Exclusive | NYC Girl Scout cookie sales crumble to decade low thanks to economic uncertainty

That’s the way the cookie sales crumble.Economic uncertainty is taking a giant bite out of New York Girl Scout cookie sales — leaving the local chapter of the organization with its lowest performing season in over a decade, The Post has learned.Scouts across the five boroughs hawked just 1.1 million boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas and other cookies (including and the now-discontinued S’mores) during the 2024-2025 season as penny-pinching New Yorkers tightened their belts.That’s the lowest sales figure since the 2013-2014 season, when the Girl Scouts of Greater New York (GSGNY) sold just over 1 million boxes of their famous cookies, according to the group’s annual financial reports.It’s also half of the record-breaking 2.2 million boxes that were sold during 2020-2021 as the Big Apple was plunged into the Covid-19 pandemic.“They’re selling at a moment in time when there’s a lot of economic uncertainty,” explained Sewin Chan, a consumer behavior expert at New York University.“People don’t know what’s happening, they don’t know about the impact of the tariffs … they’re scared about future price increases.Maybe they’re buying, you know, their cars and their computers and their iPhones, thinking that prices will increase in the future, and so then they’ve got to tighten their belts in other dimensions.“There’s that part of general consumer uneasiness at this moment in time.”While the pandemic was also a turbulent time, marked by layoffs and skyrocketing prices, people were generally staying home more and likely had more pocket money to give to the Girl Scouts.New Yorkers today don’t have that same luxury — and the sticker shock of the delectable cookies doesn’t help.

Today’s New Yorkers don’t have that same luxury, Chan said.Girl Scout cookies in the metro area will cost $7, whether it’s for a 15-count box of Tagalongs or a much more economical 32-count box of Thin Mints.That means the decline in sales of about 110,000...