Daily Ramblings: Girl Scout Cookie Booth Sale Tips + Printables

Monday, February 16, 2015

Girl Scout cookie sales just started this weekend. On Saturday, we had our first cookie booth at a local grocery store. I am so glad that we sold inside because it was frigid outside. This is the 4th year of sales (I'm troop leader and cookie mom) and I've learned a lot. Here are my tips for a successful sale.

1. Make sure you have enough cookies! It's hard to anticipate how many cookies you will sell, but make sure you bring enough with you. I've seen recommendations of 4-6 cases per hour, but I think you might need more depending on when/where you are selling. We sold 239 boxes in 3 hours on Saturday, 91 of which were Thin Mints. You can't have too many Thin Mints!

2. Gather your supplies Make sure you have everything you need for the sale. If the selling location does not provide a table, bring one of your own. Do you want to decorate your table? Do you have proper signage? Have plenty of cash on hand, with most of it being small bills. Do you have a card reader to take credit cards? Bring grocery sacks for your buyers to carry their purchase away.

3. Keep detailed records Make sure that you know how many boxes you have with you at the sale, and keep a tally sheet of how many you sell. I created this sheet for our sale and had one of the older girls do the tallying. Click to download your bakery: ABC Bakers - Little Brownie Bakers

Tips for a Successful Girl Scout Cookie Booth Sale and Free Printables

4. Assign jobs in shifts One issue I've had in past sells is girls complaining that they were holding signs too long or they were bored. This year I created a sign up sheet. Girls signed up for a task in 30 minute time slots. It worked out well and they did a great job of policing themselves. You can download a copy of the sign up sheet here. (fill in your own times)

5. Arrange cookies We find it best to put the popular cookies (Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties, and Caramel de Lites) on each end of the table and then the rest in the middle. The buyer usually stands right in front of the table, so this arrangement allows other customers to see the popular cookies for a quick sale.

6. Use signs We tried a new strategy that worked brilliantly this year. We made a sign that said 5 for $20. So many people just plopped down a Jackson and grabbed their 5 boxes. We started the sale with no twenties, but we ended up with 70 twenties. If you take credit cards, have signs for that. People love to be able to pay with a card. If you participate in Cookies for Military or similar cookie donation programs, make sure the customers know about it. We will put out a tip jar and we use the donations for cookies for the military.

7. Thank the customers Of course your girls need to smile and say thank you, but go the extra mile. Have cards or sticky notes filled out that say something like Thanks for buying cookies from Troop 1884. Since we sold on Valentine's Day, we gave each customer a valentine card. If you ask someone if they want to buy cookies and they say they already have, thank them for supporting Girl Scouts.

8. Clean up and thank host Make sure your sales area is clean after the sell. Donate your empty cases to a local charity, such as a food pantry. Make them into cat scratch pads to donate to your local animal shelter. Thank your hosts in person as you leave and then send them a thank you card a few days after.