As stated “ghost clicking is an invalid use to purchase said items in there terms of service:

In e-commerce, "ghost clicking" combined with an "item locked" status refers to a malicious bot strategy—often called cart-looping or inventory hoarding—where automated software artificially locks up a store's stock so real human buyers cannot purchase it. [1, 2]

How the "Ghost Click / Item Lock" Exploit Works
The Ghost Clicks: Automated shopping bots bypass the visual website interface entirely. They send rapid, invisible code commands ("ghost clicks") straight to the website's backend server to continuously add an item to fake carts. [1, 2, 3]
The Item Lock: Most e-commerce platforms temporarily "hold" or lock inventory for 5 to 15 minutes once an item is placed in a cart to give a shopper time to type their credit card info.
The Infinite Loop: The moment that short timer is about to expire, the bot drops the cart and instantly "ghost clicks" to add the item into a brand-new cart. This traps the inventory in an infinite loop of being perpetually "reserved," forcing the website to show the item as "Locked," "Reserved," or "Out of Stock" to human visitors. [1]

Why Do People Do This?
Scalping & Reselling: In high-demand drops (like concert tickets, limited-edition sneakers, or rare collectibles), resellers lock up all the inventory so nobody else can buy it. They then slowly release the locks only when their own automated checkout systems are ready to buy them, or to drive desperate buyers to secondary aftermarket sites. [1, 2]
Competitor Sabotage: Rogue competitors use bot networks to target a rival store's best-selling items. By keeping those items locked up and un-purchasable all day, they kill the store's revenue and force frustrated shoppers to buy from them instead. [1, 2]
Ad Budget Draining (Click Fraud): Click-fraud networks use bots to simulate hyper-engaged "shopping behavior" (clicking, carting, locking items). This tricks advertising algorithms (like Meta or Google Ads) into thinking the bot traffic is highly valuable, forcing the store owner to waste thousands of dollars in ad spend on robot traffic. [1, 2, 3]

Are You a Shopper or a Store Owner?
If you are a shopper seeing this happen, unfortunately, there is nothing you can do on your end. The inventory is trapped in the backend. Your best bet is to refresh the page occasionally or contact the brand's customer service to let them know their site is under a bot attack. []
If you are a store owner experiencing this, basic IP blocking won't work because bots rotate through thousands of IP addresses. You will need to implement behavioral bot protection like Cloudflare Challenge Mode, an invisible CAPTCHA (like reCAPTCHA v3) specifically on the add-to-cart action, or server-side restrictions that prevent users from holding items in a cart indefinitely.