Scalpers across the United States have become a plague in the Pokémon TCG collecting community. From clearing shelves at retailers, to bots buying up online inventory, there's never enough to go around for true collectors or families with kids who want to enjoy the hobby for themselves.

There have been many attempts to discourage scalpers from buying up merchandise. Some of those discouraging tactics are locking items up, limiting quantity per buyer, slicing plastic seals on boxes to prevent resale, raising prices to close the gap between MSRP and resale prices, and in very rare instances testing their Pokémon knowledge prior to purchase. But I believe there is only one tried and true approach to negatively impact the scalpers, and that's print to order.

If the manufacturers of the TCG open pre-orders ahead of every release and count the total number of orders fo fulfill, not only would they have inventory to satisfy all collectors, they will earn significantly more money, as well as dilute the market enough to make the cards and products less valuable during resale.

I definitely agree, scalpers have absolutely taken the fun out of the hobby. I am hopeful that Pokemon will be able to amp up printing once its new facility is complete in the next few years, and hopefully print cards to the point that demand no longer outpaces supply. Using that upgraded capacity to print-to-order isn't a bad idea, if they could work out the logistics.