Girl Scouts To Start Selling Their Cookies Online , But Will Local Troops Be Involved?

In an effort to reach that hard to reach demographic of paranoid, stay at home stoners, the Girl Scouts have announced that they will begin selling their famed cookies online.

But will local troops be participating in the experiment?

Beginning next Friday, December 12, the Girl Scouts will enter the internet age and begin making their fabled cookies available online. That means DoSiDos, Tagalongs and the heavenly Thin Mints will be delivered direct to your door with just a few clicks for your convenience.

"This is something that is essential for girls going into the 21st century and beyond," Girl Scouts of Great New York's Director of Product Sales Katie Soper told the New York Daily News. "Girls have to think about how they are going to communicate effectively and persuasively in writing rather than in person."

It will be more a learning experience for the Scouts than a money grab. Each Scout will have their own web site or app, customized by them, and will learn internet marketing skills in the process.

Safety is the main concern, and filters will make their personal sites hard to access for people not in their social media friends group. If a specific page were to go viral on social media, it would possibly be disabled in accordance with the Digital Cookie use guidelines, according to the Girl Scouts of Greater New York.

In the past, individual Girl Scouts have tried to peddle the cookies online, including Honey Boo Boo, who tried last year to sell the cookies through her Facebook page. But the Scouts ended the online operation, and have discouraged other attempts, too.

I reached out to the Grand Rapids Girl Scouts to see if their troops will have an online presence this year and Product Sales Director Taryn DeBlaay told me they won't be participating in the first roll out of the project, but will possibly join in next year, telling me they are very interested in taking part in the online sales.

Taryn says this year's sales will kick off as usual January 12, 2015 and will continue through April 11.

The AP has more on how the website and app will work:

"For Web-based sales, scouts customize their pages, using their first names only, and email prospective customers with links to click on for orders. They can also put up videos explaining who they are and what they plan to do with their proceeds.

"The mobile platform offers tabs for tracking sales and allows for the sale of bundles of different kinds of cookies. It can be used on a phone or tablet."

While we wait, I will remind you of the Thin Mints rule: regardless of what the box says, one serving of Thin Mints is one entire sleeve.