Follow these Girl Scout Cookie Booth Ideas to increase sales this year. Free Cookie Booths printables for 2024 are included.
It is Girl Scout Cookie Time! Our troop just started sales this weekend.
On Saturday, we had our first of many Girl Scout Cookie Booth Sales at a local grocery store. I am so glad that we sold inside because it was frigid outside.
This is the fifth year of sales. I am the troop leader and Girl Scout Cookie Mom. I have learned a lot from our various Girl Scout Cookie Booths over the years.
Here are my suggestions for successful Girl Scout Cookie Sales.
1. Make sure you have enough cookies! It is hard to anticipate how many cookies you will sell, but ensure you bring enough.
I have 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 of Girl Scout Cookies in 3 hours on Saturday, 91 of which were Thin Mints. You cannot 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 with Girl Scout cookie booth signs? Do you have proper signage that shows the types of Girl Scout cookies and the price?
Have plenty of Girl Scout cookie money on hand, with most of it being small bills. Keep the money organized in a cash box. You will have to decide if only adults have access to the cash box or if it is OK for the girls to make their own change. When my girls were younger, I would have the adults hold common change in their hands to quickly give to the girls. I also allowed the girls to do the calculations for change unless a customer was in a huge hurry.
Do you have a card reader to take credit cards?
Bring grocery sacks for your buyers to carry their purchase away.
Our Girl Scout cookie cart, which is a folding wagon has all the necessary supplies.
3. Keep detailed records Make sure that you know how many boxes you have with you at the sale, and keep a Girl Scout cookie booth tally sheet of how many you sell. There are sheets for both ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers.
I created this Girl Scout cookie tracker for our sale and had one of the older girls do the tallying.
Download the Girl Scout cookie forms at the very bottom of the post. Both bakeries are included. Updated for 2024 Sales
4. Assign jobs in shifts One issue I have had in past sales 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. Younger scouts will likely need guidance with this. Jobs are a great way to practice the Girl Scout Law.
The sign-up sheet is included in the download at the bottom of the post. The time slots are blank, so you must fill in your book sales times.
5. Arrange cookies We find it best to put the popular boxes of Girl Scout cookies (Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Patties – Tagalongs, and Caramel de Lites – Samoas) on each end of the table and then the rest in the middle. The girls can learn the cookie varieties with this Girl Scout Cookie Game printable.
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. This tip is especially useful when the booth has a line of customers waiting.
Girl Scout Cookie Sign Ideas
6. Use signs We tried a new strategy that worked brilliantly this year. We made a sign out of poster board that said 5 for $20. We sold so many more boxes. The cookie prices have increased to $5 since we had our sale, so now our sign reads 4 for $20.
This strategy works so well because Girl Scout booth sales are often on the weekends or in public places where people have gotten money out of an ATM, which means 20-dollar bills. Our customers plopped down a Jackson and grabbed their five boxes. We started the sale with no twenties, but we ended up with 70 twenties.
If you take credit cards, have signs saying so. People love to be able to pay with a credit card. Test your card reader out before the sale.
Does your troop donate Girl Scout cookies to the military or other groups? Our council has a Cookies for the Troops program in place where customers can donate money for the council to send cases of cookies to US military troops. Make sure your customers know about it, particularly ones who are unsure of what to purchase or who state they are watching what they eat.
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’s 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 the host Make sure your sales area is clean after your sale.
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.
I hope you find these Girl Scout Cookie Booth Ideas helpful.
Good luck to you and your troop on your Girl Scout Cookie Sales! Throw a Girl Scout party after sales are over to celebrate!
I hope you sell lots!
Do you have any Girl Scout Booth ideas to share?
Sunday 3rd of March 2019
Wow, this is impressive. You've got this girl scout cookie selling down pack! I'm sure a lot of other moms will find your tips useful. Pinned.
Sunday 10th of March 2019
Thursday 24th of January 2019
I'm seeing a Junior Aide award in this. Our second year Juniors teaching first year Brownies to sell cookies. We have one girl that's really gung ho about cookies and the rest need to step up their game, maybe by working with a younger troop playing your awesome games and using your fabulous print outs!
Thursday 24th of January 2019
You are welcome! Good luck on the award!
Sunday 4th of February 2018
Thank you for offering the free printables. I learned the hard way that we need to keep tally on what types of cookies sell at each booth - not just total sales.
Monday 5th of February 2018
BTDT! The accounting in a nightmare! Even if your council only requires you to keep track of total numbers of boxes vs. each type, your accounting will be off if you don't track each kind. I've used a great excel sheet that a cookie mom in our council created and it's really helped. Unfortunately, it's out of date now and cells are locked so I cannot update it.
Friday 14th of October 2016
