Samantha England, 10, arrives at bustling South Station terminal in Boston, Massachusetts, at 7 a.m. Her parents and siblings watch as she sets up a card table, spreads out a green cloth and arranges her wares — 1,200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. If customers want a taste, Samantha is happy to provide a free sample. By 6 p.m., she has sold out. Last year's total: 4,331 boxes!
Take a door-to-door sales force of girls with sweet smiles, add a tasty product, stir in a dash of ingenuity, and you have the recipe for what is one of the most successful sales drives in the United States. This year, the Girl Scouts will likely sell more than 200 million boxes, or more than $600 million worth of cookies. Thin Mints ranks as the third best-selling cookie in the U.S., behind Chips Ahoy and Oreos, both of which are available in stores year round.
How are 2 million girls transformed into a powerful selling machine? For one thing, customers like giving to a good cause. A large portion of the money from cookie sales goes to pay for Girl Scout activities. For another, scouts get lots of free help. There are 317 cookie sales. Each is run by a regional Girl Scout council that organizes an army of volunteers. Cookie managers (usually moms) coordinate ordering, distribution and money collection.
Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., which is headquartered in New York City, selects commercial bakers to make the cookies. There are currently three bakers. Once the cookies are shipped from the baker to the council, local volunteers take over. Karen Atkinson, association cookie manager in the Washington, D.C., area, turns her garage into a cookie depot. "I'm open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends," she says. "I move 3,000 cases in six weeks."
Sweet Smell of Success
All this hard work brings in piles of dough. Councils that set the price at $3 per box typically give 50 cents to the troop and keep $1.10 or so after expenses. A little more than 70 cents a box goes to pay the baker.
Samantha earns cookie credits for each box she sells and will use her credits to pay for Girl Scout summer camp. She's already looking forward to next year's sale. "When parents ask how I sell so many cookies, I tell them it's a secret," Samantha says with a grin. "I don't want them to sell as many as I do."