Let me start by saying, regardless, I'm glad they're acknowledging things. That's a good sign. A lot like
@Skeleton Liar I'm going to hope for the best but I'm only going to believe it when I see it.
I'd love to believe that Pokémon will do their best to improve their supply, and I completely understand the difficulties the pandemic has wrought upon the supply chain of basically any business and industry. It's inevitable that there were going to be issues and any sensible person would understand this.
However... They haven't been printing to demand since Hidden Fates came out. Which is why I'm remaining cautious on how much this is going to change things. Returning to the Hidden Fates level of stock isn't going to fix issues at all. So are they going to make an attempt to go beyond that? Or are they going to try and just go back to that old level of "Normal," where we're still going to have scalpers and whatnot buy everything out, just in greater numbers.
I'd like to remain hopeful that the former is what will happen, if not anytime soon, then once the pandemic, who knows when, settles some more and the supply chain is able to fully work to the levels it would in a normal situation. I understand the difficulties, as said before, but I also hope Pokemon takes the time to analyze the supply and demand situation and adapt. Otherwise, nothing will be solved, even post-pandemic.
As an aside-and I don't know how feasible this is- I think both a preorder
window and/or the ability to backorder, would be a great way to combat the scalping issue. Giving customers a preorder window could give them a time to order what they want (within a certain limitation per person, of course) of the new release, Pokemon produces it
to order, and then everyone who ordered gets their shipment of it, so long as they ordered within the preorder time period.
Backordering too, would allow for more reserves to be made even if the product goes out of stock. I did this with some Lego products that went out of stock the day they came out, and although there was some waiting, the point was
I still got what I wanted. Even though it took some time to wait, which is fine, that backorder still allowed me to get the product even though I technically "missed" it. Pokemon allowing this for product releases would help as well, though scalpers would still be an issue. There would just have to be sufficient enough shipments to ensure that those who can backorder have ample time to do so.
Granted, I'm no supply chain manager, but I think if other industries can do this, Pokemon is well able to as well. They're only losing out by not giving the supply that matches the demand. Scalpers will always be an issue, don't get me wrong, but whatever improvement we can get we should encourage.