There was an article on CNN about a man who buys boxes of Girl-scout cookies from the girls for $3 and then sells them in his store for $4. Everybody was nagging and accusing him of being a jerk because of that but I have to side with him on this.
He’s absolutely right about it being safer for the girls to sell to him than to go door-to-door. Have none of those complaining people watched To Catch a Predator with Chris Hanson on Dateline NBC? Don’t they realize that this is not 1950 anymore? It’s not safe for little girls to go prancing around town in little skirts and uniforms, trying to sell cookies to weirdos.
The guy is providing a service by not only buying their cookies at full retail price, but also providing a safe way for them to sell them, and also to sell more of them than they could by selling directly to the customer so that they sell more efficiently, easier, and faster. He is just the middle-man like pretty much every other industry.
They are not interested in the work and strife of pounding the pavement (and why should they be?), they are only interested in raising enough money for their activities. It’s not like he’s making his own cookies and selling them as Girl-scout cookies in direct competition. It’s not like people won’t buy cookies from the girls because they already bought them from him. Any cookies they buy from him come from the girls, so his sales are their sales.
I think that their problem is that he is making a profit. So what? It’s only $1 per box and that’s the price he’s charging for providing such a valuable service.
They really need to chill out, rethink the modern, dangerous world, and consider doing this with other shop owners.