NEW YORK—Facing sagging annual cookie sales, the Girls Scouts have turned to mobile payments to boost business.
Thirty Girl Scouts councils, totaling 3,800 troops across the U.S., are now using Sage Mobile Payments and are seeing good results. CBS News reports that those Scouts using Sage now average five boxes per transaction, up from four boxes in 2014. The Sage application allows individuals and businesses to accept mobile payments with their smartphone.
The chief customer experience officer with Girl Scouts Louisiana East in New Orleans, Alisha Moore, told CBS that since many people don’t carry cash or checks as part of everyday life, having mobile payments tools on hand allows users to turn to credit cards instead.
This gives the girls, Moore said, a chance to handle a new technology and learn about new sales techniques that put the technology to work. Troop leaders, meanwhile, get a healthy new revenue stream going directly into the troop’s accounts, as well as daily reports documenting the relevant deposits made.
Sage added that being able to offer a mobile payment system as a means to get more business is a reasonable idea no matter what field of endeavor one’s in.