By Andrea Rivera, Arizona Daily STar
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.04.2010
Girl Scouts with the Sahuaro Girl Scout Council are taking a “cookies on demand” approach to how they peddle boxes of cookies in the new year.
The council pre-ordered about 351,000 boxes of cookies and will hand over the popular treats as soon as an order is placed, said Debbie Rich, chief executive officer of the council.
Sales of Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs and other old favorites start Saturday. New to the cookie lineup this year is the Thank U Berry Munch cranberry cookie.
“It’s actually pretty good,” Girl Scout Erika Yee said. “It’s fruity.”
Missing this year are sugar-free options. Girl Scouts say there wasn’t much demand for them, Rich said.
“Cookies on demand” is said to be one of the biggest changes to cookies sales since Girl Scouts started selling commercially baked cookies.
“Up until this year, girls have always taken orders after the first of the year, but with the economy, we felt that in talking with the girls it would be better to have cookies in hand for the customer,” Rich said.
The council anticipates the new approach will boost sales and teach the girls a thing or two about business.
“It will give them a different sense of selling a product and setting goals,” Rich said.
Selling 351,000 boxes of cookies shouldn’t be hard to do, Rich said.
The Sahuaro Girl Scouts sold more than 760,000 boxes last cookie season and will try for 777,000 boxes this year, Rich said. Additional cookies will be ordered as needed and for booth sales, Rich said. “We believe the response to the girls with product in hand will be greater,” she said. Cookies sales will end on March 1.
Troop leaders and Girl Scouts were consulted before the Sahuaro Council decided to change its sales strategy, Rich said. Yee, a Girl Scout, sold about 600 boxes last season and said she’s excited about trying to sell even more cookies using the new method. “I’m capable of doing it if I work very hard,” she said. Yee, 14, won’t really miss selling cookies the traditional way, she said. “It’s good to try new things. It’s a better way,” she said.
Troop 2981 pre-ordered just under 4,000 boxes of cookies, having sold nearly 10,000 boxes last season, said Kim Allen, cookie manager for the troop. We’ll sell those easy,” Allen said.
Not all Girl Scout councils pre-ordered cookies to have them ready for customers on Saturday. Some councils are sticking to the old method of taking orders and then delivering the cookies in February.
The Arizona Cactus-Pine Council Inc. will go with the traditional sales method.
The Sahuaro Council serves all of Pima, Cochise, Greenlee, Yuma and Santa Cruz counties, and the southern parts of Graham, Maricopa and Pinal counties.
The Arizona Cactus-Pine Council serves the rest of the state.
