Girl Scouts, Born Digital
Comments: 4 - Date: March 26th, 2009 - Categories: Innovation
Looks like it’s not only the music industry that needs a new business model, even Girl Scouts selling cookies are running into issues with online sales.
Well the issue is quite simple really: online sales aren’t allowed. When 8-year-old Wild Freeborn set out to sell 12,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies, she enlisted the help of her tech-savvy father. The two made a YouTube video and set up a site to allow local customers to order boxes of cookies. Freeborn would then hand-deliver the cookies. What was the problem? After two weeks and 700 orders, parents involved with the local troupe approached the local Girl Scout council saying that Freeborn’s strategy was unfair, lionizing the local cookie market.
The issue, Girl Scouts said, was that not the YouTube video – advertising sales online is okay – but the online order form. Online sales for the troupe as a whole, however, are okay. In a New York Times article, a few more details were given for the reasons behind the national Girl Scouts no-online-sales policy:
Michelle Tompkins, a spokeswoman for the Scouts, says there are good reasons for the online ban, beginning with the familiar dangers that young girls can encounter on the Web. Beyond that, Ms Tompkins says, is the issue of fairness: local councils typically award prizes to girls for reaching certain levels of sales, and since all girls are limited to selling within their local areas, a campaign like Wild’s can overwhelm opportunities for other girls in town.
It seems a little instigative to mention safety concerns first – I can’t imagine any scenarios where online sales would actually be less safe than going door-to-door. Ms. Tompkins does cite valid points about online sales disrupting the traditional process of selling cookies though. But maybe the problem isn’t the Internet, maybe it’s the process itself?
In an age when I can even buy Justin Timberlake’s French toast, it’s strange that I can’t buy something prosaic as a box of Girl Scout cookies from the Internet. In fact, I can – just not legitimately. A quick search just on eBay turns up a couple hundred listings for Girl Scout cookies, with sellers varying from parents of Scouts to resellers. Newsweek points out that Girl Scouts missed out on what could have been a teachable moment here. Selling the cookies is after all, an exercise in entrepreneurship as well as a fundraiser for troupes. If a young digital native is savvy enough to take advantage of the digital sphere, maybe there shouldn’t be anything stopping her.
Education is a big theme of Born Digital, and while Girl Scouts shouldn’t be held solely responsible for teaching young girls about using the Internet, the badges that require technology skills seem designed for an earlier decade:
[T]he “Computer Smarts” requirement for young girls (or “Brownies”) only requires that they visit three Web sites. For older girls, the CyberGirl Scout badge is earned in part by sending an e-mail. “These skills are at a level I’m sure many girls can already surpass,” says Andrea Matwyshyn, a colleague of Fader’s at Wharton.
The competitive world of Girl Scout cookies sales is fraught with tensions of its own – the role of parents playing no small part. But with Girl Scout cookie sales declining this year, it can’t hurt to think outside of the proverbial cookie box.
Comment by Mana - March 26, 2009 @ 7:11 pm
Girl Scouts don’t sell cookies door to door, at least not any I ever heard of, and all public selling has parental/adult supervision. I was in the girl scouts for 5 years, living in Los Angeles, in a 2 bedroom apartment with 4 other family members.
I certainly sounds like they need to update their digitally oriented badge requirements.
I also think that girl scouts, particularly those in urban areas, fill an important gap by not being digitally focused. For many girls, like myself, it was an opportunity to socialize and work together with girls I would never have met otherwise, and also do things I didn’t normally get to do, like being outside and camping. It was purposefully about those basic survival skills that you don’t have anyplace else to learn. Can we really say that about the internet?
It’s not that I am against having digital activities for girl scouts, but for it to become a central part of the experience (and selling cookies is a central part) would impoverish the experience for many urban and/or middle and lower income girls. Plus, would not reliance on digital access boost gaps in resources available to girls of different classes backgrounds?
Comment by yvette - March 27, 2009 @ 5:09 pm
@mana I used to sell cookies door-to-door, perhaps because i lived in the suburbs.
I think the whole point of selling cookies in person is not to make the girls business-savvy, but teach them something about the value of hard-earned money and interpersonal skills, which is different from completing a task for the Apprentice.
Comment by Jillian C. York - March 27, 2009 @ 5:22 pm
I certainly agree that the “computer smarts” badge requires some serious updating, and I agree that many young digital native girl scouts would be adept at selling cookies online.
But correct me if I’m wrong – Scouting is in part about fostering a sense of community, and while all of us understand the value of online community, digital natives are spending plenty of time online anyways – they need activities like the Girl Scouts to foster that same sense of community in the offline world.
Comment by Sarah Zhang - March 28, 2009 @ 4:29 pm
Hey all — thanks for the thoughtful comments on this entry. Its been a long time since I was a Girl Scout , so it’s great to hear your opinions on this.
First off, I don’t mean at all to suggest that Girl Scouts should be more digitally-oriented; as several of you have pointed out, Girl Scouts provides many services and opportunities unique to its organization that have nothing to do with using the computer or the Internet. At the same time though, it wouldn’t hurt to update to their policies (badges, cookies, etc.) to reflect the changes of the real world.
One of the frustrating things about the online sales ban is spotty reinforcement. Type in “Girl Scout cookies” on eBay and you’ll get at least at couple hundred results, ranging from parents helping their kids to people who have bought GS and are now selling them for a profit. (ex: $48 for six boxes of Samoas!) If anything, these personal profit sales are truly against the spirit of the GS cookie sales and perhaps allowing for a legitimate market will eliminate these.
But maybe allowing the online sale of Girl Scout cookies isn’t the only way to go — I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on the cookie market. Still that’s not to say there aren’t other ways Scouts can use their digital-savvy to boost sales. What about a girl who keeps tracks of her clients every year, building a clientele email list and sending out newsletters to publicize the cookies?