Sneakerheads, Funko Pop collectors, PC builders, and many others who buy high-demand items online may be familiar with the disappointment of losing to automated purchasing bots. These automated bots can click the purchase button and paste in credit card and shipping address information within milliseconds; few feel capable of competing with these bots, and even fewer feel capable of creating their own. I see this as a great opportunity to learn programming skills while leveling the playing field against scalpers. After all, technology is a tool to be used to improve peoples’ lives, and if the bots won’t stop, then let’s at least let everyone a chance to combat them.

Start

Today, we’ll be using selenium

Setup

I’m using Python to program our bot because it’s easy and there’s a lot of documentation using Python.