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Arment Dietrich

e-commerce for eight-year-olds?

By: Arment Dietrich | March 11, 2009 | 
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I’m sitting here eating Girl Scout cookies, Peanut Butter Patties to be exact, and I’m thinking to myself how lucky I was this year that somebody’s child at my boyfriend’s work was selling them.  I was in Girl Scouts for half my life and once I moved to Chicago it was the end of cookies for me.  Not because I was trying to avoid them, but they weren’t coming to me!

 

When I was little my mom would make me go door-to-door every day after school and both Saturday and Sunday during cookie season, (which is the dead of winter I might add!)  And I HATED it!  We didn’t have Internet then, only hand warmers and snow pants.

 

So why is it taking so long for these cookies to be on sale online?

 

Kurt Soller’s Newsweek article says the “Girl Scout Cookie Program bills itself as the largest program to teach entrepreneurship to young girls”.  So what’s more entrepreneurial than taking your cookie sales to online methods?

 

One eight-year-old did just that with a cute, but awkward, YouTube video selling her cookies.  As a former Girl Scout with green and white blood, I can argue both sides.  But I am happy this girl decided to step-up the competitive game.

 

If Shelley Long can resort to new methods in Troop Beverly Hills, why can’t these girls?

 

What are your thoughts?

{democracy:9}

4 comments
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carl peterson
carl peterson

Having Girl Scouts selling Girl Scout Cookies is good, providing it is not done totally by parents.

I feel that parents do too much for their kids, like selling GS Cookies for their daughters. It is time for their kids to learn how to get off their fat asses, in most cases, and learn how to make a presentation to strangers and have the joy of getting an order without a parent doing all the work.

Shoot down all the "Hovering" Parents in the US and let kids do responsible things on their own, so they learn how to stand on their own feet and learn how to make their own decisions.

Carl Peterson

Christine Heim
Christine Heim

1. I LOVE Troop Beverly Hills! I even have it on DVD! Thanks for bringing it up!

2. I not only think it's hypocritical for Girl Scouts of America to tout their entrepreneurial value while discouraging a young girl from thinking outside the box and adapting to a new trend, but I also think it's sad that a girl with good intentions and good ideas cannot try new things. People are afaraid to try social media because it's new, different, and not the traditional way to sell cookies. This could have been a great opportunity to teach girls that what's been done in the past is not always the best solution (An key concept in the women's rights movement!) -- Instead it was a major FAIL.