U.S. Girl Scouts go digital to sell cookies on web and mobile app

Watch out world, the Girl Scouts are going digital to sell you cookies.

The Girl Scouts of the United States of America is now letting its young go-getters push their wares using a mobile app or personalized websites. But only if their scout councils and guardians say OK.

“Girls have been telling us that they want to go into this space,” said Sarah Angel-Johnson, chief digital cookie executive for the organization covering about two million girls. “Online is where entrepreneurship is going.”

And the best news for these digital natives: They can have cookies shipped directly to your doorstep.

More than one million scouts, from kindergarten-age Daisies to teens, were expected to opt in as cookie-selling season cranks up this month and the scouting organization gets digital sales underway. But digital sales are intended to enhance, not replace, the paper spreadsheets used to generate an estimated $800 million US in cookie sales a year — at anywhere from $3.50 to $5 a box, depending on scout council.

There are important e-lessons here, scout officials said, such as better articulating and tracking goals, learning to handle customers and money in a new way and more efficiently processing credit card information.

“A lot of people have asked, ‘What took you so long to get online?’ We spend a lot of time thinking how do we make this safe, scalable and smart,” Kelly M. Parisi, chief communications executive for Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., said at a recent demonstration for select media.

Councils were offered one of the two platforms but not both. For web-based sales, scouts customize their pages, using their first names only, and email prospective customers with links to click on for orders. They can also put up videos explaining who they are and what they plan to do with their proceeds.

The mobile platform offers tabs for tracking sales and allows for the sale of bundles of different kinds of cookies. It can be used on a phone or tablet.

“They can get them quicker than waiting for me to deliver them because sometimes it takes me a long time to deliver,” offered 11-year-old Priscilla at the preview.

Added seven-year-old Anna: “My favourite part is that now I can sell more Girl Scout Cookies.” She pulled down about 200 boxes last year and has upped her goal to 600. Girl Scouts use their cookie money to pay for community service work or troop activities such as camping and other trips.

Troop leader Karen Porcher of the Bronx said, “People are going to be walking around with cookies and others are going to say, ‘Whoa, how did you get those already?’ ”

The websites will not be accessible without an email invitation, requiring the girls to build client lists. And personal information is as protected as any digits out there, for both the scouts and customers, using encryption in some cases.

Much of the responsibility to limit identifying details about scouts online falls on parents.