Freakonomics Radio XX
[0] Hey there, podcast listeners.
[1] You are about to hear the second episode of the newest show from the Freakonomics Radio Network.
[2] It is called The Economics of Everyday Things, and it's hosted by Zachary Crockett.
[3] We hope to bring you many more of these episodes in the future.
[4] If you want to make sure you never miss one, just search for economics of everyday things in your podcast player and hit follow or subscribe right now.
[5] As always, thanks for listening, and here is Zachary.
[6] Every year between January and April, the troops mobilize on American soil.
[7] They march door to door, wearing green and brown vests.
[8] They set up booths at schools, small businesses, supermarket parking lots, and they arm themselves with sales pitches that even the coldest hearts among us cannot deny.
[9] My name's Isla, and I'm seven years old.
[10] Ila spoke with our producer Sarah Lilly.
[11] There would be like samosa.
[12] It looked like a tiny donut and they have chocolates covered over it and they have coconut on top.
[13] My second favorite is thin mince.
[14] How would you sell me a cookie?
[15] I would say like, do you want this one or this one?
[16] And then you would choose.
[17] For the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is a little.
[18] the economics of everyday things.
[19] I'm Zachary Crockett.
[20] Today, Girl Scout Cookies.
[21] The salespeople may be small, but Girl Scout cookies are a big business.
[22] Every year, the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, that's their official name, collectively sell around 200 million boxes of cookies.
[23] That works out to one box for every adult in the country.
[24] And it all happens within a sales season that lasts just a couple months.
[25] The Girl Scouts have ordained two corporate bakeries to make all those cookies.
[26] ABC Bakers, part of the conglomerate that owns Wonderbread, and Little Brownie Bakers, a subsidiary of Keebler.
[27] During Girl Scout cookie season, other cookie manufacturers often dial back their advertising and lower their sales expectations.
[28] Because, as one industry analyst put it, there is no upside to marketing against the Girl Scouts.
[29] Do you like selling cookies?
[30] Yes.
[31] All those boxes of cookies bring in upwards of $800 million per year.
[32] So where does all that money go?
[33] Well, the organization is structured in tiers.
[34] You've got the national headquarters, the regional councils, then the troops of Girl Scouts.
[35] Let's say you plunk down $5 for a box of thin mints.
[36] That's the Girl Scouts best -selling cookie.
[37] about a buck 50 goes to the bakery, which kicks back a royalty to the National Girl Scouts organization to license the trademarks.
[38] The other 350 stays local.
[39] It's split between the regional council and the troop you bought it from.
[40] That money is critical to the local troops.
[41] The cookie season provides most of their funding for the entire year.
[42] And that's one reason Girl Scout cookies have one of America's largest and most enthusiastic sales forces.
[43] It's like Christmas, just the excitement and getting ready for it.
[44] That's Katie Francis.
[45] She's 21 now, so her years of selling cookies are behind her.
[46] But she's still a legend in the community.
[47] I hold the national career record for Girl Scout Cookie Sales.
[48] Katie first started selling cookies back in 2011 in Oklahoma City.
[49] Like many young scouts, she was enticed by the prizes.
[50] The council incentivizes girls to sell by doing prizes at different levels.
[51] So like if you sell 50 boxes, you might get a journal or you sell 100 boxes and you get a stuffed animal and then as it gets up, it gets more and more exciting.
[52] The average Girl Scout sells around 200 boxes per season, enough to earn a sweet fanny pack or a t -shirt.
[53] But Katie had her eyes on a much bigger prize offered by her regional council in Oklahoma, a college scholarship for the top seller in the state.
[54] I sold 2004 boxes my very first year.
[55] Katie was 10 years old then.
[56] That's around the age, most scouts start selling cookies.
[57] I wasn't aiming to be a high seller.
[58] I enjoyed selling cookies quite a bit, and it worked out that way.
[59] The next year, I ended up selling 7 ,482 boxes, which broke the state record.
[60] And then after that, I was really inspired to just see how much further I could go.
[61] In 2014, Katie broke the single -season national record.
[62] of 18 ,000 boxes, a mark set in 1986.
[63] And she was just getting started.
[64] After I broke the national record for a couple years, I set my sides on breaking the career record.
[65] And even after I did that, ended up with my own personal career record of 180 ,000 boxes.
[66] Now, Girl Scouts have two obvious advantages when it comes to sales.
[67] They're selling for a good cause, and, well, they're cute.
[68] But moving 180 ,000 boxes, that requires a true dedication to the craft.
[69] At the beginning at the cookie sale every single year, my mom and I would create a spreadsheet with my goal, and we would break down how many I would need to sell each week, each day, and like how much I would need to average out hourly in order to reach my goals.
[70] So on an average day after school, I might go to an office building.
[71] to start with.
[72] Then as that peters out, I'll go to businesses and sell business to business.
[73] And then maybe like after dinner time, I'll go to restaurants and sell to waitstaff.
[74] Katie also enjoyed a special advantage.
[75] My mom ended up being the cookie mom.
[76] Is that a formal title?
[77] A cookie mom, yeah.
[78] The cookie parent is in charge of ordering cookies for the entire troop.
[79] for the initial order.
[80] So my mom would always end up ordering like 10 ,000 boxes just to start with.
[81] Was your house just like full of cookies all the time?
[82] Yeah, we stored them all in the garage and yeah, there were just stacks and stacks.
[83] We couldn't fit anything else in there.
[84] Clearly, cookie parents are a key ingredient here.
[85] My name's Megan, and I'm the cookie mom of Troop 2201.
[86] Remember Ila, that adorable 7 -year -old Girl Scout from the top of our episode?
[87] Megan Barris is her mom, and they live in Brooklyn, New York.
[88] She says that cookie season can sometimes get a little intense.
[89] There's definitely like some parent competitiveness, maybe.
[90] Not competitive with each other, but more like, I want my kid to do the most.
[91] I want to do a table myself every weekend, like, I want them to be out there selling.
[92] So what does it take to move more cookies than any other scout in your troop?
[93] That's coming up.
[94] Back to Girl Scout cookies.
[95] Once upon a time, Girl Scouts almost exclusively sold cookies door to door.
[96] But over the years, they found that they made more sales by setting up a booth in a spot with a lot of pedestrian traffic.
[97] This sometimes led to parents jousting over the best spots, and many councils started to delegate booths through a lottery system.
[98] Supermarket parking lots are prime real estate.
[99] I remember standing outside a safe way in my neighborhood and just feeling so nervous.
[100] That's former Girl Scout, Janelle Bittker.
[101] Just the idea of like, excuse me to someone busily leaving and seeing people's eyes try to avoid your face, you know.
[102] I did not go into sales for a reason.
[103] Instead, Bickr became senior food editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and she has reported on how technology has changed the way Girl Scouts sell cookies.
[104] For instance, in 2014, the Girl Scouts started accepting credit cards using mobile card readers.
[105] That same year, the organization began selling cookies online.
[106] Scouts could create their own websites, upload video pitches, and send the link directly to friends and family.
[107] Traditionally, Girl Scout cookies are an IRL event, right?
[108] People are gathering at grocery stores or outside public transit, and they see the green booth, and there's a cute kid there, and they're like, oh, I'll buy some cookies today.
[109] But the pandemic added challenges to the cookie business.
[110] Fewer girls enrolled in the Scouts.
[111] Supply chain problems and labor shortages also made it harder for the bakeries to produce cookies.
[112] So in some areas, the Girl Scouts partnered with the food delivery app DoorDash.
[113] Troop members listed their cookie inventories on the app and set up distribution centers at local restaurants.
[114] DoorDash waived its usual fees and offered same -day delivery for $3 .99.
[115] It was good for people who love tag -alongs, but some Girl Scout parents claimed it tilted the playing field.
[116] There was this mom who was tweeting about how frustrated she was that her eight -year -old daughter couldn't buy more cookies.
[117] There were just no more cookies left.
[118] And then she went on DoorDash and she could find every single cookie and could get it on the same day.
[119] Certain troops whose parents had more money were able to spend thousands of dollars on all these cookies up front.
[120] And then DoorDash would send out these email blasts about how you couldn't get these cookies anywhere else.
[121] The families that could not afford to stockpile cookies and did not have access to DoorDash were left being sad in the rain.
[122] The DoorDash debate exposed what some might call the dark side of Girl Scout cookie sales.
[123] At the start of the season, each scout commits to selling a certain number of boxes.
[124] She gets to decide how many.
[125] The troop pays for those boxes up front, and then the scout repays the troop with the money from her sales.
[126] But if you are a Girl Scout and you're like, I'm going to buy 500 boxes of cookies, that might be a little dangerous because maybe you can only sell 200, and then you're still on the hook for all of those cookies.
[127] A few years ago, one local troop even threatened to sue the mother of a North Carolina scout who refused to pay for a few hundred boxes.
[128] boxes of unsold cookies.
[129] That's an unusual situation.
[130] Regional councils and local troops try their best to help out when cookies go unsold.
[131] Megan Barris, Ila's mom in Brooklyn, says that includes setting up local cookie hubs.
[132] If there's extra leftover, we can do like a swap with these cookie hubs.
[133] We can submit saying like, hey, we have extra boxes of this and we can bring it back and then we don't get charged for it.
[134] So we're not paying for extra.
[135] extra cookies that we don't use.
[136] Girl Scout cookies are a big business.
[137] And business, well, it can be tough.
[138] The harsh realities of cookie season, competition, technological disruption, supply chain issues, financial risk, they're all a part of modern commerce.
[139] But the scouts who stick with it learn the value of teamwork, goal setting, and persistence.
[140] They learn not to take no for an answer.
[141] Just look at Katie Francis.
[142] She's now studying communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
[143] She says that at the end of the day, thin mints just might be a vessel for self -discovery.
[144] A lot of people think of it as just a snack, but it's like a really awesome opportunity to build business skills.
[145] And girls, as they get older, they can take more charge of their own cookie cell and start to learn how to be a business owner themselves.
[146] For the economics of everyday things, I'm Zachary Crocker.
[147] This episode was produced by Sarah Lilly and mixed by Jeremy Johnston, with help from Greg Ripon and Emma Terrell.
[148] Our executive team is Neil Carruth, Gabriel Roth, and Stephen Dubner.
[149] Hey there, it's me again, Stephen Dubner.
[150] And if you enjoyed this episode of The Economics of Everyday Things, let us know.
[151] Even if you didn't like it, let us know.
[152] We like feedback.
[153] Our email is Radio at Freak O 'N.
[154] And remember to subscribe to the economics of everyday things in your podcast app.
[155] I would think that selling cookies is a little scary.
[156] Like, I might be a little shy to sell cookies.
[157] Do you ever feel that way?
[158] No. Not at all.
[159] No. Economics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything.
[160] Stitcher.