Bot Protection

Overview

Commerce stores face three major bot threats: scrapers that harvest pricing and inventory data for competitors, scalper bots that buy limited-inventory items instantly, and credential-stuffing bots that test stolen usernames and passwords. Effective bot protection layers platform-level defenses, a WAF (Web Application Firewall), CAPTCHA for high-risk actions, and optional behavioral analysis. For most merchants, Cloudflare provides the most effective and lowest-friction protection — it sits in front of your store regardless of platform.

When to Use This Skill

• When launching limited-edition products prone to scalping (sneakers, concert tickets, gaming consoles)
• When competitors are systematically scraping your product prices or inventory levels
• When account login pages show signs of credential stuffing (high failure rates from distributed IPs)
• When checkout funnel analytics show suspiciously fast completion times (sub-5-second checkout)
• When your infrastructure is overwhelmed by bot traffic consuming catalog API resources

Core Instructions

Step 1: Determine the merchant's platform and choose the right tool