Desperate Parents Turn to Shopping Bots to Hunt for Hottest Christmas Gifts

Frustrated by empty store shelves, some parents are turning to a new kind of Santa’s helper: the consumer-friendly shopping bot.

Shopping bots scour retail sites to find out when sold-out items get restocked and automatically place orders. Long used by resellers looking to buy and flip high-demand goods for a profit, the technology is now being used by desperate holiday shoppers, too.