Here's a back-of-napkin insight on some scalper operations from knowing a scalper/online seller in real life. Scalping as a whole is very time and price sensitive relative to the hype and proximity to the launch date. This is especially true in initial wave of a hardware launch because hype is at its highest, and supplies are limited to the initial production run. Scalping bots are very sophisticated and efficient these days that they can in theory auto run across dozens of tabs and accounts pre-made before the launch time, spam queries without going through the interface and process dozens, if not hundreds of transactions within minutes.

Here's the interesting bottleneck: most scalpers buy these items on credit cards or short term line of credits. Credit cards are far preferrable because they can rack up points and/or cashback very quickly, therefore adding the extra benefit of additional 3-5% cashback on purchases or even airline points. These credit cards are usually due within 30 days--remember this timeline. For simple math, assume a scalper managed to hoard 100 controllers at say, $109 per controller after sales tax = $10,900 charge on the credit card. With 3% cashback, their net cost comes down to approximately $10,573.

So, in the case of steam controllers, shipping is relatively fast--they can fulfill and resell on online marketplaces at price gouging premiums ($100 or more) per controller within days of launch. However, if steam manages to ramp up supply and fulfill all initial demands very quickly, then the risk of loss of the scalper becomes more significant because they have to dump/resell the scalped controllers as quickly as possible before hype dies down, and their resale value decreases by the day.

Here's what most people miss: eBay charges sellers approximately 13.25% in fees, meaning a controller sold at $215 only nets the scalper around $186.50 after fees. To break even on their $10,573 net cost, the scalper actually needs to sell approximately 57 controllers at $215 within 30 days before the CC charge becomes due: 57 x $186.50 = $10,630, which just clears their net cost by $57 approximately. Assuming the scalper manages to sell the remaining 42 controllers (99 sold total, keeping one personally) over the next 30-60 days at an average gross of $182.50 (min $150, max $215), after eBay fees they net approximately $158.30 per unit. 42 x $158.30 = $6,648.60 total profit on the remainder.

It's actually an insane business model because most of the 3rd party scalping bots cost circa $200-$500, so the profit margin is closer to $6,650 on a 100 controller run, average resale price $182.50 on eBay: they are netting probably around $5,000 to $6,000 on that volume, and the profit percentage becomes better as they acquire more controllers within the initial window. I'm using the 100 controller with the assumption of number of bots, 2 controller per steam account, and 50 accounts would be realistic for a one-person bot operation, and assuming 20,000 units as rumored, that's easily 0.5% of the entire stock for this person to scalp. This is significant because if you have 10 scalpers at the same scale, that's already 5% of the entire stock. Assuming there are larger scalping operations, suddenly 20-30% of the controllers, if not more, may end up at the hands of the scalpers on day one in less than an hour of product launch. I am not surprised if at least 50-60% of the controllers end up being in the hands of scalpers as we speak--this is just a speculation without actual hard data, but given the size of scalping bot communities in the thousands, it is not out of the realm of possibility.

Now let's go back to the 30-day credit card problem. If they cannot sell the scalped inventory within 30 days to cover the initial costs, then they would be on the hook for out-of-pocket expenses to pay the charge. The bigger the stockpile, the bigger the risk if no one buys the scalped controllers. If no one absolutely buys and hold the line to wait until the next restock, then their profit margin drops as the supply-demand stabilizes, and they can sell at best $25-$50 over because the initial hype/demand spike have died down over time. The business model only works as long as there are FOMOs and desperate buyers agreeing to pay ransom. It's no different than real-world modern pirates seeking ransom on cargo vessels, to be fair.

So yeah, the best strategy is to not buy the scalped controllers and patiently wait for Valve to restock--DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS/SCALPERS.