First-come-first-served
Whoever refreshes fastest wins, which in practice means bots, scripts and resellers. Real customers lose before the page finishes loading, and the brand takes the blame.
Run a fair, verifiable product drawing for any drop.
A product drawing gives every customer the same odds at a limited release. Drop Loop runs the whole thing — verified entrants, a random drawing anyone can check, claim windows and standbys — behind one API, on your storefront or ours.
Three ways to sell out. Only one is fair.
When demand outruns supply, how you allocate is the product experience.
A homemade raffle
A spreadsheet and a random number pick winners nobody can check. One person with ten accounts holds ten tickets, and when the community asks how the draw was run there is nothing to show them.
A product drawing on Drop Loop
Entries stay open for days, one verified phone number means one set of odds, the drawing runs from a seed committed before anyone could influence it, and every result can be replayed by the public.
How a product drawing runs on Drop Loop
From publish to the last claimed unit, the platform does the work and your systems hear about every step through signed webhooks.
- 01
Publish the drawing
Describe the item — variants and stock — and set the window: when entries open and close, how many winners and standbys per variant, the entry cap per person and the claim window. Schedule it and it opens on time.
- 02
Customers enter
From your own storefront or the hosted one under your brand. Each entrant verifies a phone number by SMS once; a number belongs to exactly one account, so nobody can multiply their odds with burner accounts.
- 03
The drawing runs itself
At close a random seed is committed as a SHA-256 hash and entries lock. The drawing picks winners and standbys from that seed, records every pick, and reveals the seed with the result.
- 04
Winners claim on a clock
Each winner gets a time-boxed option to purchase with a reminder before it expires. A claim becomes an order in your systems; payment and shipping never leave them.
- 05
Standbys fill every gap
A declined or lapsed claim promotes the next standby by rank with a claim window of their own, until your inventory is spoken for. No manual re-draws, no second round of emails.
Built for
Any release smaller than the demand for it.
Sneaker and streetwear drops
The releases that invented the problem. Size-level allocations, per-person caps and a public verification link for the community.
Limited editions and collectibles
Numbered prints, vinyl pressings, watches, trading cards: any run smaller than the demand for it.
Restocks and pre-orders
Allocate a scarce restock without a midnight scramble, and give people who missed out a standby place that means something.
Member and loyalty releases
Entry rules and fairness pools favour an invite list, verified accounts or customers who have never won — without excluding everyone else.
Product drawing questions
- What is a product drawing?
- A product drawing is a way to allocate a limited release when demand exceeds supply. Instead of selling to whoever clicks first, customers enter during an open window and winners are selected at random, each receiving a time-boxed option to purchase. It is a lottery for the right to buy, not a giveaway.
- How is a product drawing different from a raffle?
- A raffle usually sells tickets and awards a prize. A product drawing awards the option to purchase at the normal price: entering is free, winning gives you a claim window, and if you do not claim the next standby is promoted. Drop Loop runs it that way and never touches payment.
- How do you prove a product drawing was fair?
- When the drawing closes, a random seed is committed as a SHA-256 hash before the entrant list is final. The drawing picks from a random source seeded with it and records the entrant snapshot and the random value behind each pick. The result reveals the seed, the entrant hash and the algorithm, and a public verification endpoint replays the drawing so anyone can check the outcome.
- How do you stop one person entering a drawing many times?
- Entering requires a phone number verified by SMS, and each number is reserved to exactly one account per host. A person can place several entries only up to the cap you set, and bonus odds for loyal customers never become extra winnable units.
- Do I need a new storefront to run a product drawing?
- No. Drop Loop is an API. Run drawings on the hosted storefront under your brand, build entry into your own site with the public endpoints, or go fully headless behind the commerce stack you already have. Signed webhooks tell your systems about every step.
Ship your next drop on the API.
Get a host provisioned, an API key issued and a webhook pointed at your stack — then run a real draw end to end.