Nike explains why Air Jordan 1 'Lost and Found' shock drop failed: "Third-party scaling issue"

The Beaverton, Oregon-based sportswear giant Nike and its partnership with Michael Jordan has produced one of the most successful sneaker lines of all timme with Air Jordan.

The duo have continued to send waves within the sneaker industry with its iconic releases and amazing restocks. The label hardly slips, however, recently it disappointed many fans.

The Swoosh label recently teased a restock of the greatly desired Air Jordan 1 "Lost and Found" on April 20, 2023. Later, the Swoosh label was unable to restock the sneaker colorway.

Now, the Swoosh label has finally spoken out about the reason behind the cancelation, as the media outlet Complex reported. At the media event at Nike S23 Studio, Lucy Rouse, the SNKRS VP commented:

"We had a challenge with a third-party scaling issue, which basically prevented us from being able to handle the traffic for that particular launch."

The April 20, 2023 restock was teased by Nike a week in advance and the restock was marred by checkout issues, which made the sneakers more unattainable.

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More about the cancelation of the Nike Air Jordan 1 "Lost and Found" sneakers

More about the cancelation of the Nike Air Jordan 1 "Lost and Found" sneakers (Image via Nike)

One of the most famous offerings from the Jordan brand is the Chicago colorway, which is a mix of black, red, and white hues upon the upper. The drop of the Chicago colorway became the most anticipated by fans as they reminiscize on Michael Jordan's heyday as a professional basketball player.

Nike hinted at the possible restocking of the colorway as they asked their users posting a poll on SNKRS app asking the community what they would do if the sneaker model was to restock.

Later, multiple media outlets confirmed the sneakers will be dropping, however, it was proven to be fake as the drop didn't happen.

Now, Lucy Rouse, the SNKRS VP from Nike has explained why the drop was canceled. The April 20, 2023, restock was marred by the checkout issues. The SNKRS group realized that many error messages were being bombarded to the users during the launch.

To fix the problem, the SNKRS group activated a triage team and went for a third-part vendor. Rouse commented upon how the SNKRS app is committed to fairness and transparency, she said:

“A ton of different things can happen and every situation is unique, whether it’s bad actors scraping the backend of our platform to leak when drops are launching or third-party partner tools breaking down. And, of course, our apps are also constantly tested by record traffic from legitimate users and bots, driven by continued interest in our most coveted products."

She further said:

"As such, we sometimes encounter new and unexpected bugs, but are committed to continue to innovate in the ways that we support our users and update our experiences to handle the scale that we see on a daily basis.”

Rouse said that bots on the app comprise 50 percent of the entries for a high-heat launch and hit the app with an average 12 billion monthy requests to cheat the release process.

He clarified that the app has up to a 98% success rate in filtering out bots, however, the Air Jordan 1 "Lost and Found" restock went wrong. Lastly, Rouse said that they know that the team could be better.