These are aka booth sales – where the GS’s set up a booth outside a grocery store and hit you up as you’re trying to sneak out undetected.
No. Cookie cupboards are central stocking locations so that Troops who run out of cookies can swing by and pick up boxes and/or cases (depends on how council does sales). Think of it as the Distribution Center for Girl Scout cookies. Cases and cases of Thin Mints.
We used to do them out of volunteer homes. This year our council really changed sales - we now have rented empty strip mall space for cookies.
If you don’t have girl scouts, find your area’s council web site. They often have places where Scouts are running booths or other spots you’ll find cookies.
Dangerosa Thanks for the suggestion. I was just looking it up on the Central/Western MA council website (quite a lot coming up but none in my town) when a friend posted on facebook that she was helping her niece sell them and could hook me up (we were talking about cookies already). So I told her to put me down for 4 boxes of Thin Mints.
The mention of Boy Scouts selling popcorn reminded me of my undying complaint about food fundraisers:
Why are the Girl Scouts the only organization to do it right?
They sell a product that people WANT.
They sell it at a price people can afford.
Why can’t other kids’ groups do that, rather than demanding outrageous prices for crap I don’t want?
$7 popcorn?
$5 chocolate bars?
$12 frozen pizzas?
Yes, I’ll buy a token item, but I hate you and your organization.
Our council tells us the #1 reason people don’t buy GS Cookies is because they aren’t asked. They don’t know a Girl Scout. One doesn’t come to their door.
Around here, we are getting more an more businesses denying cookie booths. So cookie booths - which I remember as being ubiquitous in front of stores for a month in the Spring twenty years ago - can be something you just don’t run into.
Girl Scout participation is down - less than 1 in 10 girls is a Scout - which means that a lot of neighborhoods - especially ones without a lot of elementary school girls - don’t have a Scout in them to go door to door.
And door to door is TOUGH. Most of my troop doesn’t do much of it. This is February in Minnesota. We use the phone.
And frankly, there is something addictive in Thin Mints. I think they put crack in them. Keebler grasshopper cookies just are NOT Thin Mints. Tagalongs and Samoas are also pretty special.
(Girl Scout Councils sell different types of cookies, and the same cookie is marketed under different names in different parts of the country - Tagalongs are also known as Peanut Butter Patties. Samoas are Carmel Delights. Thin Mints are Thin Mints.)
And they manage to do it with a LOT of the money going back into the organization.
This is our council’s breakdown:
.55-.66 Range of Troop proceeds
.10 Girl Awards & Recognitions
$.87 Baker (cost of cookies)
$1.87-1.98 Council sponsored program
events, properties, training
and other support services
So out of 3.50, the cookies cost Girl Scouts .87. $2.63 is going back to the organization or the girls themselves.
ex-Girl Guide leader here …
Fifty years ago when I sold 'em, cookies were .50 /box and were the sandwich kind. The Guiders ordered the cookies and then had to move whatever she contracted for. I don’t remember the profit margin but I did live in a rural community and sold maybe 30 boxes per campaign. This was considered remarkable.
Thirty years ago when I came on board as a leader, cookies went for $2.50 box and the unit kept a hot dime from each case of 12 boxes sold. Even the girls asked me why we didn’t try selling something else? I asked this question from higher up and got my ears pinned back; I know now that the money funded the very few offices for the organization.
A few years later, as cookie sales dropped, we got a better deal - each case was worth $1.25 to the unit. By now, the cookie convenor in each District organized a blitz day, handed out maps to each unit - we took our girls and parents and sold cookies door to door. Luckily we had ordered extras so the girls could sell to their friends and neighbours (yes, and Moms and Dads could puch the product at work).
Then, selling door-to-door was Very Bad because parents didn’t take their girls out and the girls were considered not safe to be selling to strangers. Some had their money stolen (or said they did). Some were subjected to verbal abuse. And so on and so forth and so fifth. In the US, GSs have cookie booths - I agitated locally for this to happen and ten years or so later - it did! I could not contact stores but the cookie convenors could. And sales jumped! [I asked the Guides what they liked best about Guiding, expecting to hear ‘camping!’ which was the answer in the early 80s. But no - they LOVED the cookie booths].
Because Guiding is run 95% on volunteers, and not every leader is keen to stand around running cookie booths seven or eight times, twice a year, cookie sales have dropped here in Canada. Also, you as a leader have to order your cookies before you even know how many girls you will have in your unit (to sell them), which keeps sales low - who wants to get stuck with cookies you have to pay for, but might not be able to move?
Instead of making a profit, you might have to take a loss - better be safe than sorry.
Guiding in Canada is being revamped ++ and it will take a few more years before the wrinkles are ironed out. If you want cookies, look in the phone book and contact the local office. They will have cookies for you!
an seanchai
Never mind.
Now I just want some cookies!
Enter your zip in this websiteand a local troop or council will help you out. http://www.girlscoutcookies.org/
I stopped buying cookies when I found out they weren’t make with real Girl Scouts.
I will be buying a few boxes of Thin Mints for my mom, just to torture her 
mrArus troop back in CA sold firewood, cut down and removed trees for construction companies that didn’t want to bother, the joys of rural troops =)
He just said that in 79 they made $20K selling firewood, and they had a 3 year waiting list for preorder on the firewood. The average was 250 - 300 cords of wood a year.
Yeah, the lovely things troops could do before liability issues.
Now, at least here, we can’t do bake sales - we have to conform to all Minnesota law regarding commercial food sale - hard to do for 5th graders. We can’t do anything that might put the girls in harms way (chainsaws? That wouldn’t happen).
Ah the memories. My scoutmaster came up with a unique fund raising idea: Bullshit.
We went around taking orders, then showed up and spread manure on people’s lawns. Some friend of the scoutmaster had a real dump truck he lent us.
It’s got to be more then that or I’m right on the boarder. When I buy Thin Mints from cousins I have to ask them which district (is that the right word?) they’re in. If they’re on my side of town, it’s ok. But some of my cousins live about 45 minutes North of me and get there’s from a different bakery. The Thin Mints from them taste awful. Actually, what I usually say is “do they come in foil sleeves or clear sleeves?” For some reason the two places package them differently so that’s the easiest way to tell.
Huh, I wonder if the girl scout selling cookies last weekend at our door was doing the same thing!
For one thing, she looked about 16 years old. I’d distinctly remembered girl scouts being younger, but whatever.
For another, she said they had the cookies with her, to give away immediately (the guy in the car in our driveway was apparently the cookie transportation system.). I’d always remembered that cookies had been delivered later.
I found it just a bit odd so no cookies for me.
Troop Cookie Manager here. None of the things you mentioned are a red flag.
There are high school-aged Girl Scouts out there, they’re just vastly outnumbered by the younger girls.
As far as having cookies on hand when selling, well, I guess different Councils do it differently. Where I live, for the last couple of years at least, there was no “order taking period.” Each troop placed an initial order sometime before Christmas, and picked up the order forms and cases of cookies the first week of the sale. I give my girls their order forms and the boxes they requested a couple of nights before the start of the sale. For us, it’s normal to take cookies with you when you go door-to-door. My unscientific observation (based on previous years when we had a week to take orders before getting our cookies) is that this generates better sales than going door-to-door with just an order form.
Our Council changed the cookie process this year - there was no pre-order. So we’ve been able to hand you cookies when you order them. If the girls don’t have the type you want in their sled (wagon, mom’s car), she can write it down as an order and get them to you within - well, maybe a few minutes if they are back at home - or a few days if they are at the Cookie Mom’s house - or a week or so if someone needs to run to the cupboard.
Even in the old system, there were a few weeks of pre-order, followed by a lengthy delivery/booth period. During the delivery booth period girls were encouraged to continue to go door to door - they would have cookies in hand. A lot of girls sold a lot of cookies this way - once your Thin Mints are exhausted (twenty minutes post delivery) you are often willing to buy more a week later.
Girl Scouts have programs for girls through Senior high school. There aren’t very many sixteen to eighteen year old girl scounts (the peak years are elementary school) but we have several high schoolers in our Service Unit.
Neither of those things is odd.
We have a pre-order system where the girls sell the cookies, the troop orders the numbers sold by the girls, the cookies get delivered to the troop leader, we pick them up and distribute them this week. Sophie sold D2D as well as the office sales here.
She also made thank you for ordering flyers for every order.
But yeah, it’s crazy the stupid laws. She (Sophie) wanted to earn some money so I got her a route delivering phone books. Couldn’t sign her up, no, she’s too young (9 years old). Everything had to go in her mothers name, so Sophie now won’t be able to pick up her first paycheck with her own name on it. :rolleyes:
Dangerousa and Paperblob,
Ah - thanks for the perspective. It is good to know. 
Maybe I’ll order next year.