Your interpretation of the merchants desire is incorrect because you are projecting the motivations of speculator onto the merchant, but speculation and being a merchant are incompatible uses for money.
Except I'm not talking about speculators. Just about the incentives any typical holder of a currency would have and I'm sure the OP was as well. I mean it's certainly a fair point about how a lot of revenue goes into restocking, but merchants are human too and want to put some money aside as savings just as much as their customers do. So do their employees. Or their suppliers, for that matter.