“So we decided to also show the middle finger and sell digital pictures of the shoes,” says Schreiber. The Bonkers team tested the new tactic with Nike SB sneakers and uploaded 3000 images per shoe size to the shop and listed them with the title “Picture of shoe XY.” The product description specifically stated that the product was not the shoes but seven images of the shoes sold for 10 euros each. “But of course a bot does not recognize this. It simply searches for the product name and then thinks: “Buy, buy, buy!” says Schreiber.
Users were required to check a box at the end of the checkout process to confirm that they are aware that they are purchasing a digital product and have no claim to return the product in question—a stipulation that is commonplace, and legal, for digital purchases.
The result: Bonkers made more revenue by selling those pictures than they did selling shoes. One bot-wielding user bought 7K worth of image files.
“We made more than we anticipated,” Schreiber told OMR. “It’s a nice additional source of income, but I would actually prefer it when no one bought any images so that I could just run my website without any problems and without spending my weekends telling people on Instagram when we’re back online.”