Birch Tree Bookery is Marion, Ohio’s very own used bookstore! Birch Tree opened May 20th, 2023, and has moved locations to 605 East Center Street in November. Because of how recent the store has opened, they are not currently hiring. The owners, Justin and Crystal Bessler, had an opening party on Wednesday the 29th of October, which started at 4:30pm.
Birch Tree’s business has been really positive, given that they sell used and new books for all ages and all general readers, why wouldn’t it be? Crystal says “as word gets out more and more, people are discovering us… and that led to moving to a bigger location.” Justin then stated that “people like the selection of books and how they are treated as customers.” Crystal also mentions that when readers tell others to go to the store, it’s the most positive review they can ask for. So maybe book a date at Birch Tree Bookery!
Of course, like most bookstores, Birch Tree Bookery doesn’t just sell books. Birch Tree’s uprising was brought upon by the owners going to craft shows and selling things like earrings. “Once we opened the book store we kinda just added that in because we didn’t really have time to go to all of the craft fair’s” mentioned Crystal.
Birch Tree Bookery picked Marion as its opening location for a multitude of reasons. “Reading and attachment to books has increased since the pandemic. We’ve needed a bookstore,” stated Justin. Crystal added onto this, saying “there wasn’t a book store since 2020 …We wanted to fill that need in Marion.” Both owners are also passionate readers.
Being a used bookstore, Birch Tree Bookery gets its books in interesting ways. New books are purchased normally through publishers, while used books are obtained by garage sales, estate sales, facebook marketplace, church sales, library sales, and thrift stores. Crystal even mentioned donations. “Once we announced that we were opening and accepting donations, we've got multiple.”
Book Tree Bookery has also come into a unique position considering Harding High School's book club. “I guess we are now a vendor of records… the students who get to select books, we get to provide those books” said Justin.
Birch Tree also plans to do multiple of its own book clubs for different genres of books. However they can’t cover all genres, so people will be allowed to host their own book clubs!
Birch Tree Bookery loves to support the community, schools, and other small businesses. They even want to start selling local artists' work in the front of their store. “We want to have some local artists that would come set it up and then as we sell it we would give them set it up and then as we sell it we would give them the proceeds for it. We also want local authors” mentioned Crystal. Justin also went to talk about it in more detail. “We use a consignment model so typically like, if the artist is of professional age we’ll probably charge a percentage of what they got paid to display the artwork. But for high school level students … we'll waive the consignment fee so they can earn more.”
Birch Tree Bookery is closed Sunday-Tuesday, and open Wednesday’s, 10am till 3pm. Thursday-Friday, 12pm till 7pm. And Saturday’s, 11am till 7pm.