Girl Scouts announce plan to sell their cookies online
Girls Scouts cookies fans can now rejoice! The company recently announced that they will be selling their famous cookies online. This decision is likely to increase the annual profit by 200 million dollars. (Photo Credit: girlscouts.org)
By Mikki Stacey, Staff Writer
It’s almost the most wonderful time of the year. Nationally, January marks the start of the Girl Scouts’ cookie selling season. Armies of little girls will be braving the cold weather to sell door-to-door and at tables outside of grocery stores, methods that have brought about $800 million into the national organization.
The Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. expect this number to go up this year due to their new selling method, the Internet. For years, the Girl Scouts have forbidden their troops from selling cookies online, but “Digital Cookie” has finally been approved. “Digital Cookie” will allow scouts to sell their cookies to friends and family throughout the country.
The organization believes that this method will teach girls “vital entrepreneurial lessons in online marketing, application use and e-commerce,” according to Angel-Johnson, leader of the movement to bring Girl Scout cookies to the web.
Of the 2,000,000 girl scouts, over 80 percent sell. Each little saleswoman who chooses to utilize this new selling technique will create her own website, but what appears on it must be approved by the scout’s guardian. Scouts who are not yet in their teens will have to use an anonymous designation so none of their contact information will be public. And to order from one of their pages, the scout must send you an invitation via email.
Scout Bria Vainquere said, “I love going around my neighborhood, my parents’ jobs and my grandfather’s job. I’ve been selling cookies since I joined scouting when I was 6, including setting up a booth at our local Stop & Shop.” The traditional selling methods have proven to be effective, but as Vainquere says, “the digital option is going to make it easier to reach a lot more people and to take and keep track of orders.”
Vainquere’s New Jersey troop will be using their profit to enable community service projects, specifically providing food and babysitting to needy children. They would also like to make a trip to Savannah, Georgia, where Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts was born.
With the modernization of the Girl Scouts, Vainquere’s troops will likely meet their goals, and buying copious quantities of cookies (at $4.00 per box) will be even easier.
