Are you a sneakerhead?
Collecting shoes like Nike and showing them off to your friends and the world creates some amazing experiences. Each year there are more and more shoes to collect, and Nike doesn’t seem to stop innovating. Now, we might even be seeing different types of shoes like self-lacing shoes.
You might be the type to purchase an expensive pair of Nikes and wear them to the bone, or you might purchase an expensive limited edition, and just keep it in some kind of glass box above your bed.
Whatever the case is, you love shoes, and you want to be able to buy Nike shoes online before they get sold out. The only problem is that buying shoes online the day they come out are getting harder and harder as more people purchase products online and more people are scalping shoes to resell them for higher prices on eBay or Craigslist.
Today we are here to show you a few tricks and tips to make buying Nike shoes online much more possible than before. No longer do you have to be frustrated waiting for the exact moment for shoes to be available online only to find out that they are sold out only to be relisted on other sites more double, triple, or quadruple the price!
Problems Buying Nikes Online?
When you buy products online, Nike shoes or otherwise, a lot of factors determine if you end up buying the product, having issues, or seeing a “sold out” message. These factors might not seem intuitive, but when you start to consider why you often have trouble buying Nike shoes even if you are there on the website the second they go live, it starts to make more sense.
Depending on your time zone and geographic location, you could be sending data to the website preventing your access. Sometimes websites base sales in a specific time zone and limit sales to regions, so the site doesn’t get overloaded.
For example, maybe you live in LA, and the shoe is being released online earlier for New York users so that you can buy the shoes in three hours, whereas those users get earlier access.
In some cases, websites also have restrictions on who they can ship to or to which IP addresses (and locations) they will sell to. For example, if you want to buy a rare Nike shoe from Tokyo, an IP address from the US probably won’t work.
How to Use a Proxy or VPN to Buy Nike Shoes Online
While you might not be a scalper yourself, and just want some new Nikes, you might have to use some of the same tools that scalpers use to get your pair. Scalpers and resellers often use proxies and VPN tools to change their virtual location and IP address to trick websites as if they were in a more local region which gives them priority and access to websites selling Nike shoes early.
In my example before, I mentioned how you might not be able to purchase Nikes from Japan if you are in the US, but with a VPN or proxy, you could connect to a Japanese server and trick the Japanese site into think you having a Japanese IP address.
Essentially, what a proxy or VPN does is make it look like your traffic is coming from an area more local to the storefront, so you get more priority in buying the shoes. Proxies and VPNs help you show that you are coming from a preferred time zone and location to buy the product.
You also might be wondering what the difference between a VPN and proxy is. Proxies are faster, but VPNs are often more powerful when it comes to security and the ability to switch servers on the fly. We wrote a full breakdown on the differences here, but for now, I’d just recommend using a VPN since they can do everything a proxy can.
Often scalpers use VPN and Proxies to CHANGE their IP address to get around shoe limitations. Many websites limit the amount of products you can buy based on your IP, but VPNs and proxies can circumvent this restriction. Sometimes scalpers use dozens of proxies and IPs to purchase shoes!
So to get access to these sites at the right time, you might have to use a proxy or VPN to get a similar advantage. For your proxy, you will need one that is SUPER fast since you don’t want any delays with any websites, and you need one that is secure.
There are a few things you need to watch out for though when picking a VPN or proxy to buy Nikes online.
Don’t use FREE proxies or VPNs. All of these options are terrible, and they are so slow you won’t have any success trying to buy shoes online. Free VPNs and proxies often show you ads, and a lot of the time free IPs like these providers use have been banned from storefronts and websites, so you won’t even be able to access the site you want.
Another thing to consider when considering using a free VPN or proxy is how many servers or locations are available to use. You will need a service that offers a lot of non-overloaded locations for no extra charge!
Best VPNs and Proxies for Buying Nikes Online
My favorite VPN for online shopping is TorGuard (full TorGuard Review). They are the most valuable VPN we’ve seen since they have a decent price, the best speeds, and some of the best security you can find. They also over a free proxy you can use to shop online which might give you some even better speeds.
The process for using a VPN like TorGuard would be buying a subscription and then launching the VPN server. When you are waiting for a Nike release, or one is coming up, you need to find out when the shoes will be released first.
If it’s a location specific sale starting on the east coast, you can use TorGuard to connect to an east coast server to get an advantage. Or if it’s only being sold in another country, you can connect to that country’s server through TorGuard as well.
Another good VPN provider is Private Internet Access since it’s a bit cheaper, but since it’s a bit more popular and oversaturated with users, you might find that some of their servers and IPs are banned which could be bad if you’re in a rush to buy shoes.
