Girl Scouts will now be able to sell cookies online. Is this progress?

The only reason I ever order them is because of my niece or a coworker’s kid, so I won’t be using online ordering. But I’m frankly surprised that it’s taken them this long.

Yes, it is progress. The girls will still sell in public, but online sales will help the girls who have friends and family living in different parts of the country.

My daughter is in her fourth year of Girl Scouts. In the past she didn’t sell as many cookies as the other girls because we don’t have family that lives close by. This new opportunity is really going to boost her numbers this year.

A few years ago, when my daughter was in girl scouts, she really wanted to earn the “big prize” for selling the most boxes in her troop.

While she made the rounds to the relatives and friends, I designed a cute HTML eMail (that linked to an little website I set up) and sent it out to everyone in my address book.

She got hundreds of orders.

I’m sure this will boost sales.

I like that it’s teaching the girls website layout design and e-commerce skills. It would have been REALLY cool if they provided the girls with an HTML file and they were taught the CSS to stylize it. We NEED more women interested in tech. CSS isn’t programming, but it’s a step along that path.

This would have been especially cool if the national Girl Scout organization held a prize for the best designed site like a scholarship or something.

On the one hand, it lowers the guilt factor for declining to buy, so not progress. On the other hand, those who want to binge on GSC in secret will find it enabling, so… progress?

My thinking is that I will end up buying more. I’ll buy a case of chocolate mints and freeze them and open one box per month, all year.

I don’t buy them, I give them donations.

Definitely progress and especially helpful to girls whose extended family isn’t conveniently nearby as @jonsblond pointed out.

Don’t worry; they’ll still be setting up in all their usual spots so you can continue interacting with them :)

More like laziness. I guess if they’re still selling on their own as well, it’s progress. My thinking is that it’ll eventally all be online.

I don’t buy their cookies anyway. Buying them online might be more convenient for consumers, though.

Girl Scouts outside of Wal-Mart don’t bother me. They’re usually not pushy if you decline. However, we constantly have preteen girls asking us to donate money to their softball team when we go grocery shopping every week. Softball team? Uh, no thanks. I find it’s much easier to say no to 12-year-olds than it is to a 7-year-old. They’re just not nearly as cute as they age.

More like laziness

Yeah, because Girl Scouts are all about being lazy.~

More like giving the girls an opportunity to sell more cookies. Online sales are not replacing selling to the public. Sales would drop drastically if the girls only relied on online sales. The girls want to sell as much as they can because the more they sell the more money that goes to the troop for fun projects and trips.

It cuts down on their interactions with the public, which would be good training for girls.

no! if i had to sell and deliver cookies in the Minnesota snow they can do exactly that in the warm suburbs.