Business Owner: Michele Branner

Business Address: 2192 Green Valley Lane, Mt. Crawford

Tell us about your business:

This year marks the Book Fair’s 50th anniversary serving the local community. Since our opening in 1970, we’ve been a destination for book lovers searching for new books at bargain prices. We currently feature over 30,000 different titles in more than 60 categories, as well as school and teaching supplies, home décor, and gifts items – all up to 90% off retail prices! In recent years, we’ve also started hosting free weekly story times for children, themed family-friendly events throughout the year, bookmark design contests, and have welcomed school field trips. The Green Valley Book Fair is far more than a discount book retailer. We’re where family and friends meet, and whether you’re looking for the perfect gift or a new book for yourself, there’s always something for everyone!

What would you do with $10,000?

Before COVID-19, the book fair was open 6 times each year, and our business was completely brick and mortar. Due to safety concerns, we were forced to close after our first fair this year and have just started to open back up for in-person shopping. During that time, we re-evaluated and changed our business model. We’ve made some quick updates to our website to add an online order form and began shipping orders and offering curbside pickup. We’ve also changed our schedule and will be open continuously going forward rather than being open for just a few weeks at a time. If we were to win the $10,000, we would use it to update our website so that we can offer our customers true ecommerce functionality. We aren’t currently able to accept payment online, so we have to call each customer for payment. Upgrading our website will improve our efficiency so that our team can also serve our in-store customers now that we’re open again and allow us to grow and serve the out-of-state audience we gained the past few months.