Prizes/rewards for popcorn booth sales (Show & Sell)?

[CChairMom]

One of our den leaders, in the pack for 2 years, is insisting that his son earn popcorn prizes for booth sales because that's how his old pack did it.  Our pack has never worked this way.  Booth sales, which are run by the pack as a whole (pack leaders set up, bring inventory, arrange location), have always been used to calculate each participating Scout's contribution, so that they can earn the ability to "pie a leader".  They don't get individual sales credit for booth sales, and they don't earn prizes.  He apparently missed this info last year and this year, and is being really difficult about it. When we pointed out the difference in effort involved in door-to-door sales vs. booth sales, he said he didn't care.

How does your pack handle booth sales?  Do you keep a sales sheet, gather customers' addresses and orders, and track them as individual sales for each scout?  How does that work, if there are multiple scouts at the booth?  Can you submit for prizes for booth sales?

If you, like us, track as an overall sales number and reward each scout based on the hours they contributed, what do they earn?  We just give fun stuff that the kids enjoy (being able to smush a whipped cream pie into a leader's face) but I've heard that other packs give each scout a percentage of sales to be used for summer camp, etc.  

Thanks for any ideas you can offer!

Edited November 6, 2018 by CChairMom

[Hawkwin]

Both in cubs and scouts, booth sales have always counted in the same general manner as door to door. In some cases, total booth sales for the day were divided up between the scouts in attendance that day, sometimes the entire weekend (if they had a booth set up for two days at a grocery for example), at least one time divided up for the entire year (total booth sales divided by total scout hours x your scout's hours worked) and most recently, by the exact sales that you booked during your hours worked (so you were incentivized to sell more during your slot and not rely on the sales of others).

In all cases, the scouts were credited for their sales for both individual rewards as well as any council rewards. The two numbers were simply added together with no discrimination.

As far as tracking it, this year, TrailsEnd allowed one to track individuals booth and DtD sales right in their app so it was very easy. In previous years, each day or each weekend sales were totaled on a tracking sheet and then divvied up based on hours worked.

As far as what they earned, we have given unit awards (gift cards usually), free or reduced recharter, free or reduced summer camp, and council awards - as well as pie a leader.

 

When I used to be the Popcorn Kernel, I used an excel spreadsheet to track everything. I think TrailsEnd new app makes that less of a necessity - though I was VERY proud of my spreadsheet as it totaled everything for me (put about 20 hours into making it) as well as tracked my total inventory and sales by show n sell and by each scout.

[walk in the woods]

I did the individual credit the first year I was kernel (had the scouts use their own order forms and mark the sale as delivered).  After the first year I dropped it.  Too much hassle.  Booth sales were for the good of the unit.

[MikeS72]

With the pack, show and sell proceeds are divided by the number of Scouts in attendance and credited toward individual prizes.  We also waive dues if they reach a preset sales figure, usually $600.  Those sales also go toward what it takes to be able to pie a leader.

With the troop, the Scout has 35% of their individual sales credited to their Scout account, which can go a long way toward paying for summer camp.  Troop show and sell proceeds go into the troop treasury, and helps with paying for awards during the year.

[scotteg83]

Our pack for the last 7 years, have done this:

 

All show-n-sells were totaled, and then divided by the amount of time slots filled.  So ideally, if we had a total of $100 sold, and 10 scouts filled the time slots to make the sales, each would credit $10 towards their sales and add them to their Take order totals for prize ordering.  Now mind you, we do $20,000 on average for show-n-sells, and this year had 36 scouts participating, some as little as 1 two hour slot, and one went as many a 19 two hour slots.  This years average was $100 per shift, so my daughter that did 15 shifts earn $1500 towards her overall sales.

[Momleader]

You first 2 sentences are your answer. In his old pack. And now they are part of your ‘newto them’ Pack.   This is a lot of grief over a toy/prize that might not be worth the $$ amount difference. 

I swear sometimes parents get wrapped up about the smallest things.  

I would love to see a story about how a pack or troop takes all the prizes earned from popcorn and donates them to a children’s hospital toy cupboard or to the local social services toy drive at the holidays. Purposely selling to benefit their pack/troop and give joy to another child in the meantime.