Three Bears thinks outside the big box

WASILLA — The first store to carry the Three Bears Alaska name opened in 1989 in Valdez. And 16 years later the first Valley store, a 51,000-square-foot, mini warehouse, opened on the corner of Trunk Road and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway in July 2005. By the end of February 2008, the growing grocery chain had expanded its Valley presence with a second box store in the Meadow Lakes area.

And Friday morning, the company added its third bear at Mile 6 of Knik-Goose Bay Road.

The chain actually has seven stores overall — in Tok, Seward, Kenai, three in the Valley and one in Butte, Mont. It also owns a small sporting goods store in Tok.

The newest Three Bears is more than 45,000 square feet and features a liquor store, credit union, Outpost sporting goods section and a gas station. The gas station, though, is still not ready for customers.

“Gas won’t get opened up until next week some time,” said Three Bears Alaska President and Chief Executive Officer David Weisz. “There were some problems with the communication aspect of it.”

After a year’s worth of planning and construction, the growing chain opened on schedule Friday.

“It’s been a big push getting it all to come together,” Weisz said Thursday morning as he worked on some last-minute details for Friday’s opening. “We started kicking around the idea of opening another building a little over a year ago. Now we are fine-tuning and getting the last of the product in and on the shelves. We’ve hired about 70 new employees and brought a few over from the other stores.”

Having the other two Valley stores has proven to be a great asset.

“What was really a good advantage for us was having the other two locations because a lot of the new employees have been sent to our other stores for training and to learn the cash registers and all that good stuff,” Weisz said.

If location, location, location is a big part of success for any business, the location Three Bears chose for the new store sits in one of the fastest growing areas of the Valley. According to U.S. Census numbers, the Knik-Fairview area between the Parks Highway and Point MacKenzie experienced a 111 percent growth spike since 2000. Its 2010 population was 14,923, which translates to a lot of shoppers.

Weisz said he has heard a lot of positive comments about the new store.

“People out in this area have been really excited,” he said.

For Saturday morning shopper and Three Bears fan Stephanie Bailey, the new store means less drive time and a more convenient location.

“We live on Fairview Loop,” said Bailey as she was pushing her cart out to the parking lot along with her son, Rowdy, 10. “I usually go to the Trunk Road Three Bears, so this will be handy, a little closer.”

Assistant Manager Jerry Martin echoed that sentiment.

“I had two or three people tell me yesterday (Friday) they loved this place and they didn’t have to go to Wasilla now,” he said.

Location isn’t the only thing that Three Bears hopes will attract customers. It also focuses on low prices on sporting goods and convenient set up within a box store setting.

Three Bears Alaska Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Paul Sonnenberg admits that how things are done at Three Bears is not the norm for a big box store.

“We are thinking about the customer of the future,” Sonnenberg said. “They are really pressed for time. They just want to get in there and get out.”

With that theory, Three Bears has tried to arrange its stores to make shopping easier and quicker.

“We’ve put our bakery right across from all of our lunchmeats and cheeses,” he said. “We have our cereal next to our milk. We’ve tried to keep that in mind when doing the layout.”

As for prices on sporting goods, Martin said it’s hard for other outlets to compete. Not only does Three Bears sell in bulk, it also has its own outdoor clothing line and is a gun wholesaler.

“Because we are a firearms wholesaler and not a retailer, we beat just about everyone in the Valley as far as guns and ammo prices,” said Martin. “And we have our own line of Grizzly Tech clothing. Three Bears actually owns that.”

Those low prices and popular merchandise have helped the store grow — that, and watching what is selling and what is not, Martin said.

“What we’ve done basically is tried to take what was hot at the other two stores and tried to bring it over here, and what was cold that was over there, like our pharmacy wasn’t doing all that good at first, we left it over there at the Four Corners Trunk Road store,” he said.

Martin said Friday’s opening ran smoothly for the most part.

“We did pretty good, all things considered,” said Martin. “It was a mad house. We are figuring all the bugs and kinks out from opening a brand new store, but we’re looking forward to see how we do on the weekend, especially the holiday weekend.”

Contact Robert DeBerry at robert.deberry@frontiersman.com or 352-2266.