"Mister, Would You Like To Buy a Cookie?"

The Single Greatest Marketing Scheme Ever

O.K. I made it to the checkout counter. Just buying a few things at my local grocery store. Dum-de dum. What’s this? Oh Shit. There’s a troop of girl scouts selling cookies by the exit. Double-shit— they have the other exit covered too. There’s no way out of this hellscape without running the gauntlet, passing by the Girl Scout tables. Yup, I see you little 8 year old blond girl in the hat and green sash, scoping out potential guppies like me; you kids are the Great White Sharks of the marketing world and we defenseless adults are just the chum in your wake.

I give the cashier my money, bag my things and slowly make my way toward the exit. Maybe if I don’t make eye contact I can make it by. The path around is chaos; parents trying to bag their things, some going toward the exits. I look at the guy bagging his stuff who glances at the table of multi-colored boxes, looks back at me and sighs while shaking his head. He knows I’m doomed and it’s only a matter of time before he makes the same walk down the plank. Thanks for the sympathy dude, I feel ya. I continue, casually looking over to the left, avoiding the gaze of the young girls at the table on the right; I think I may be able make it. Hope exists.

But then a cadre of elderly women from one of the last check out lanes cross my path moving their carts toward the table and blockading my way through like militants in a third world country in rebellion closing off the only road of escape with burning cars. It’s then when I hear the fateful words I had been trying to avoid this whole time. Those ten words, which turns us adults to jello as we try and dither our way out of it, knowing full well we’ve already been sucked into the abyss and there is no way out. Little girl missing her two front teeth in full girl scout regalia, cheery smile and a glimmer of “I got this sucker” in her eyes recites the dreaded phrase adults hate to hear.

“Mister, would you like to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?”

F**K. Of course I would.

The Girl Scout Cookies Marketing Scheme

Girl Scout Cookies are the single biggest fundraiser out there. Nothing else comes close. Just look at the facts:

• Each box costs on average $5 (different areas and different markups do occur). This is substantially more than the cost of other cookies out there, especially considering you typically get less per box than you do for your typical Oreo or Chips Ahoy. In addition, the individual cookies are smaller. The result is that 75-80% of each box sold is entirely profit.

• Every year, more than a million young girls sell over 200 Million boxes of cookies. The Girl Scouts of America raises $800 million (!) selling cookies. EVERY YEAR.

• As with any fundraiser, the families and close friends typically buy a box or two because they don’t want to let the young ones down. However, some of the young women are completely entrepreneurial to the extreme. One girl, Katie Francis, holds the record for selling over 180,000 boxes of girl scout cookies. That’s nearly a million dollars from one girl alone.¹ There is also advice from the GSA on digital marketing operations.

• The technological and business operations in making, selling, and distributing girl scout cookies rivals many very large businesses. In gross sales alone, it would be one of the top 1500 businesses in America, and employs 300 people at the national office alone. ²

• In case you are wondering, the top sellers for Girl Scout Cookies are 1) Thin Mints, 2) Samoas, 3) Tagalogs, 4) Adventurefuls and 5) Do-Si-Dos. All Girl Scout cookies are halal and kosher certified and most are gluten-free now.

• Girl Scout Cookies, despite being a typical youth fundraiser in terms of marketing, is what business people refer to as “peer to peer” marketing. These are typically common in small scale marketing scams and side hustles, however there are some legit enterprises that are successful this way. The GSA Cookie fundraiser is actually the second largest moneymaker by this method, second only to Amway.³

• The fact that GSA Cookies are only available for four months of the year is noteworthy. Imagine how much would be sold if it were a year round sales season, however, many say that it would lose it’s novelty that way.

• What’s the secret? Psychologists have actually looked at this and determined what makes the Girl Scout Cookie fundraiser so successful are the salespeople; people just don’t want to let little girls down. This can be seen by the fact that regardless of the fact Girl Scout Cookies have been available online for years, the amount online sales makes is dwarfed by the volumes sold by the girls themselves.

So in the coming weeks, when you’re watching March Madness and needing something to snack on, make a little girl’s day and buy a few boxes of cookies to munch on during the game.

PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day

Trying to learn a thing or two from the girls, the Boy Scouts of America have been selling flavored popcorn for the previous decade. It is not nearly as successful as the Girl Scouts and it should also be noted that the Boy Scouts had to declare bankruptcy some years ago (not because of this, but they are lacking in funding and that popcorn just isn’t as good as the girl scout cookies).

PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject

“Sure, I’ll buy some. Give me 4 boxes of Tagalogs.”

—Me, whenever I get sucked into buying Girl Scout cookies.

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. I remember in college, the daughter of the woman who ran the residence halls was a girl scout super seller; She would sell to all the college kids and had a monopoly on those dorms. When she would distribute them, her parents had to drop off pallets of cookies by each dorm. She was one of the biggest sellers nationally every year.

2. It should be noted that one of the reasons this business enterprise is so successful is that it pays practically nothing on the labor of those actually doing the selling. In that regard, it’s similar to the NCAA.

3. Amway’s annual sales amounts to $8.1 billion.