As promised, here is my Copping Kicks for Retail Guide

Hey all, saw lots of interest in my last post earlier about writing up a guide for copping kicks for retail. So here is my full, outrageously long and detailed guide on how I get my kicks manually for retail.  

#DISCLAIMER

I wanna make it clear that this is a COMPLETE guide, so i'm going to attempt to cover everything pertaining to copping for retail. I apologize in advance if some of this information is obvious or already known by some of you (Entering raffles, make accounts on websites, follow twitter accounts, etc.) , but I wanted to write out a complete guide for beginners so they can have one place to look for everything. This guide wlll not include how to use a bot, auto checkout out, backdooring, early links, etc. This is for straight up for#manualBoiz. There is not one big secret that will allow you to get kicks for retail every time, it really is just a lot of work and knowing the best way to approach each drop. Hopefully people who haven't been super successful in the past will also get something out of this guide as well.   #BIO: I've been in this game since late 2015, so I am by no means a vet in the community, but I have been grinding hard ever since to get to where I am now. I'm an OG adidas fan, I even worked at an adidas outlet store for about a year and a half in the past. I don't fuck with Nike at all, 3 stripes for life (This guide is still helpful for Nike and Jordan though). I copped a lot of pairs for retail in the last year, sold some and kept some. I spend about as much time on sneakers as someone would working a part time job, but I don't think this much time is required to be successful. Here is a collection pic of what I have with me at school (UB is my favorite model, I know this is quite shocking from the picture). No my parents did not buy these for me and no I did not get these all for retail, but I have traded and sold some of the pairs I've gotten to get where I am.   #GUIDE:

The basic idea of this guide is going to be how to take advantage of every single opportunity you have to cop the kicks for retail. It's not easy for most releases, and it requires a lot of work (Hence the length of this guide), but I promise you'll be successful if you keep at it and do absolutely everything you can to secure your pair. This guide is going to be split into 2 main sections, online and local. Obviously a majority of it will be online, but I have several tips that I've picked up to secure pairs locally. A lot of this guide will being using Yeezy releases as examples since these are generally the hardest to get, however I want to clarify that these tips apply to any release if for some reason that's confusing.  

#LOCAL GUIDE:

1. Get some homies, and enter all local raffles you can. I know this is obvious and redundent, but this is probably your best chance to cop a pair with minimal effort, since it really is just luck. If you're not sure what stores will carry the shoes or have raffles, check out their instagram pages or websites for details on upcoming releases of all your local stores (E.g. Bodega, Kith, etc.) to view their release details. Most shops like these do raffles at this point, but that's not always the case so make sure you always check. All footsites have a launch locator (E.g. Footlocker, Champs, etc) that will tell you exactly which stores will be receiving pairs. We all know stores backdoor pairs, but they do release some through raffles as well. You never know when you'll get lucky, take the time out of your day to go to the store in enter. Make sure you ask when the cutoff time for picking up pairs is, this is very important for the next step.

2. Unclaimed pairs. If you don't win the raffle, follow up with the store anyways. A lot of Footlockers, finish lines, champs sports, and consortium stores will actually just sell you the pair if you walk in and ask if it's past the pickup time. For some reason I've never actually seen this piece of advice anywhere on this sub, and it's definitely something that I've only seen resellers take advantage of. I don't live in an area where many raffles are held, but one of my homies got a pair of Bred V2s from the last release at a local foot locker in his area just by walking up and asking if they had unclaimed pairs. This works even better for shoes that aren't as hype as Yeezys.

3. Off day releases. Not all shoes drop on weekends (Mastermind NMD XR1, Pharrell Human Race, etc), those that release during the week are generally significantly easier to get locally since people have full times jobs and can't come to a release at 11 AM. If you're lucky enough to be in school or have a flexible job schedule, these can be easy cops if you're lucky. For example, my brother and I went to the live raffle for pharrell Human Race (Friday Release) at Nice Kicks and both left with pairs because the showing was so small.

Sorry if this portion of the guide is a little short for the local portion, most of my purchases are online so I don't have a ton of experience with local purchases. Also I don't think anyone needs a detailed guide on camping out for shoes if any stores even still do that at all.   #ONLINE GUIDE:

So i'm going to be splitting this up into sections and trying my best to give everyone and idea of what I do before, during, and after every drop. There will be a subsections for specifics and a detailed guide for certain sites afterwards. The overall goal of this guide here is to minimize the time between when the shoe goes live on the site and when you finish checking out. Also even though I don't like Nike or Jordan brand, this guide will help with just about any sneaker site so don't worry. I really hope this is actually useful and just a waste of everyone's time LOL.  

0. Setup

Before we get started you're gonna need a few things on your computer to increase your checkout speed. All of these items are ESSENTIAL to maximize your chance of purchasing. All of the steps below will have links of where to download if you need them.

1. Google Chrome. You're going to need to be using chrome for the fastest checkout possible as a number of extensions will cut down your checkout time drastically. I recommend having a backup internet browser as well, I recommend FireFox because you will be needing it for adidas.com (Don't worry about this now, an adidas.com guide be included after this main guide).

2. [Autofill (Chrome Extension)] (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autofill/nlmmgnhgdeffjkdckmikfpnddkbbfkkk?hl=en). Autofill is going to allow you to checkout with almost every single site with just a few mouse clicks. Here is a video explaining how to set it up for Supreme (I didnt not write up a guide on how to use this, as this video explains it very well already), but this extension works for every single retailer and can be implemented in the same way. The only extra tip I have for using this extension is to create a separate profile for every website you're using it, it seems to work faster and more consistently for some reason. Last thing to note is that sometimes confirmation boxes that you need to check will sometimes not be filled, make sure you know this when going through each checkout process

3. Page Monitor (Chrome Extension). Page monitor is going to allow you to see when a page changes and alert you on your browser when it does as well. This extension is great for sites that drop at random times online like ShopNiceKicks and Kith as it will allow you to get a notification before they're even able to post on social media about the release. I actually don't rely on social media posts at all at this point after implementing page monitor into my release preparation, however they are still a good fallback. This is also great for sites like Barney's, because they don't know what the hell they're doing and release shoes whenever they feel like it (Ex: Releasing Kith x adidas Trail Response a month late). My one tip with this is to make sure your check interval time is set to as low as possible, this way you'll be alerted within a few seconds of the page being updated. When you combine this extension with autofill, you'll be through the checkout before the sites can even post on their social media!

4. Fast internet connection. This is probably a no brainer, but like I said I wanted to include absolutely everything. When waiting for sites to drop you need to be refreshing the page as fast as possible so you can see the new product page as soon as it appears. If you're not able to refresh a page at least twice per second you're going to lose a lot of time between when it goes live and when you see it. Lan connection is always better then WiFi, so get yourself an ethernet cable if you don't have one.

1. Release Preperation

Throughout the week before a release I generally do a few things to make sure I can take every possible chance to cop the shoe for retail. Luckily i'm outrageously obsessed with sneakers, so even with all this work i'm still having a ton of fun. These are in no particular order, I just do these things multiple times throughout the week beforehand.

• Check Solelinks throughout the week, this is how I keep up to date with when the sneaker is coming out on every site, it also lets me know which are going to be released by raffle, at set times, or at random times so I can prepare for those specifically with my page monitor. Make accounts and enter in all your shipping information before hand, this will save a step that your autofill won't have to do.

• Follow all stores where you think the shoe is going to be dropped online on both twitter and instagram. With the increasing bot problem, stores are getting clever with their releases now. SneakernStuff has done something different for almost every Yeezy release to date and Kith has been known to cancel bot orders and post links that must be used to purchase a shoe. I also recommend this for any local store you have, these will be the best option for copping almost any shoe as you'll just have better odds overall.

• Enter every single online raffle that you possibly can. I know it seems like no one ever wins these, but trust me there are at least a few winners even if the store is backdooring. One of my cousins has won a sneakernstuff raffle and I've seen raffle winning confirmations on facebook posts. I have never won a raffle, but this will not discourage me from entering. Like I said you need to take every opportunity you can.

1.5. Night Before Drop

• Check Solelinks 1 more time, enter any remaining raffles you might have missed, and get all of your page monitors setup for the random release sties. If a site says that they're doing "in-store first", though I can't confirm this, I feel like they always end up releasing pairs online even if it's a hype shoe like Yeezys.

• Fill out your autofill for every site that you're going to try and cop the kicks on. Doing this the night before will take a little bit of stress away the day of and helps out in case you need to do something last minute. DOUBLE AND TRIPLE CHECK THIS INFORMATION. You need to be 100% confident when checking out that your information is correct so that you don't even have to read over it, those precious seconds you'll lose could be enough time for the shoes to sellout. Take note of all the sites that require sometime of additional checkbox so you know what to expect before hand, like I said sometimes autofill just won't work with these and I don't know why

• With your autofill setup for all your sites, I recommend practicing checkouts on a few of them. Obviously speed is everything in this game, and if you're fumbling around looking for the submit button you're gonna take the L. This step isn't 100% necessary, but if you're just getting into the game I highly recommend it as you might be a little slow with your mouse clicks.

• Make a HAND WRITTEN list of all of the retailers you'll be attempting to buy from in order of release time. This will keep you organized on the day of release so you always are ready

• Last thing I do is try and get a good amount of sleep and have some snacks ready on hand, those Yeezy saturdays can be long an tiring, but power through!

2. Drop Day

Alright, you've made it to release day with all your preparation. To be perfectly honest, preparation is everything. Drop days are generally just me sitting at my computer with my notes in front of me waiting for the kicks to drop. Here is a list of things I do every single morning beforehand.

1. Wake up early, i mean like 5-6 AM early if you can. There are plenty of international retailers that ship worldwide, i've copped several pairs from overseas when I started waking up this early. For shoe's that aren't outrageously hype (GR Ultra boost, low key adidas collabs, asics collabs, etc), You'll find that this step isn't essential once you start getting faster with checking out, but I still recommend it early on as it will give you the opportunityto practice checking out on several different sites and thus speed up your checkout time.

2. Restart your computer if you haven't. I'm no computer engineer, but my computer is definitely faster the same day that I restarted it last.

3. If it's a Yeezy release, AND ONLY IF ITS A YEEZY RELEASE. Get yourself a nice Kanye playlist going. This will help with you Yeezus chakras and make it easier for you to cop. Okay, but for real all you actually need is Gold Digger on repeat. I legit have a 100% success rate when I have this playing on loop during the adidas.com queue line.

In no particular order, here are the things I do during the drop day to try and cop a pair for retail.

• Refresh the page every so often for the next upcoming drop on your list. Sometimes your page monitor just won't go off, or maybe the kicks will drop earlier, hopefully you'll still be able to catch them even if these happens. Do not spam refresh until about a minute before the drop, a lot of sites will IP ban you now if you do this.

• Quick note about queue sties (adidas.com, UBIQ, etc), make sure to only you 1 browser and 1 tab per device. All of these sites check for repeated IP addresses, and though I can't confirm this I feel like it make its harder to get through the queue. If you want more tips on queue sites, check my adidas.com guide near the end of this post.

• With every release that passes for the day, turn off your page monitor and cross off each one that passes on your hand-written list. This will just help you stay organized and speed up your chrome by a hair by not running that monitor in the background.

• Have social media notifications on for all of the random release sites. Like I said I have seen retailers released the shoes and have them only accessible by link on a tweet or Instagram post. If this does happen, you might have to use your phone to be as fast as possible. Make sure you have your PayPal info ready to go, as this will most likely be the fastest way to checkout for most sites if you need to use mobile.

3. Post Drop

Okay, so hopefully at this point you've copped the kicks you were going for, but here's what you should do if you weren't so lucky.

• Take note on what went wrong so you can improve next time. Every single drop that I've taken an L on, I've learned from to apply to the next release. Whether it be forgetting my PP password, forgetting to setup page monitors, accidentally entering the same email on adidas.com when trying to cop your 2nd pair of Bred V2s for your homie (I'm still salty about that one), etc. Make your own personal guide on how to improve for the next time, you'll definitely start copping pairs if you keep at it!

• Stay alert on social media, you never know when potential restocks might happen.  

#SITE SPECIFIC GUIDES

adidas.com

I have no secret way of getting through the queue wait line, but I do have a method that has gotten me through consistently on the past few releases. USE FIREFOX. I know I said to use chrome for everything else, but this is the only exception. For some reason myself and many others have encountered problems with captcha, adding to cart, and checking out when it comes to chrome. I never have any problems using FireFox, i've actually made every Yeezy purchase using this browser if that helps convince you. I use 3 devices when I wait in the queue: 1 computer or laptop on lan connection, 1 laptop or iPad or cellphone on wifi, and my cellphone on mobile data. DO NOT USE MULTIPLE TABS OR BROWSERS. I stated this earlier in the guide, but it does not help and might even make your chances worse.

*Edit: Quick note here guys, a lot of people have been telling me they have had success with multiple browsers or tabs. I for one have not, so i'll be sticking with my method. Until there is a definitive answer to which is better, the choice is yours!

I have also found that using multiple devices on the same network makes it harder to get through. Obviously I have no way of proving this, it's just what I've found in my experience when running multiple devices on the same wifi network and none getting through on the splash page. Once you get through the splash page, be persistent and keep adding to cart even if it says not in stock. During the Bred V2 release I was unable to add a size 10 to cart (Or any size for that matter) for several minutes, but eventually they were added. If for some reason you get the Yeezys into your cart and you're unable to checkout before the timer goes down, add something else to your cart (Socks, cap, etc.) and it will reset your timer. However with all of the recent Yeezy releases, checking out has been a breeze. One last tip, have two or more separate accounts logged in with two or more different email addresses, billing addresses, phone numbers, and methods of payment. You never know when you be luckiest dude alive and get through on multiple devices, copping two pairs at once is the best feeling ever.  

Shopify Sites

A lot of retailers use shopify for the checkout process as it's fast and reliable even with the outrageous amounts of traffics they get during releases. Retailers that use this would include: Kith, ShopNiceKicks, Social Status, Yeezy Supply, etc. Besides using autofill and having your account logged in before the drop, there's one more step you can do to speed up your checkout. A few minutes before the release, do this every so often if it's a random release time like Kith, go through the checkout steps on a random item. This will make it so that when you checkout with the next item, it will skip ALL of the shipping steps and take you directly to payment. This saves 1-2 screens and precious seconds to get your purchase through!  

#LAST THOUGHTS:

Getting every shoe for retail is not easy (I still don't achieve this despite my track record on the last post), and to be honest even with this detailed guide you're still probably going to take some L's the first few times. A lot of people said in the comments of the previous post that there is no secret that will allow you to being successful every time from right out the gate, and while that is true, i'm hoping that this guide will at least help users understand that there is a best way to approach each drop and it can be done if you put in the effort. Keep grinding and putting in the work, and you'll be copping kicks for retail in no time!

#FIN

I hope everyone that took time out of their day was able to get something out of this guide, I really wanted to put everything into one collective post for those who may just be getting into the game or just need a few pointers to get past those few initial L's. Sorry it's so long, I wanted to include everything and kept it as short as possible.

 

Lastly please leave feedback on how I can improve this guide further. I spent a lot of time on this in the last day and I would love to get it to the point where there is a single place to reference any new members to with regards of getting kicks for retail. Leave any questions your might have below too, hopefully I can help get some members in the sub some W's!