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Girl Scouts Go Online With New Cookies

First, the good news: There are three new Girl Scout Cookie flavors this cookie season. Now, the even better news: you might be able to get them online.

Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), based in New York City, has unveiled three new flavors: Toffee-tastic, a butter cookie with toffee bits; Trios, made of peanut butter, chocolate chips and oats; and Rah-Rah Raisin, an oatmeal cookie with yogurt-dipped raisins. Toffee-tastic and Trios are the Girl Scouts’ first two gluten-free cookies.

The new flavors were announced along with dates for National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend, this year to be held Feb. 27 to March 1. While many councils began selling cookies already, National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend acts as an unofficial kickoff to cookie selling season. According to a statement from the organization: “This year’s National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend will celebrate girls across the country who use their cookie revenue to fund projects that impact their communities in amazing ways.”

The majority of the 112 Girl Scout councils nationwide will be offering the cookies via a website called Digital Cookie.

“Digital Cookie is a game-changer for Girl Scouts, and a quantum leap forward in the evolution of the cookie program, coupling traditional sales activities with an online sales experience that teaches skills like online marketing and ecommerce, all in a digital space that puts an emphasis on learning, fun, and safety,” said GSUSA CEO Anna Maria Chavez via a statement last month.

The website works like a crowdfunding page, with each Girl Scout cookie seller having her own page. As with face-to-face cookie sales, the revenues stay with the local council to which the seller belongs.

Digital Cookie is the latest attempt of the GSUSA to integrate more technology into cookie sales. Local councils began accepting credit cards via mobile payments with cell phone card readers in 2012. The organization also has a cookie finder app, where a user can enter her zip code and get a list of cookie booths in the area.

Some 1.5 million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million boxes of cookies for nearly $800 million in revenue every year, according to GSUSA. This year marks the 98th that Girl Scouts have been selling cookies.