Girl Scouts of Colorado is so proud that the girls in Colorado have been on track to have the best cookie sale ever this year. Our girls are determined entrepreneurs, our volunteers are amazingly dedicated and we have a hard-working staff that wants nothing but success for all the girls.
And, we recognize how frustrating the inventory situation has been this year. We would move heaven and earth if we could to make more cookies to help the girls achieve their goals. We appreciate our girls, families and volunteers beyond words, and we are sorry that Little Brownie Bakers (LBB) has failed to deliver our needed inventory.
In short, LLB is not able to fill reorders for Colorado and other states. They projected lower demand because of lower numbers of girls selling, despite the high goals we asked for inventory to fulfill. The inventory shortfall is nationwide, and that’s what makes it even harder – we can’t drive to another council and get cookies for your girls because they don’t have them to give – we’ve asked, and we would drive anywhere to pick up cookies in a heartbeat. GSCO ordered and deployed cookies based on multiple business-driven data points and could not have logically foreseen this unprecedented demand for cookies from our troops. We ordered more cookies from LBB the day after the sale started to help our girls to keep their incredible momentum going.
The good news is LBB has said we should get a partial reorder today, Feb. 20, and we are hopeful that we will have some more cookies in inventory after the return date next Wednesday, Feb. 25, but we don’t know how many troops will return.
The bad news is that yesterday LBB informed us that they do not know if, when or how many reorder cookies they can send to Colorado. April is their projection, which is of course, after our sale is scheduled to be over.
What are we going to do?
To give girls a chance to fulfill orders with late arriving cookies, we have decided to extend the council sale through March 27, with girls using existing inventory.
All cookies sold by March 27 will count toward council rewards and earning Cookie Credits and troop profits.
If unexpected inventory becomes available, girls will be able to take more orders or do more My Sites.
Girls should use existing inventory for booth sales scheduled through Wednesday, Feb. 25.
After Feb. 25, the focus will shift to fulfilling existing girl orders.
We will see where we are at the end of next week before we can make a recommendation about booth sales past the return date.
We do not recommend taking new orders unless inventory becomes available.
The best way that customers can support Girl Scouts who do not have cookies is to make a donation to their Hometown Hero. This is a win-win-win for the girls, the heroes and the council.
The other way customers can continue to support girls is through their Digital Cookie personal sites. Fulfillment of these orders is from national. Shipping costs are reasonable for 3-day shipping, and the processing charge for Hometown Heroes is minimal.
We have a new cookie deadline schedule as a result of the extension: March 27 — Sale ends March 29 — Final troop data (Including rewards orders) due in eBudde March 31 — SUCM review and submission of orders due April 21 — Final debit
This is an evolving situation, and GSCO will continue to share information with you as soon as we have it. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding as we work to make the best of our challenges together.