I mean, the act of people scalping stuff has existed before the digital age. Even a century ago: scalpers would pay a third party to hold a spot in line on purchasing concert or theater tickets to resell at a higher price since the internet didn’t exist back then. Like, in the 90s: scalpers showed up in person (paying someone to hold the spot for you whilst in line) for acquisition of the product, that’s how they’ve done it.
At the time, pre-orders for an upcoming console or game were done in store (you physically went there placing an order after seeing an ad on TV or a magazine). But, how common were scalpers during that era? It would be like a group of scalpers pretending not to know each other or split into smaller groups heading to different retailers on buying the same product whilst playing as another customer.
Not sure, but my experience is when I was a kid my parents told me later on that they couldn’t really afford to get me a console, but they were able to get one for a fraction of the price by buying one off the back of a truck which was a lot more common back then for lower income neighborhoods. Lots of stolen goods sold locally that way as long as you had the hookup. As for games the only thing I remember was in the 90s some of my asian friends had some awesome toys from chinatown. They had this adapter that plugged into the snes and it played games that were on cards which were basically copied roms so you didnt have to buy full games anymore. My mind was blown at the time. Idk about scalpers, but this was what I remember for that market at the time.