photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Top Shelf Savings, and its unique pricing strategy, is pictured on July 25, 2025.

As a 16-year old in Overland Park, Jawad Albadawi watched what his parents — immigrants from Syria — were doing. His dad was working 20-hour shifts with Uber and his mom was working any number of odd jobs to make ends meet.

Albadawi knew the one thing he wasn’t going to do: Nothing.

“I was like, I’m not just going to sit here and not do anything,” Albadawi said.

So, he joined Facebook.

No, he wasn’t catching up. He was cashing in. He used Facebook’s marketplace feature to “flip” many items that he had purchased. Then, he discovered that Amazon was an even better place to resell items.

Now, about five years later, he’s betting that a space that used to be a second-hand clothing store in The Malls Shopping Center at 23rd and Louisiana streets will be a great place to not only sell a menagerie of items, but also to introduce Lawrence residents to an adventurous way of buying.

Albadawi is the co-owner of Top Shelf Savings located at 23rd and Louisiana streets in the same shopping center that houses Westlake Hardware. There, you will find everything from food to beauty supplies, with many of the items coming from the cache of overstocked items at big brands such as CVS, Walgreens and Sam’s Club.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Top Shelf Savings at 23rd and Louisiana streets is pictured on July 25, 2025

So, what’s adventurous about all of this? The price and the calendar, mainly. Every item in the store is the same price, but that price varies depending on the day of the week.

On Saturday, when the shelves are fully stocked, every item in the store is $12. On Sunday, the shelves have a few empty spaces on them, and every item is $10. Monday: $8. Tuesday: $7 and growing vacancies on the shelves. Wednesday: $6. Thursday: $4. Friday: $2 and crossed fingers that the item you’re hoping for is still there.

There’s no restocking of items during the course of the week. Instead, the store adds new merchandise only after closing on Friday. A new truck arrives with an entirely new set of merchandise. And, then, Albadawi can empathize with his father’s work schedule. Albadawi and his business partner, Baha Ibrahim, work a 20-hour shift removing the few items that haven’t sold from the previous week with new items off the truck.

“The inventory you see this week will maybe not be here the next week,” Albadawi said.

Ah, strategy. How badly do you want this, and how badly do you think somebody else does? Some people play chess, others play shopping. (One is about check, while the other is usually about credit, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, Mastercard will send you a reminder once a month.)

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Jawad Albadawi staffs the counter at Top Shelf Savings on July 25, 2025.

The retail concept has popped up in cities around the country as online re-sellers begin to fine tune the economics of online retailing. This is Albadawi’s first brick-and-mortar store. He said he continues to sell merchandise online, but realized that some items are best suited for in-person sales.

Many times those are lower-priced items. The problem with selling lower-cost items online is that you then have to ship the item to the customer. Sometimes the shipping costs can be as much or more as the price of the item.

Thus, good, old-fashioned brick-and-mortar retail to the rescue. In Lawrence, the strategy has worked so far, so good, Albadawi said. The store has been open about two weeks, and already has had a couple of viral TikTok posts where customers have shown merchandise that would have cost them around $200 at a discount retailer but cost them about $30 at Top Shelf.

As for what type of items a shopper is likely to find, Albadawi said currently some of the most popular items are CeraVe beauty supplies, some high-end sunscreens, hair products, and the grocery section, which currently is the largest offering in the store.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Merchandise is pictured at Top Shelf Savings on July 25, 2025.

Albadawi said the business does a lot of buying from Sam’s Club. That includes overstocked items, but also items that had to be pulled from a shelf or never made it to a shelf to begin, usually because the box or packaging became damaged on the pallet.

On Friday — $2 day — a good percentage of the food items appeared to fall into that category, thus if aesthetics is a top goal for your food purchases, you might want to shop earlier in the week.

But Albadawi stressed that while some of the items may have damaged packaging, none of the items are used or returned merchandise. Everything in the store is new merchandise, he said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Food items in a bin at Top Shelf Savings are pictured on July 25, 2025.

Soon, expect the store to have a lot more clothing, Albadawi said. Clothing racks are set to be installed in the store in the coming days, he said.

That’s one project that is underway. Another is the opening of a new store in Topeka, likely next month.

All of that from a business owner who still is a bit young to be a college graduate. Albadawi said when he graduated high school he had to make the tough decision about whether to go to college. Ultimately, he didn’t, and instead went to the warehouse. He already had one by the time he was leaving high school. Now, he and his business partner have two, including an 18,000-square foot facility in the downtown Kansas City area.

The warehouses are key because when companies like Sam’s Club or Walgreens have items they are looking move at a cheap price, you have to be able to act fast and have enough storage space to handle the large quantities that the retailers require you to purchase.

Right now, that means having enough space to buy a lot of Christmas items. The warehouse is filling up with that sort of holiday merchandise, so expect some of that to make its way to the Lawrence store this fall.

There are other ins-and-outs of the internet buying-and-selling world that are key to making the business work, Albadawi said. But, perhaps the biggest lesson isn’t one learned on line, but rather through a set of immigrant parents. Watching a father work 20-hour Uber shifts is one way to formulate a solid business strategy.


”It is just work, work, work,” Albadawi said of the key to success in the business.

In other words, no time to do nothing.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Bins of food items, each containing dozens of different products, are displayed at Top Shelf Savings on July 25, 2025.