Glossary

The words people use around a drop

One sentence each, then the context. If a term sends you somewhere else, the link is there.

Nike SNKRS

Alert Me: Alert Me is the option on the Laced calendar that sends a push notification thirty minutes before a release opens. It does not create or submit an entry on its own. It exists so that a Draw window does not pass while you are doing something else, which is how most people miss most releases.
Draw: A Draw is Nike's entry system for a limited SNKRS release. Entries are accepted during a published window, the window closes, and winners are selected at random from everyone who entered. Where you sat in the queue does not matter, and one Nike account gets one entry per release.
Entry: An entry is one submission to a SNKRS Draw: one Nike account, one release, one size, sent inside the published window. Nike selects winners at random once the window closes. Duplicate entries from the same account are cancelled rather than counted twice.
Exclusive Access: Exclusive Access is an invitation from Nike to buy a SNKRS release without entering a Draw. Nike sends it to selected accounts and does not publish the criteria. It carries a deadline, it belongs to one account, and it cannot be requested, bought or passed to someone else.
FCFS: FCFS stands for first come, first served: a release that sells in real time to whoever completes checkout first, with no entry window and no selection afterwards. Speed and a saved payment method decide it, which is the opposite of how a SNKRS Draw works.
Got 'Em: Got 'Em is the message SNKRS sends when your entry is selected and an order is placed. It arrives after the Draw closes rather than after you enter. It is the start of an order, not the end of one: the pair still has to be paid for with the card on your account and shipped.
Launch: Launch is Nike's word for a SNKRS release: one product, one release time, one mechanic. The word says nothing about how the release is run, so a Launch can be a Draw, a first come, first served drop, or an offer limited to accounts holding Exclusive Access.
Missed 'Em: Missed 'Em is the message SNKRS sends when your entry was not selected. It goes out after the Draw closes, so it can arrive moments after you enter and still say nothing about your timing. On a hyped release it is the result almost everyone gets.
Shock Drop: A Shock Drop is a SNKRS release that goes live with little or no warning instead of appearing on the published calendar first. It usually sells first come, first served and is usually over in minutes, so notifications and an already valid payment method are the only preparation that helps.
SNKRS: SNKRS is Nike's app and website for limited releases. It carries the release calendar, runs Draws and first come, first served drops, takes entries and orders, and sends the Got 'Em or Missed 'Em result. Nike writes the name in capitals, with no vowels.

The Laced app

Billing Profile: A billing profile is the saved card, name and address Laced uses to place an order if one of your entries is selected. You create it once on the Billing screen and it is validated before it can be used, which can take up to sixty seconds. In Laced a billing profile and a profile are the same object, and each one carries one entry per release.
Profile: In Laced, a profile is one saved set of billing and shipping details that can submit a single entry to a given Nike SNKRS release. Your plan sets how many profiles you can run, and each profile is limited to one entry and one size per SKU. More profiles means more entries across a release, not different odds on any one entry.
Start All: Start All is the Laced button that begins every entry you have created for a release, staggering them with short delays rather than sending them together. Starting is a separate step from creating an entry, and an entry that is never started is never submitted. The usual timing is about five minutes before a drop.

Sneaker culture

Cop: To cop is to successfully buy a sneaker you were trying to get, almost always at retail and almost always from a release where supply ran short. It is the opposite of taking an L. On SNKRS, copping needs two separate things to happen: the Draw selects your entry, and the order goes through on your card.
L: An L is a loss. Borrowed from sport, it is used across sneaker culture for any release that did not go your way: an entry that was not selected, a checkout that timed out, a size that sold out while you were looking at it. It is the everyday word for a Missed 'Em.
Mobile Sneaker Bot: Mobile sneaker bot is the phrase people search for when they want help with limited sneaker releases from a phone, without the desktop machine, proxies and extra accounts a traditional bot needs. It names a category rather than any one product, and the tools inside it differ sharply in what they actually automate.
Proxy: A proxy is an intermediate server that makes web traffic appear to come from somewhere else. Sneaker bots use pools of them so that many simultaneous checkout attempts do not all arrive from one address and get blocked. Proxies are rented by the month or by the gigabyte and are a recurring cost of running a bot.
Raffle: Raffle is the word sneaker shops and most of the community use for a random selection that decides who gets to buy a limited release. Nike's own word for the same mechanism in SNKRS is Draw. People use the two interchangeably in conversation, but Nike's help pages and the SNKRS interface both say Draw.
SKU: A SKU is the code that identifies one exact shoe, down to the colourway. Two colours of the same silhouette are two SKUs, with two codes and two lots of stock. SNKRS prints the code on the product page; Nike's own name for it is the style code, and people use the two interchangeably.
Sneaker Bot: A sneaker bot is desktop software that automates checkout on a retailer's site, usually running many accounts behind rotating proxies on a machine that stays switched on. Bots are built for first come, first served releases, where speed decides the outcome. They carry ongoing costs and most retailers prohibit them in their terms.
W: A W is a win. Borrowed from sport, it is used across sneaker culture for any release you managed to get: an entry that was selected, or a checkout that went through before the stock ran out. It is the everyday word for a Got 'Em, and it is also said as a dub.

Resale

Backdoor: Backdooring is stock being diverted inside the supply chain before it ever reaches the public. It is usually a store employee setting pairs aside for a friend or a reseller. It happens at physical retail rather than inside an online Draw, and it is grounds for dismissal at any retailer that catches it.
Resale: Resale is the secondary market for sneakers after they release: pairs bought at retail and sold on at whatever demand will pay. Resale prices are set by buyers rather than by Nike, so they move constantly. The gap between retail and resale is the reason limited releases are contested in the first place.
Retail: Retail is the price Nike sets for a sneaker, and the price you pay if you buy it through SNKRS or a normal retailer. It does not move with demand, which is what makes it the fixed reference point the resale market is quoted against. A pair described as three times retail is being measured against that number.