specific items or drops that they are targeting - specifically because those items go out of stock incredibly quickly.
There is thousands to be had in flipping limited-edition items as well as incredibly popular items that sell out almost immediately. If you can consistently get in on these drops, you will be making a tidy sum on a regular basis.
Like this:
Above is a hat I secured last week, using an autocheckout bot called Lightning ATC. This hat cost $62 plus shipping and I was able to sell it for over $200.
It sold out in under 30 seconds.
Most people had less than 30 seconds to:
Go to the website
Locate this exact item on the website
Click on the item
Add it to cart
Wait in the virtual queue
Enter their shipping information
Enter their billing information
Click “Pay Now”
Hope that the transaction went through before this $150+ profit flip went out of stock.
Here was my workflow:
A couple minutes before the drop, I turn my bot on. It already has all my billing/shipping info inputted.
I type in the keywords “Siegelman”, “Hat”, “Ali”, White”, “Red” - all the keywords that this could be named and that my bot should look for.
I set my bot to refresh at the exact time of the drop.
Nothing Else.
After step 3, my bot took over and scanned the entire website for those keywords, located the item, added it to cart and checked out in a matter of seconds or milliseconds - far faster than any human could have.
And, because of that, I locked in $150+ profit for about 90 seconds of bot setup time.
If you simply reverse-source Amazon storefronts all day, then this won’t do you much good. But if you play the game at a higher-level, then an autocheckout bot may be just what you need.
If it’s easier, you can even see the exact bot I use in action HERE!
How Hard Is It To Learn To Bot?
That’s like asking how hard is it to learn to drive.
A Prius? Pretty easy.
A Bugatti? That may be tough.
Bots come in tons of different variations and workflows and each one has its own specific learning curve. There are typically plenty of resources available to help lower that learning curve, but it may be beneficial to start on a more entry-level platform and work your way up.
Don’t be discouraged by this - even the most entry-level bot will still obliterate any human in terms of processing speed and capability to secure profit.
Where Can I Get An Autocheckout Bot?
Generally, you have 3 options:
Buy a bot.
Rent a bot.
Have other people bot for you.
I’ll cover each in more depth.
Buy A Bot
Buying a bot is exactly what it sounds like - you pay money for a license to utilize the bot. Often times, this also comes with additional costs such as a fixed monthly payment as well as proxies.
Under this arrangement, you can utilize the bot for any drop you please. It is the most costly option up-front, but may be worth the investment if you plan on using it regularly.
There is a catch: Bots are much like other “hyped” items in that you can rarely simply buy one directly from the developers. The ones that you can buy direct from the developers are usually quite rubbish.
Your main two options are:
Buy a bot on the secondary market (and pay resale prices for a license).
Under this arrangement, you could go to a marketplace such as Whop and lookup autocheckout bots to purchase.
Doing so, you’d unfortunately be paying resale prices for these bots.
Buy a bot through a Reselling Community Group Buy.
Developers don’t sell individual licenses direct to consumers. They typically operate off a “dealership” model, where they create connections with Reselling Groups to host a “Group Buy” of their autocheckout bot.
To get a bot at retail price, you’d have to join a Reselling Community and participate in a group buy. Any Reselling Community worth its salt will have connections with autocheckout bot developers and will periodically host these group buys for members. If you are in a Reselling Community that doesn’t have these connections, then there’s a 99% chance that this isn’t the only thing they’re dropping the ball on. Find yourself a better one.
Rent A Bot
If you tend to only bot a few times a month or year, it may be more cost-effective to simply rent the license of a bot from someone else.
The Pros of this are simple: It’s cost effective and you’re only paying for it when you use it.
The Cons are also apparent: You’re going to be paying a bit of a markup each use and - most importantly - you’re going to have a tough learning curve.
This is a great play if you already know how to bot, but paying to lease a bot just to spend days or weeks learning it could get pricey.
If you do want to rent a bot, Whop is a big marketplace for that.
Have Other People Bot For You
For 90% of resellers, this is what I recommend and it’s exactly what it sounds like it is.
One of the autocheckout botters in your Reselling Community posts a form that you sign up to.
You enter your shipping/billing information.
They use their bots to check out those items on your behalf.
That’s it.
This is by FAR the easiest solution as it requires zero learning curve and the only effort you put in is filling out the autocheckout form they post.
You don’t have to buy or rent a bot, you don’t have to be present at the time of the drop and you don’t have to spend time and money learning how to use any of the bots.
This is about as plug-and-play as it can possibly get in the autocheckout world and it’s likely the best option for 90% of resellers out there.
Common Bot Mistakes
I’ll avoid the nitty-gritty on technical dynamics and simply hit the two biggest mistakes I see most sellers make with bots:
Not knowing how to use it properly/not practicing enough.
Using it is a foundation of their reselling, rather than a supplement (aka: unrealistic expectations)
These should both be self-explanatory.
Learn how to use the software you bought/rented… but don’t think it’s going to be the magic bullet that takes you from $10k/mo to $100k/mo.
Wrapping Up
Bots are not going to be the game changer in your reselling journey.
They may make you an additional $300, $500 or even $1,000 per month… but they can’t replace sound sourcing criteria, a valuable network of other resellers and a pipeline of daily profitable item leads.
I’ve been botting for years and still rarely eclipse $2k profit in any given month solely because of my bot.
However, for $10/month, that bot (Lightning ATC) is easily worth it if it brings in an additional $500 or $1,000/month… and that is the way you need to view your reselling journey.
Scaling on Amazon and eBay is almost never one trick that took someone from $1k/month to $50k/month.
Rather, it’s a consistent addition of tools and strategies that will enable you to scale over time.
As you immerse yourself in the world of ecommerce, you will be adding new arrows to your quiver to become more thoroughly equipped to pull the right one for any given opportunity.
Those “arrows” may be a software, a community, a network, a strategy, a skill or a dozen other things that will compound over time to make you a consistently successful seller, regardless of the market.
If you’ve been stuck for a while, an autocheckout bot may be the perfect arrow to add to your quiver.