Stores I Struggle to Explain in 2024

I recently read Gary Weiss’s very good 2022 book Retail Gangster, about Crazy Eddie, a discount retailer that was well-known in New York for its high-pressure sales staff and its screaming commercials touting its “insane!” prices. When I’ve tried to discuss the book and the business with people who are younger or not from the New York metropolitan area, though, I felt like I was speaking a foreign language. Crazy Eddie, and other stores like it, changed the retail world for people interested in consumer electronics, but today, consumers expect to be treated better — and they usually are.