Girl Scouts gear up for online cookie sales for the first time, but not in DFW

This article contains information updated from a previous version.

Girl Scouts across the nation could soon be taking your cookie orders digitally, but not in Dallas-Fort Worth.

For the first time in nearly a century, Girl Scouts of the USA will allow Scouts to sell Thin Mints and the rest of the cookie catalog on a mobile app or personalized website, if the Scouts' individual scout councils and guardians say it's OK, the Associated Press reports.

The cookies can be shipped directly to customers' doorsteps, and more than 1 million Scouts are expected to opt in as cookie-selling season cranks up this month, the story said. The digital sales are supposed to enhance, but not replace, the traditional paper spreadsheets that are used to generate an estimated $800 million in cookie sales per year, the story said.

Scout officials said that the girls can learn important lessons from e-commerce, such as how to track goals, how to handle money and customers in a new way, and how to more efficiently process credit cards.

Scout councils can use the mobile app or websites, but not both. On the websites, Scouts can customize their pages, using their first names only, and can email potential customers links to order from. Scouts can also add videos about who they are and what they plan to do with the proceeds. The app, for phones or tablets, has tabs for tracking sales and allows for the sale of bundles of different types of cookies, the story said.

But it doesn't look like Dallas-area scouts will be surfing for cookie customers this year, at least. The Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas said they will decide next year whether to use Internet sales.