Bargain bins: Downtown Peoria store features returned items from Target, Amazon and TJ Maxx - Peoria Journal Star

PEORIA — A laptop for $8. Clothes, toys, household items: Everything in the store is $8.

UFS in downtown Peoria has joined a hot shopping trend with its new venture, The Bins at UFS.

The Bins is located across the parking lot from the main UFS store at 1800 SW Adams in Peoria. The longtime bargain business will stock The Bins every Thursday with loads of overstock, shelf pulls and returns from Amazon, Target, TJ Maxx and others.

The products are sold directly out of the box on Fridays for $8. Then on Saturdays, the price drops to $7 for everything in the store, then $5 on Mondays, $3 on Tuesdays and $1 on Wednesdays.

Thursday brings new truckloads and restarts the price cycle at $8. Store hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The store is closed on Sundays and Thursdays, the latter for re-stocking.

"We're set up in our old appliance and cabinet building," UFS spokesman David Miller said Sunday. "Our grand opening is Friday (April 29). But we had a soft opening over the weekend and it just blew us away. We opened at 9 a.m. and were busy every second until we closed."

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The Bins at UFS is a trip back to the roots of the Wiegand family-owned company, which began more than three-quarters of a century ago and is now in its third generation under store President Gerard Wiegand. 

"In 1945, UFS began as the Unclaimed Freight Store by purchasing unclaimed freight from the freight yards for pennies on the dollar and re-sold the merchandise to locals at incredibly low prices," Wiegand said. "In a lot of ways, this is unclaimed freight for the modern age."

Dave Eminian can be reached at 309-686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.