The magnet has nothing that electricity does not have. Electricity causes magnets to work, and magnets create electricity when they move. The way that iron magnets are set up is a bit more complicated, but at the end of the day, electricity and magnetism are the same force.

You can buy the magnet at a store, and it will be magnetic "forever", unless it's a weak magnet and you drop it a lot. You don't need to pay for electricity or buy batteries to make your magnet work.

Magnets point North and South, but electricity doesn't.

You can also make an electromagnet with a battery for electricity + an an iron nail with copper wire wrapped around it.

I think batteries are stronger now than they used to be. When my kids were young, we could make electromagnets without burning our fingers. Now my fingers burn from the heat, when I hook wires to batteries. My granddaughter says her fingers burned, too, when she made an electromagnet in school.