Cookies

Girl Scout Cookie sales starts in December. There would be no more pre-order forms. They were starting “Cookies On Demand”. As a troop, we would have to decide how many cookies we would sell. There are no returns on any boxes we pick up from Council. We are responsible for paying for all cookies. I had no idea how to determine how many cookies a brand new group of girls could sell.

Council was a lot of help and found me the web page that states a good goal for starting girls is 50 boxes.

We sold that in 24 hours.

I had to go back to Council to get twice as many cookies as I did the first time.

Those were sold in 4 days.

I went back again and got more cases.

Again, those sold in just a week or so.

I couldn’t keep the cookies in stock. They were selling like crazy and booth season hadn’t even started yet. I went back several more times for more cookies.

Early February, I stocked up for the booths. We originally signed up for 3 booths.

The first booth was during the rain and on Superbowl Sunday. I didn’t realize it was Superbowl Sunday when I signed up weeks before and of course, I didn’t know it was going to rain.

We sold 2 cases. 24 boxes in 3 hours???

I had about 24 cases of cookies left to sell. There are 12 boxes per case and the troop makes $.40 per box. We based our cookies purchases for booth sales based on how many we sold the month before.

The other two booths were like this, too. People just STOPPED buying cookies. They were sick of them.

We’ve opened boxes of cookies, at the troop’s expense, to pass out samples. On Valentine’s Day, I cut hearts on my Cricut and we stuck them on boxes. People could personalize the heart and give them as a gift.

Katrina made up a cookie dance and that has sold several boxes.

I have sold so many boxes of cookies at my work. When I get someone to sign up for a credit card, the manager buys a box of cookies.

I’ve sold cookies to my pharmacist, my regular grocery store clerk, the mailman, my favorite clerk at Michael’s, my favorite clerk at Cost Plus, at my daughter’s apartment complex during Pizza night, my husband’s work, and more places that I can’t think of right now.

As of today, I’ve drug my Kindergartner to 10 booths at 3 hours each. That’s 30 hours of standing around in the cold and wet weather begging people to buy cookies. And I STILL have cookies left. I will be lucky if we break even with what I owe council.

I am so ashamed and disgusted that I have drug my daughter (and sometimes my son) through 30 hours of work for nothing. We will earn nothing for our troop. I have lost sleep over this and my husband is irritated with me (rightly so).

I just received an email from Council stating they have extended the selling period by one week. Apparently, I’m not the only one having problems selling cookies.

I’ve signed us up for 2 more booths during this extended week.

Thanks for listening.