Tips for selling cub scout popcorn???

Also, new this year, you can print out a tax deductible form if the want to donate popcorn for the military. It is a form that you can print out at home and give it to them right away.

This is the best idea I've read. I would be way more responsive to the popcorn sales if the kids did this.
I hate to admit on this thread, but I usually turn away the Scouts selling popcorn. I really don't like it. Plus, everybody is selling stuff this time of year. Schools all do their fundraisers now, girl scouts sell nuts, boy scouts sell popcorn, many school clubs are trying to raise money for the year. It just gets to be too much. I have to pick and choose which to participate and feel so bad to turn away kids, but I can't buy from everyone. :sad1: But, if I could donate to the military and get a small tax deduction, I would choose the popcorn over some of the other stuff I like only slightly better.

I believe OP wrote popcorn is the only fundraiser her kids participate in. If they said something about that, too, I would be more interested. With so many others I know they will ask me again in a few months.

Good luck with your sales.
 
Are you kidding me? The OP clearly stated they were trying to raise funds through the popcorn sale for WDW! They OP said Ft Wilderness, park tickets and transportation! I'm all for camping trips, local trips, etc. but I don't think anyone, Cub Scouts or any other group, should expect to go to WDW for a group trip & have others pay for it by buying things through a fundraiser!

I can see your point, however it doesn't really matter where the trip it to, they have to sell the popcorn anyway. If the money isn't for a trip to wdw it would be used for other activities, end of year gifts for the kids (a new neckerchief or scout book for next year), etc. Regardless of what they're spending it on, the boys are expected to sell popcorn to keep our out of pocket costs for all activities down. And I do want to point out that the wdw trip is NOT set in stone yet, it is something the pack leader would like to do IF we raise enough money. DH and I have actually been discussing alternate ideas for trips that we could suggest to him and have come up with a couple so we'll see.

Selling popcorn has been an expected fundraising activity in both of the packs my boys have been in and we've always participated so it was no suprise, but we just moved to this town last Oct., after the popcorn sales were over, so I wanted to hear some new ideas for it now that I'm in a more rural area and I've gotten alot of great tips which are hopefully helping out some other scouting families as well.

BTW, we do have a college campus not too far away, I will definitely suggest selling before a football game to DH, that's a great idea.

WendyisDarling, tell me about it, I have FOUR fundraising packets sitting on my desk right now from my kids' schools and we'll get popcorn info tonight :confused3, I can't even afford to order from my own kids and I can't see sending them all to my neighbors so you definitely won't get any flames from me and your perspective is actually very helpful so thanks for posting.
 
As a former Cubmaster and Popcorn Kernel, I sure wish I had found this board then! The ideas are great (in fact, I'm going to pass some of these ideas along to our current cubmaster -- we're long out of scouts, but still have connections). We always sold at the local grocery store (some weekends better than others), and one place we tried was at a train station in the evening. That was OK, not fantastic, but worth the time, I thought. The pizza place across the street brought out a pizza for the boys (for free!).

I love the idea of opening the box and selling just three of the packages of microwave stuff -- I always buy the popcorn, but we just don't seem to go through the box before it's stale. When wrapping the popcorn with a ribbon, I would add a home-computer-printed tag with "thank you" and possibly a contact for purchasing more by a certain date (email would be better). And the donations jar is a must!

If you're going to open a can to sample, buy a bunch of cupcake liners and pre-fill them with the popcorn -- I'm sure it goes without saying that you don't want people dipping into the can to take their own sample (yuck).

Good luck!
- Erin
 
Incidentially, selling popcorn is not mandatory for all Cub Scouts. In our den, it's optional. We've decided that our family will not be selling it.
 


Incidentially, selling popcorn is not mandatory for all Cub Scouts. In our den, it's optional. We've decided that our family will not be selling it.
 
Are you kidding me? The OP clearly stated they were trying to raise funds through the popcorn sale for WDW! They OP said Ft Wilderness, park tickets and transportation! I'm all for camping trips, local trips, etc. but I don't think anyone, Cub Scouts or any other group, should expect to go to WDW for a group trip & have others pay for it by buying things through a fundraiser!

Hey, Tara - there is a big a very easy solution to this...Don't buy any popcorn from this troop. There. Done. Now it doesn't affect you at all and the OP can go on doing as she pleases without it having to upset you or without you minding her business.
 


in our town we were told Walmart no longer will allow any sales on property. This includes Sam's
only the people who were signed up to do a sale will be allowed for the next month to do them.
We were told by walmart it was a corporate decision to make their stores nicer italics are my words

When we do donut sales I take DD to the police dept, fire Dept and city hall.
We do pre -orders and I deliver the next day bright and early.

I do not believe this is true. I think someone at Walmart is lying to you. I am a cubmaster and we sell at our local walmart three times a year. We have one coming up this weekend and another scheduled for December. All we need is the town permit and they have no issue with us setting up. To add to it, in our spring sale they will match our profit dollar for dollar. This past April we made a $900 profit and they matched that for a total of $1800. This is also the largest Walmart in the northeast and we have had Walmart corporate employees buy from us.
 
Hey, Tara - there is a big a very easy solution to this...Don't buy any popcorn from this troop. There. Done. Now it doesn't affect you at all and the OP can go on doing as she pleases without it having to upset you or without you minding her business.

I SO totally agree!! :thumbsup2
 
I do not believe this is true. I think someone at Walmart is lying to you. I am a cubmaster and we sell at our local walmart three times a year. We have one coming up this weekend and another scheduled for December. All we need is the town permit and they have no issue with us setting up. To add to it, in our spring sale they will match our profit dollar for dollar. This past April we made a $900 profit and they matched that for a total of $1800. This is also the largest Walmart in the northeast and we have had Walmart corporate employees buy from us.

WalMart has some decentralized policies. Some are set corporate wide, some are regional, and some are up to the store manager. Just because you can sell at your WalMart doesn't mean someone else can.
 
My Dh's pack sold at Walmart the past two weekends. They only set them up at the Beginning of Sept so ours are still allowing groups to sell there. Target and Home Depot do not.

My son is in the Troop and we were at the Farmers Market on Saturday but only sold about $200 worth. It's just too expensive! We used to do great with the multi packs that had 6 varietys in the big box. We would break them out and sell them for $6 each and they sold like hotcakes.
 
Incidentially, selling popcorn is not mandatory for all Cub Scouts. In our den, it's optional. We've decided that our family will not be selling it.

That is correct. Neither the Pack nor local Council can make you sell popcorn. It is an optional fundraiser. Some of the packs in our council do not participate and have their own fundraisers.

That said, the money that goes to council from this fundraiser is important as it helps them support their packs.
 
That is correct. Neither the Pack nor local Council can make you sell popcorn. It is an optional fundraiser. Some of the packs in our council do not participate and have their own fundraisers.

That said, the money that goes to council from this fundraiser is important as it helps them support their packs.

That's true, it's not mandatory, but I do feel that it is only fair for my boys to carry their own weight by selling their fair share of it since they do benefit from the proceeds. And it is expected.
 
My son is also "enouraged" to sell $75 worth of popcorn. Their pack only keeps 1/3 of it. One third goes to pay for the popcorn itself, and the other third goes to council. That being said... To the OP, I'd encourage your kids to tout the donation for the military members, as your DH is in the service (our thanks to him and to your family for your sacrifices!) as well as members of your community. This year, they have 2 options - $25 or $40. That may seem like a lot, but many people in a military town will make donations of that amount or more to other organizations. This may make it "hit home" a little more. Maybe DH and DS can go sell at a local store, both of them in uniform of course! Best of luck to you in your quest for sales! We'll be starting next week (after we hand in the school fundraisers this week!).

Kathy
 
I've a Life Scout who went through a well-organized Cub Pack in grade school. The Pack decided years before ds started to "opt out" of the popcorn sales as there are many many Packs in this area. Instead, they do a Sunday morning pancake breakfast every fall. It runs from 7am (for those before early church) until noon (for those after late church). They are very successful----it funds the council obligation, subsidizes camping fees, pays for new equipment, and provides for the neckerchiefs and other items every new Scout is given.

Ds's Boy Scout Troop also does a pancake breakfast, but on a Saturday morning because the sponsoring church has limited space.

It's a lot easier for the boys to sell pancake breakfast tickets in the late fall than to sell popcorn during the "back-to-school" fundraiser period!
 
I guess I should've been blessed with 4 girls and 1 boy instead of the other way around :rotfl:.

Not sure it's that much better. My 4 girls are Daisies (2nd year) and they put little emphasis on cookies last year. It was voluntary. But we'll be gearing up soon to fund our fun. I'm glad our troop is large (20 girls). If it were 1/2 the size I would be under a lot of pressure to have huge cookie sales. I made it clear from the beginning that we would not be able to contribute 4 girls worth of cookie sales to the cause.

And it seems our girl scout troops are responsible for securing their own permissions at the local stores. But Cub Scouts, is done on a Pack level. So GS troops from the same school are actually competing against each other to get Kroger or WM time, rather than working together.

My DS is selling popcorn right now. We do best at the "Show and Sell" in front of stores. And DH takes the form and leaves it out at work. We hit only our street, as there a bunch of scouts all around us. I looked at Trails End online and DH and I thought we won't be subjecting our family members to those prices. They are inflated above the "take order sheet" price, then shipping STARTS at $8.95.

I agree with the donation jar. DH said they had more people empty their change or drop a $5 or $10 in the jar yesterday. And our Pack gets 100% of THAT money. Love the idea of splitting up the microwave popcorn. Our Packmaster made mention at our show and sell yesterday that they would do much better if there was a $6 item.

I despise fundraising. Glad our PTO funds itself without door-to-door selling.
 
Another Past Popcorn Kernal here. Also Mom to the top selling Cub Scout 2 years running. There were 3 ways to sell - Show and Sell, Take Order Method, and the other way I can't remember, because we didn't participate in it, but you went door to door with product and sold that way.

Show and Sell - the Pack ordered, say $10,000 worth of popcorn. We asked the Town Selectman for exclusive rights to sell on a certain day (in other words - if the Girl Scouts set up a table in town on your sale date, they could be shut down because you had exclusive rights to sell that day). Since we had this permission, we gave everyone courtesy calls, that we had the right to sell in the town, we were setting up tables, etc. One supermarket had us sign paperwork. The only one that caused a problem was Bank of America, we had copies of the letter that we gave the manager. We set up tables - Post Office, Banks, Dunkin'Donuts, Grocery Stores, Liqueur Stores. Split up the $10,000 worth of popcorn amongst the locations and let the boys sell. The first year we did this, TrailEnd didn't have the Military Option - but - we had a box set up that people - "I don't like Popcorn" Well would you like to purchase a box and we will send it to the troops?? I brought 2 carloads of popcorn to Hanscom Air Force Base to send to Iraq. People that wanted to donate money - we put popcorn aside for the food pantry in town.

Take Order Method - the boys would take an order sheet and sell. My DH would take my DS, all dressed in uniform, clipboard, pens, envelope full of change, and they would go door to door. My son sold $2000 worth of popcorn going door to door. It took him and DH about 3 hours.

The above 2 are the two methods that our pack used. We did not encourage internet sales, since the pack did not get any funds this way - just the council.

By our second year selling, we learned from our mistakes of the previous year. If at all possible during the Take Order method - get cash or check up front, it makes it a lot easier to deliver the popcorn. I also made little thank yous up that my DS signed that he taped to the popcorn on delivery. People remember that, and bought more the next year.

If people realize how much the boys love selling the popcorn, or should I say the competition involved, the prizes, it was a huge self esteem booster for my DS. I had one parent tell me - My DS will not need Salesman Skills, that is beneath him, I can afford to pay for anything you do, just tell me how much money you need and I will write you a check. Ahmmmm, missing the point of scouting?? So his poor son sat at the Pack Meeting, while all his fellow scouts were called up onstage to receive their prizes, and recognition, and that poor little boy just sat there with tears streaming down his face, because his parents were ******!!!

So your DS's have a goal in mind - Disney - imagine how they will feel if they were able to pay their own way??!!

Personally I think Trails End popcorn is the best popcorn I have ever tasted. I'm ready to buy and not one Cub Scout has come to my door. Oh and have them point out - the popcorn that they are selling right now, was just harvested this summer. I was selling the year that there were the ??? about the chemicals in certain popcorn products - TrailsEnd never used the chemicals, but all the other popcorn companies did.

Sorry about the length about the post - but I'm passionate about popcorn. I just remembered one more thing - during the Show and Sell segment - there was a small box of microwave popcorn for $5, that sold well. This was not available for the Take Order method

Janis
 
Booth sales are when you sell at Walmart/etc. As others said, the slots may be filled up (though doesn't hurt to ask.) Our WM also matches the $ amount sold. (They do only have a limited amount of funds/year and it was hit or miss whether they'd run out before popcorn season...)

Funny story about that. Our WalMart runs out of it's matching funds during the girl scout cookie sales (Jan-Mar). So one year, our soccer team was outside of WalMart selling Krispy Kremes in January, in sub-freexing temperatures. We did get matching funds, and made a ton, but NEVER AGAIN.
 
Well, we had our meeting last night. First, I don't know if this is a cub scout wide thing or just our council or whatever, but the video they showed was the cheesiest thing I've ever seen.

But, I did come away with an idea which may seem completely obvious to others, but hadn't occurred to me. We live in a rural area with 3 other houses on our street. Our pack leader does as well. So he takes his kids, loads them up in his golf cart with the popcorn and goes to a housing development and sells there. I don't have a golf cart, but we could always load up our wagon, so we'll be doing that.

Someone asked how we get our popcorn ahead of time, I honestly don't know. It is supposed to be available to pick up this Friday. I've never done it this way before, our pack leader said it was because we had such a small pack it works better this way (I think there's something like 60 boys in the whole pack). I can definitely see the benefits after having so many people order in the past and then not want it when it came in (we weren't allowed to do prepays).
 

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