The Girls Scouts of the U.S.A. has lifted the ban on its members selling their cookies online.
The new "Digital Cookie" platform allows the scouts to sell and ship boxes of cookies to their friends and family across the country. Each member can create their own website, but customers can only access it if they receive an emailed invitation.
"Girls across the country now can use modern tools to expand the size and scope of their cookie business and learn vital entrepreneurial lessons in online marketing, application use and e-commerce," Sarah Angel-Johnson, who directs the digital cookie effort, told The New York Times.
The digital program will begin this month in areas that start their cookie sales early and then go national in January. More than 80 percent of the 2 million girl scouts sell cookies each year and raise nearly $800 million annually, according to the Times.
Customers can either access the order page online or via a mobile app, which includes credit card processing and direct shipping. No identifying information about the scout can be made public.
Parents must approve everything their child puts on the website and girls under 13 must use an "anonymous designation so their names and contact information" aren't made public, according to the Times. The Girls Scouts hope their members learn how to track digital orders and hand-deliver boxes ordered online.
Some girl scouts have tried to use their online resources to sell boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas and other favorites, but the Girls Scouts organization quickly shut down such enterprises. One 8-year-old girl from North Carolina established an online order form online with the help of her father, but the group declared it unfair for the other local scouts who didn't have similar resources.
Scouts compete for the greatest amount of sales in order to win prizes. An Oklahoma City girl broke the record last year for most boxes sold with more than 21,000.
