Sold-out flavor hits the resale market
Samoas, Trefoils and Thin Mints, move over. A new Girl Scout cookie flavor, Raspberry Rally, is in such high demand that, after swiftly selling out online, boxes are now being peddled for far higher prices on resale websites.
Single boxes of the cookies, which have a crispy raspberryflavored center coated in chocolate, cost from $4 to $7, but they are selling for as much as five times the usual price on the secondary market.
Girl Scouts of the USA has expressed dismay over the situation. The organization said in a statement that most local Girl Scout troops had sold out of the “extremely popular” Raspberry Rally cookies for the season and emphasized that it was “disappointed” to see unauthorized resales of the flavor.
“While we are happy that there’s such a strong demand for our cookies year over year,” the Girl Scouts said, “we’re saddened that the platforms and the sellers are disregarding the core mission of the cookie program and are looking to make a profit off of the name without supporting our mission and the largest girl-led entrepreneurship program in the world.”
The third-party sellers have “deprived” troops of valuable experience and of proceeds that fund “critical programming,” the organization said. The organization encouraged people to support Girl Scout troops by purchasing one of the many other available flavors.
The Raspberry Rally cookies, which first became available late last month, can be bought only online. The cookie is considered a “sister” to the Thin Mint, the top-selling Girl Scout cookie, according to the Girl Scouts website.
For more than a century, the Girl Scouts have been holding annual cookie sales to raise money for troop activities while helping scouts learn skills like marketing, goal-setting and budgeting.
The cookies, which were once baked by the scouts themselves, are now made commercially and are available in more than a dozen flavors.
An ebay representative said in a statement that while the company encouraged cookie fans to support their local Girl Scouts, the resale of the cookies did not violate the platform’s policies.
Girl Scout cookie enthusiasts have taken to social media to post about their quests to procure the elusive Raspberry Rally variety. Some said they had waited for months, enticed by the announcement of the new flavor in August, only to come up empty-handed when the cookies sold out within hours of going on sale online last month.
Eric Rodwell of Parker was eagerly anticipating the release of the Raspberry Rally cookies Feb. 27, but he said he was initially unable to find any boxes online. But then he connected through Twitter with a troop based in Washington, D.C., that had some extra cookies on hand. He ordered 10 boxes.
“I’m super excited and have no idea when they will ship,” Rodwell said.
“I don’t feel good about participating in resale unless it’s benefiting the girls and definitely wouldn’t support paying lots of money over the original price — doesn’t seem right.”
But some councils, such as the Girl Scouts of Northern California, have a later cookie season — and boxes of the Raspberry Rally cookie still up for grabs. Comparing the demand for the cookies to the recent frenzy for Beyonce concert tickets, the council advised Raspberry Rally hunters to set a reminder for when the sale begins Wednesday.