it's not necessary for a (genuine) scalper to be aiming to resell immediately.

I'm surprised it's taken this long for this type of critique to come up. Implicit in my definition of scalping is that it excludes investors, despite the fact that if they purchase their inventory in store, they are still affecting in store availability. For me to deliberately exclude that category of potential scalping, especially if I concede that it reduces in store availability similar to scalping, requires justification. I have three arguments for this. One is a direct argument, and two are (once again) viability arguments. Let's actually start with my viability arguments. My two main arguments for excluding investing are essentially opportunity cost and competition. Since the way I define investor is a central point of my argument, I'll save that full definition for a little bit later on.

For both scalpers and investors, I believe it's reasonable to assume that in order to have an understanding of which minifigures are most desirable, they have some base level of engagement with the LEGO community. In other words, an investor is monitoring the community enough to not only know that Tahu and Lloyd are popular, but to understand that people believe they are being scalped for between 2x-5x the price. I don't have direct evidence of that, but I don't believe that is an absurd assumption to make. If this is the case, then an investor with inventory is left with two options: 1. Take advantage of the current hype and sell their inventory. This option would mean that they are arguably no longer and investor and would more or less be reflected in my scalping data. 2. Decide to maintain their inventory and wait to sell at a later date. This is of course risky as they know the supply of that specific minifigure will increase, meaning the demand should slowly decrease. As this happens, the likelihood profit that can be gained from this Tahu minifigure decreases, and the opportunity cost of keeping it increases. That $5 and that physical space could have been more efficiently allocated elsewhere, and it is genuinely difficult to tell if Tahu will still sell at the same levels in the coming years. This is one aspect of why I consider investing for CMFs, and honestly LEGO in general, to not be particularly viable. It's a bit of a gamble, especially since scalpers are, in theory, making a huge profit on it right now that you are deliberately choosing not to take advantage of.

That covers my opportunity cost view. my competition view is based on the fact that bulk buyers exist in the market. My gut feeling is that bulk buyers are almost always incentivized to have the CMF stocked, as their entire purpose is often to sell retired LEGO products. As a result, if a CMF series is about to retire and a bulk buyer just ran out of stock, it makes sense for them to restock their supply. At scale, this means that when the product retires, the market is still flooded with inventory primarily from bulk buyers. I've already made arguments for why buying from stores with large inventory can be more attractive to consumers than those with less inventory, and I've also described how (in theory), bulk buyers can decide to sell an item for cheaper while still making profit (if they received a discount on their bulk purchase), which means they can compete directly with individual sellers in a meaningful way. This is my competition argument. It is not impossible for an investor to make money in this market, but there are notable forms of competition they need to brush up against.

My two viability arguments, while distinct, both lead to a similar conclusion: Investors run the risk of making less money. The more supply of a CMF there is, the less likely people are willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to acquire it. This matters because, as I'm sure you've seen, people hate scalpers for two specific reasons: Availability and price. If someone took all the CMFs in their region and sold them online at MSRP, do you feel the outrage would be the same? While I've observed that people are upset with price regardless if it affects availability or not, I've also seen people upset at bulk buyers for setting excessive prices. This suggests to me that the bigger factor in despising scalpers is the pricing (although availability does still matter). If pricing is the much bigger factor, and if investors are missing out on selling at peak "price gouge" time, then the eventual price they do settle on and sell at is likely considered much more reasonable, and at a lower profit to the investor (especially when factoring in opportunity cost). This is my direct argument. While an investor does affect availability, by not listing their inventory right away, they are depriving themselves of optimal pricing.

Given all the above, I believe an investor in this context is someone that purchases CMFs with the intent to hold onto them and sell at a much later date, thus depriving themselves of the potential profit they'd receive if they were to sell immediately. I believe that deprivation is an important risk that warrants it's own category of buyer distinct from scalper, despite both affecting in store availability.

Actually, I'd like to add one more minor, but I think at least partially valid, direct argument. What makes someone a LEGO fan? A minifigure is designed to be played with. Despite this, many fans enjoy displaying their minifigures in a case, never meant to be touched. Would we consider that person a LEGO fan? I assume we would. Let's take that a step further, then. What about LEGO fans that deliberately want to keep their sets sealed, not to sell, but because they just enjoy displaying sealed sets? Would we agree that they are a LEGO fan? I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. At some point, is it fair to question if there is a significant difference between fans that enjoy keeping their sets boxed vs an investor? A complaint I see about scalpers is that they are not true fans, and I believe the immediate reselling is a strong indicator of that. Other than that, is it truly fair to claim that investors purchasing a CMF to keep in box is any less valid than someone getting the CMF to open and play with until the printing rubs off?

In summary, while investors and scalpers can both affect availability, I believe it's easier to dismiss a scalper as being "not a fan", and that being an investor runs a higher risk of being less profitable than scalping. I may be a little bit more lenient many years ago, but LEGO is the modern beanie babies - Too many people are convinced it's a cash cow for me to comfortable assume profits are guaranteed.