I saw this on TV recently, but now can’t remember it.
Why do Girl Scouts only sell cookies at certain times of the year?
<I removed the stupid joke>
Anyway…
Might it be tied to the fundraising cycle?
It definitely is, but why is fundraising a cycle?
The same reason McRib and Arby-Q only come out occasionally. If they were available all the time no one would think they were special.
Selling goods for fundraising depends on selling mediocre product at premium price.
That makes sense. Basic supply and demand.
Perhaps they believe that the enforced scarcity improves demand. If Thin Mints were available every day, would they be as desired?
Keep in mind that the sales of Girl Scout cookies are done by the individual troops, which means that the girls (and their parents) are responsible for selling the cookies. That’s probably not something that you can expect to ask them to do on a continuous basis. And, in many cases, they’re probably also doing other fundraiser sales at some point in the year for their schools, their soccer teams, etc.
If your friendly neighborhood Girl Scout knocked on your door once a week, or even once a month, how long would it take for you to swear never to buy another Girl Scout cookie?
Yes, I remember hearing that. They also price them that way. I’ve paid as little as $3 and as much as $6 for a box. There is a 6 month window in which they can be sold, but I think I’ve only ever seen them in March-ish around here.
Here’s a pretty interesting analysis of McRib availability, including a graph of pork prices vs. McRib availability: A Conspiracy of Hogs: The McRib as Arbitrage - The Awl
I wonder if they timing the sales to coincide around vacation days and/or to avoid inclement weather in certain climates. Unfortunately I only have very fuzzy memories from my days as a Brownie and don’t recollect whether or not we ever went door to door in the winter–I lived in Ann Arbor then, and though I loved to play in the snow as much as the next kid I still preferred to stay indoors, especially from January to March-ish.
Long-time Girl Scout volunteer here, and involved in business operations. Short answer: it’s complicated.
Long answer:
Most councils rely heavily on cookie sales for their fundraising (like 70-80% of revenue). They can’t afford to lose that revenue source. We already get a lot of negative feedback from the volunteers and public that it isn’t right that salaries and operations are largely funded by an army of child labor.
Mostly we can keep that complaint tamped down because it’s only 4-6 weeks a year. Some places sell twice per year, and with that second sale comes an increase in complaints. I believe there is a tipping point at which we would start to see negative press, volunteer burn-out, and boycotts of cookie sales.
We could go to direct sales and cut out the girls, but girls and troops earn part of the value of every box they sell. That money helps fund camp fees and lets leaders pay for activities. Sure, we could still distribute part of the cookie revenue directly to girls, but it would probably be allocated very differently. Either all girls would get some money, or it would be concentrated into paying for some needy girls to go to camp, etc. Girls would lose the ability to determine their own fate re: how much they could pay their own camp fees.
I seem to recall that the sales window is from October to March or something like that. So I don’t think it’s the weather. But they are in school during those months.
Thank you, Q.N. Jones. That’s not what they said on the TV show that I saw!
Christmas and Easter only come once a year too. Retailers and florists make the bulk of their money on certain holidays. If they tried to have a sale all year long it would not be as successful. I mean they do try to have a continual sale and it is in fact not as profitable. I suspect the same thinking applies to the Girl Scouts. They have an organization whose purpose is other than selling cookies. They can do it successfully if they keep it to once a year when people have decided to gain 10# anyway. They let out their belts and their wallets and purses. Then the girls go back to doing whatever Girl Scouts do.
Because if it were a treadmill, you wouldn’t get anywhere.
That much is plain.
Who is “they”? If it was a Girl Scout representative…well, they have a PR-friendly way of handling this question. And then there is the reality behind the scenes.
Here they set up a table outside the doors of the grocery store. Why? I’m already at the grocery store - if I wanted cookies I’d go inside and buy good ones for half the price.
Plus Grasshopper cookies are basically a damned close or identical version of Thin Mints, last I tasted, and they’re right inside the grocery store. But you’re there to buy food anyway, and I suspect the thought is that you’ll see the cute little girls putting in time to support their troop, and here it’s that limited time of the year again, and so maybe you’ll spend some money helping them because you might think it’s a good cause.
It was the narrator on American Eats, who probably did get that from a rep. It could be that the producers of the show know the deeper reasons, but that’s not the sort of thing you hear on shows like that.