Reselling bots
Bots that watch for new listings, send alerts to Discord within seconds, or even buy automatically.
- Discord
- Webhooks
- Scraping
- Auto-buy
Topic followed since 2026
Tech watch
Bots and artificial intelligence in online reselling: how automation is changing the way people buy and sell on Vinted, Leboncoin and beyond.
3
Areas followed: bots, AI for selling, limits and rules
−95%
Fewer fake accounts at Vinted after deploying anti-bot protection
89 M
Leboncoin listings searchable from ChatGPT
2 Aug 2026
Chatbots must disclose that they are AI (EU AI Act)
Why this topic
I do some reselling myself, and I write my Vinted listings with AI. In this world, many resellers also use Discord bots that watch for new listings and flag them within seconds, before anyone else.
What interests me is what lies behind them: how these tools work technically (automated requests, webhooks, servers running day and night), and how platforms protect themselves. These are concepts I come across in systems and network administration.
The three areas I follow
AI for selling
A listing generated from a photo: title, description, suggested price. I use it for my own listings.
- ChatGPT
- Vinted
- Leboncoin
Limits and rules
Platform anti-bot protection, scams using generated images, laws against automated reselling.
- Anti-bot
- EU AI Act
- BOTS Act
How a Vinted monitoring bot works
- Watch — the bot queries the platform continuously, using the reseller's filters: brand, size, maximum price, keywords.
- Compare — it remembers the listings it has already seen so that it only flags new ones.
- Alert — as soon as a listing matches, it posts it to a Discord channel through a webhook, a simple web address that publishes a message automatically.
- Run non-stop — the bot is hosted on a server that stays on day and night, often a rented virtual server (VPS).
- Get caught — platforms detect requests that are too fast or too regular, then block the bot or show it a captcha. It is a constant race between bots and anti-bots.
My method
Collect
E-books on e-commerce and content from creators specialised in reselling and AI.
- E-books
- Specialist creators
- Rntox (Instagram)
Sort and check
An influencer is not a reliable source on their own: I check every important piece of news against an official source or a recognised media outlet.
- Official announcements
- Specialist press
Share
A short summary, added to this portfolio and to my oral presentations.
- Personal website
- BTS oral exam
My sources
Rntox (Instagram)
Siècle Digital
MacGeneration
E-commerce Nation
DataDome
FTC
European Commission
Key news
| Topic | Source | Date | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leboncoin writes listings with AI | Siècle Digital | Dec 2024 | From a photo and a title, the AI suggests the description, a price based on similar listings and the delivery method. |
| US executive order against reselling bots | White House | Mar 2025 | Instructs the FTC to strictly enforce the BOTS Act, the law that bans buying tickets in bulk with bots. |
| Vinted deploys anti-bot protection | DataDome | Apr 2025 | AI-based bot protection: 95% fewer fake accounts in three months and real-time scraping detection. |
| The FTC sues Ticketmaster | FTC | Sept 2025 | The ticketing giant is accused of letting resellers get around purchase limits. |
| Leboncoin arrives in ChatGPT | E-commerce Nation | Feb 2026 | 89 million listings searchable in natural language, by text or voice: the next step after bots. |
| AI-image scams on Leboncoin and Vinted | MacGeneration | May 2026 | Fake buyers send AI-generated photos of a damaged parcel or a broken item to obtain a refund. |
| EU AI Act: transparency obligations | European Commission | Aug 2026 | Since 2 August 2026, an online store's chatbot must clearly tell customers that they are talking to an AI. |
What I take away from it
Bots and AI give a real edge to those who know how to use them: being first on a good deal, publishing a listing in seconds. But it is a race: platforms invest in anti-bot protection, and laws are starting to regulate automated reselling and the use of AI.
From an IT point of view, this topic touches on concrete parts of my job: automated requests, APIs, webhooks, hosting a service around the clock, and detecting abnormal traffic, which is very similar to the filtering you configure on a firewall.
