> The retailer really only cares that they sell

In the space of limited special edition stuff, a retailer is not going to last long with that mindset. If a brand gets a reputation that they have lenient buying restrictions, and all their stuff ends up at resellers instead of true enthusiasts, that brand will swiftly become irrelvant.

This article may cause waves in niche for Jordans and Yeezys, and suddenly those products are no longer quite as cool or worth quite as much, simply because now you know it was just some dude buying up stock... it really kind of takes away part of the fun ownership of the stuff in way.

In this case if they create enough supply to match demand the price will fall as they are no longer "limited supply". They would far rather leave money on the table than push it too far and lose the value proposition entirely