Over the years, the tactics of selling girl scouts cookies has changed. Girls Scouts nationwide are shifting sales tactics from one that had Girl Scouts taking preorders of cookie sales to a direct sales approach where troops estimate how many cookies they think they can sell and then go out and sell them. By selling the cookies, the girls learn about goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics.

“The girls used to go outside more and stand in front of stores or go from house to house trying to sell cookies due to not many people using the internet before. However, now they have an online store where you can buy it, but some of the girls still go up to people asking if they want to buy any cookies.”(Zoe Hughes) To buy a box of cookies from them, it costs about $6 a box with their most popular cookie being thin mints. In 1933, the cost of a box was 23 cents per box of 44 cookies. This price has mainly gone up due to inflation and would continue to rise in the future.

Girl Scout Cookies were originally home baked by girl members with moms volunteering as technical advisers. The sale of cookies to finance troop activities began as early as 1917, five years after Juliette Gordon Low started Girl Scouts in the United States. A well known component of Girl Scouting is the Cookie Program, the largest girl-run business in the world. Once a year, Girl Scouts around the country venture into the entrepreneurial world to learn business and financial skills and earn money to fund their Girl Scouting goals.

As far as this year’s cookie lineup goes, the Girl Scouts USA website lists a dozen different flavors: Adventurefuls, Caramel Chocolate Chip, Caramel deLites (also called Samoas in some markets), Do-Si-Dos (or Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies), Girl Scout S’mores, Lemonades, Lemon-Ups, Peanut Butter Patties (or Tagalongs), Thin Mints, Toast-Yay!, Toffee-tastic and Trefoils.