Girl scouts

[qwazse]

KDD, your view of the margin in cookies is exaggerated.

GS trips are rarely as costly as big-ticket scouting. Far fewer girls participate in GS/USA jamborees.

 

Look, if you think cookies are that great, your patrols could bake and distribute them at will.

[King Ding Dong]

KDD, your view of the margin in cookies is exaggerated.

GS trips are rarely as costly as big-ticket scouting. Far fewer girls participate in GS/USA jamborees.

Look, if you think cookies are that great, your patrols could bake and distribute them at will.

Volume, volume, volume. You haven't seen my waistline.

[qwazse]

Volume, volume, volume. You haven't seen my waistline.

Well, not being pre-packaged, there is a risk of profit loss due to increased waste. Or, is it increased waist due to profit loss?

[meyerc13]

My daughter became a Brownie this year.  I learned two things about the cookie sale.  1.)  They sell themselves, pretty much every house will buy at least one box.  2.)  The unit gets very little from the sale of each box (like 5-6% compared to our Boy Scout Council giving us 35-40% back on popcorn sales). 

 

I completely agree selling popcorn is hard, my son was a top seller in our District and we found that on average he had to knock on 10 doors to get 1 sale.  However, that one sale brought $4-$8 back to the unit.  Contrast that with the Girl Scouts, my daughter might get 10 sales but only bring back $2.50-$5.00 to the unit.

 

Part of me wishes our Council went back to the World's Finest Chocolates like we did when I was a Cub Scout.  Like the cookies, those things sell themselves.  The margins aren't bad either, although not quite as good as cookies (50% vs 70% on the popcorn).  The unknown figure is how many people would spend only $1 instead of $10 like they do on the popcorn?  It becomes a quantity of sales over quality of sales thing.  Yeah, kids would get more "Yes" than "No" responses, but each one would bring in less to the Council and Unit.  As much as I hate to say it, part of me thinks the BSA got it right with the popcorn... some people won't spend that much, but quite a few will spend $10 just because they want to do something to support the Scouts.  If you give those same people a $1 or $5 option, I suspect that would be all they would spend.