[s0rce]

I thought those stores are basically hobbies for the wealthy local commercial landowners that own the building(s). They may anecdotally also be money laundering. They don't need to actually be a profitable business. The only cost to run it is basically lost rent for that space.

[Groxx]

There are so many of them that I've always kinda suspected this, yea. I maybe-literally never saw anyone in any of them across a few years prior to COVID (despite working near enough to two that I saw them multiple times a day). But at the prices they go for I suppose they might only need to sell ~two a month if they got them for dirt cheap somehow, and owned the property or were grandfathered into extremely low rent? Or one person furnishing a mansion a year.