Cookie Booths & More
Hosting a Cookie Booth
Cookie Booths are a great way for your troop to earn additional proceeds by selling Girl Scout cookies directly to the public at area businesses. They provide the girls the opportunity to set up, run, and manage their own cookie store. Girls conduct transactions, handle money, build their presentation and conversation skills, set up product displays, manage inventory, and more! Troops contact local businesses to arrange dates and times for the sale. Cookie booths are held at many locations including grocery stores, gas stations, movie theaters, and malls. All troops are eligible to participate in cookie booths!
This year, cookie booths will run from March 3 – April 2.
The Cookie Finder zip code search will continue to include an option for customers to purchase directly from a troop. In addition to customers seeing booths in their area, they will also have a link to a troop store in Smart Cookies. Troops will be randomly selected from the zip code that a customer enters.
Remember to enter your booth in Smart Cookies. Booth entry will open in Smart Cookies on January 31. Booths entered in Smart Cookies will be available for customers to see when they use the Cookie Finder. It is also important that our council is aware of booth locations in case of questions. Watch for instructions on how to enter booth requests in Smart Cookies prior to January 31! Use the “My Reservations” section to check on booth status, or to delete a booth. Troop Secured Booths will show as Pending until Council has reviewed them. Review can take 1-2 days.
There are three different types of booths:
First Come First Serve (FCFS)
These are rounds of booths, uploaded into Smart Cookies by Council (For example: Festival Foods)
Troop Secured Requested Booths
For this type of booth, the troop contacts businesses directly to request booth set up. Then, the troop submits a booth request in Smart Cookies.
Troop Secured Virtual Booth Event
Allows customers to order via link or QR code and prepay for cookies in advance of a pickup event to be held at a designated location, at a pre-determined date and time.
When troops use Smart Cookies to enter their booths, they also have the function of taking credit card payments at booths! Under “Booth”, find “Take Booth Credit Card Payment”, select the booth and enter customer’s information.
After booth day, Cookie Managers can do troop-to-girl cookie transfers to divide out the cookie proceeds sold that day, or they can use “Smart Booth Divider” in Smart Cookies. This can be found under the “Troop Reservations”. This Smart Cookies tool simplifies the booth transfer process and creates a record of cookies sold at a booth!
Walkabouts
During a walkabout, Girl Scouts sell cookies door to door, but instead of taking orders and delivering later, girls have the cookies with them and are able to instantly deliver them. This is so convenient for Girl Scouts and their customers!
Sometimes, troops meet and walkabout together as a group, on a weekend or early evening. Other times, girls and their parents can “check out” cookie boxes for an individual walkabout, using cookies from their troop’s backup supply. In this case, the girl would receive a set amount (usually, about 25–50 packages) from the cookie manager. The parent would sign a receipt, acknowledging they received the cookies. They would keep the cookies for a set time (usually 1–3 days) to complete their walkabout. Afterward, they can return the remaining cookies to the troop, to continue to use for booths and Keep Goal-ing orders. The Troop Cookie Manager should give the parent a second receipt, to show which cookies were returned.
