Girl Scout USA announced Monday that selling the Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos and other cookies can finally arrives online.
For the first time since its conception more than 100 years ago, the Girl Scout association allows the girls to sell their wares via a mobile app or a personalized website. The councils can only choose one of the two options, not both.
"Girls have been telling us that they want to go into this space," Sarah Angel-Johnson, Girl Scout USA's chief digital cookie executive, said to Associated Press. She said that entrepreneurship is heading online.
The organization clarifies that the new tactic isn't replacing the old method, but merely enhancing it. Going online can help the scouts on tracking and articulating their goals.
On their website, Girl Scout USA explained, "And the best part is that Digital Cookie helps take the five essential life skills girls learn through the traditional cookie program to a whole new level-introducing critical lessons about online marketing, application use, and ecommerce to more than one million excited Girl Scouts, in real-time."
Kelly M. Parisi, chief communications executive for Girl Scouts of the USA, said, "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."
The websites selling the cookies can only be accessed by people with an email invitation. This requires the girl scouts to build a client list, to whom they'll send invitations. Personal information of the scouts and customers are protected in the website, using encryption.
The web-based sales of the cookies only show the scout's first name, but they can provide a video explaining who they are and what they do. The mobile app, on the other hand, offers tabs that track sales and customers can bulk buy their orders. It's available on Android and iOS and can be used on phone or tablet.
Both methods allow delivery, which according to an 11-year-old scout, allows her customers to receive their order quicker, since it often takes her some time to finish delivering all the cookie orders.
