Foundation · 2 min
What you need to know
What are ecommerce bots?
Ecommerce bots are automated programs that browse or act on store services. They range from legitimate search crawlers to abusive account, payment and inventory automation.
Are all bots bad?
No. Search indexing, accessibility tools, monitoring and approved integrations may use automation. Judge behavior, identity, permission and impact rather than blocking every non-human request.
What is credential stuffing?
Credential stuffing uses username-password pairs stolen elsewhere to attempt logins at scale. Password reuse turns another company’s breach into an ecommerce account risk.
What is card testing?
Card testing submits many small or varied payment attempts to discover which stolen card details work. It can cause fees, fraud, and harm to cardholders.
What is inventory hoarding?
Inventory hoarding uses automated carts or checkouts to reserve scarce stock and prevent legitimate purchases, often for resale advantage or disruption.
What is scraping in ecommerce?
Scraping automatically collects product, price, stock, or other site data. Some collection may be legitimate, while aggressive or prohibited scraping can create load and business risk.
How can merchants reduce automated abuse?
Use behavior-aware rate limits, bot management, MFA, payment and inventory controls, device and network signals, and monitored challenges. Protect the targeted business action, not just page views.
How do I block abuse without blocking legitimate customers?
Apply proportionate friction only when risk rises, offer accessible alternatives, monitor false positives and let support resolve legitimate blocks. Reassess rules using customer outcomes.
A quick store check
Compare bot controls with login, checkout, search and launch abuse patterns and review false-positive customer complaints.
Foundation · 2 min
Frequently asked questions
Should CAPTCHA appear for every shopper?
No. Apply challenges when risk justifies friction and provide accessible alternatives.
Can robots.txt stop malicious scraping?
It communicates crawler preferences but does not enforce security against an abusive client.