Using Laced
Your drop day checklist
Six checks before a Draw goes live: alert set, billing created, right release, right size, low power mode off, and entries started ten to fifteen minutes out.
Updated
The day before, open the Calendar and tap Alert Me on the release you want.
The alert arrives thirty minutes before the drop. The calendar only covers the next seven days, so a release further out will not be listed yet.
Open Billing and make sure there is a profile for every entry you plan to run.
Tap Create on a new one. If a detail is wrong, such as an invalid Zip, Laced shows a message and puts a red border on that field, and the profile is not created until you fix it. A day or a few hours ahead is a good habit, but nothing waits on it.
Check that the release selected in the app is the exact one dropping.
Colorways of the same silhouette often sit days apart on the calendar. Confirm the date and the colorway, not just the model name.
Confirm the size on each entry.
Each profile gets one entry per release and one size for that entry. A wrong size is easy to fix before the Draw closes, because you can change it from the Launch page.
Turn off low power mode and put the phone on charge.
Low power mode throttles background work and network activity, which is the wrong state for a timed submission. A dead phone mid window is the same as not entering.
Start your entries ten to fifteen minutes before the Draw goes live, then leave them to run.
Start All spaces the launches out by a fraction of a second, so even a large set is running within a second or two.
Why a list beats knowing what to do
Almost nothing on drop day is difficult. It is just time sensitive, and a window that lasts ten minutes does not forgive a card that expired last month. Every item above is there because it is a failure we see, not because it rounds the list out.
The steps are in the order you should do them. Most of it can be done ahead of time, and only the last two belong to the hour itself.
What is worth doing a day ahead
Billing does not have to be early. When you tap Create, Laced checks what you typed. If something cannot be right, such as an invalid Zip, you get a message and a red border on that field, and you fix it and tap Create again. That is the whole job.
We do recommend creating your profiles a day before, or a few hours at least. It is better safe than sorry, and a mistyped address is a quiet fix on an ordinary afternoon. Nike checks the card and address again when the draw goes live, and the launch shows Address Invalid, Card Invalid or Card Expired if it does not accept them. Starting early cannot bring those up sooner, which is why the details are worth getting right when you create the profile. Billing errors lists what each message means and what actually fixes it.
Setting Alert Me at the same time costs nothing and buys you a thirty minute warning. The calendar runs seven days ahead, so a release you are watching for next month will not appear until it is inside that window.
The two checks people skip
Selecting the wrong release is more common than it sounds. Nike often runs several colorways of one silhouette within a week, the names are close, and a calendar scan at speed picks the wrong row. Check the date and the colorway together.
Size is the other one. Each profile gets a single entry per release, and one size for that entry. Entering a size you would not wear turns a real entry into a spent one, and nothing can be changed once the Draw closes. Before then it is fixable: stop the entry, tap the size shown on the launch, and change it in Edit Launch. If you run several profiles, check them individually rather than assuming they carried over.
Timing, honestly
Start ten to fifteen minutes before the window, then leave it alone. The size of the set does not change that. Start All spaces the launches out by a fraction of a second, so a big set does not need extra room.
None of this makes any single entry more likely to be selected. A Draw picks at random after the close, and the mechanics do not care when you pressed Start. The reason to be early is narrower and still worth it: an entry submitted inside the window counts, and one that did not get started does not.
Once the draw goes live, stop touching things
Leave the app in the foreground, leave billing alone, and let the log cards run. Changing things in the middle of a window is how a good set-up gets disturbed at the worst possible moment. What happens during a drop goes through the rest.
If something goes wrong
Create will not go through on a billing profile
Why it happens: A detail was not accepted. Laced shows a message and puts a red border on the field that is wrong.
Fix the field with the red border and tap Create again. Do not retype everything at once.
A launch shows Address Invalid, Card Invalid or Card Expired
Why it happens: Nike did not accept the address or the card when the draw went live.
Open the profile in Billing and correct the field the error points to before the next release. That is Address Line 1 for Address Invalid and the number or expiry for the two card errors. Starting early does not bring these up sooner, because Nike only answers once the draw is live. Billing errors has the detail.
You realise the size is wrong after the draw has gone live
Why it happens: The entry was created with the wrong size and has already been started.
Stop that entry, tap the size shown on the launch to open Edit Launch, correct it, and start the entry again only if the window is still open. You do not need to create it from scratch. Once the Draw closes there is nothing to change.
Questions people ask
How early should I start my entries?
Ten to fifteen minutes before the Draw goes live, then leave them to run. Start All spaces the launches out by a fraction of a second, so even a large set is running within a second or two.
Does starting earlier help my entry?
No. A Draw closes at a set time and selects at random from everyone inside the window, so an early entry and a late one are treated the same. Starting early only protects you from missing the window.
Why does low power mode matter?
It throttles network and background activity to save battery, which is the opposite of what a timed submission needs. Turn it off before the window and put the phone on charge instead.
What if I only have one profile?
The checklist is the same, it is just shorter. One free profile gives one entry per release, and ten to fifteen minutes before the window is early enough for a single start.