Cookie app aims for sales for Girl Scouts

For those on the prowl for Girl Scout cookie booths, there’s an app for that.

Neal Cardin

Potential Girl Scout Cookie buyer Lori Corle, left, watches as Scouts Lindsea Eggen, Sophia Warthen and Faith Farrow perform their dance skit before purchasing the cookies Saturday from Troop 1143 at the entrance of the Elizabethtown Super Wal-Mart.

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Neal Cardin

Girl Scout Troop 1143 members Faith Farrow, left, Sophia Warthen and Lindsea Eggen perform and song and dance skit Saturday trying to entice Wal-Mart shoppers to buy boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

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The Girl Scouts released a free application Saturday for Web-enabled smart phones to help users locate booths.

Girl Scout cookie booth sales began Saturday for anyone craving the cookies who didn’t preorder a few boxes or who snacked their way through the treats too quickly.

Application users input their zip code to find the locations and operation times of booths near them.

The application is available at littlebrownie.com/app or by calling **47-266-5437.

The application might not make a huge impact on sales this year, but it might ease confusion about booth locations and increase booth sales in future years, said Angie Tinch, program delivery coordinator for the Heartland Service Center of the Girl Scouts.

“It’s still such a new program,” she said.

The service center, which includes Hardin County, already passed its preordered cookie sales goal of about 119,000 boxes this year by about 77,000 boxes.

Tinch said embracing technology seems natural because current generations of Girl Scouts are used to it.

“It’s just their comfort level,” she said. “It’s what they know, and we just have to adjust to that.”

Scouts also got a “Cookie Tracker” app for 99 cents and a free online database last year that has gained popularity this year to input sales records electronically and cut down on paperwork.

The application and website allow scouts to see which customers have paid, which have been delivered to and how close they are to reaching goals. It also lets them send thank you e-mails to buyers.

Tinch said some area scouts use the online system, especially because it can allow them to send e-mails to friends and family members on their contact lists and take orders online.

That can help scouts with family so spread out that they’d have to travel long distances to do all their sales in person, she said.

“I think it has improved things,” she said.

Scouts have to get parents’ permission for technology-based sales and tracking to encourage Internet safety, Tinch said.   

Amber Coulter can be reached at (270) 505-1746 or acoulter@thenewsenterprise.com.