Rennsport

About the “Goodie Store”…

The Goodie Store is a long standing tradition among regions of the Porsche Club of America. Initially established as actual temporary stores at Porsche Parades to sell Porsche regalia to attendees, the term is now applied to the efforts of individuals appointed by their regions to source and sell Porsche stuff to the regional members.

In our region there is no actual store. Goodie Store folks transport all of the stock to an event and then ask for volunteers to assist with the display and the sales.

Porsche AG, through a licensing agreement with PCA, allows the PCA regions the use of their Porsche Logo and script on the Goodie Store stock and all products are sold at a low cost to members.

Q: Why doesn’t the club offer the Goodie Store at more monthly functions and at monthly dinners? Why can’t we order on line using e-commerce?

A: This is a fair question since we do attend the driver education events with a fairly large selection of marque related clothing and I’m sure people would like to have the same opportunity to purchase these products at other events or even on-line. The unfortunate reality is that providing this service is very time intensive.

The following will give you an idea of what is involved just to provide a Goodie Store for our the driver education events:

1. Initially, we have to find a source that offers a wide selection of quality clothing that is consistent with the quality that Porsche members expect.
2. We then spend considerable time reviewing the vendor’s catalogues attempting to “guess” what will appeal to our Club members.
3. We then issue purchase orders to our supplier.
4. The product is inspected, priced and packaged in tubs ready to go to the event.
5. Due to the increased selection that has been offered over the past few years, lots of storage containers have had to be purchased and transported to the event in an SUV or trailer.
6. Once at the track, volunteer workers have to be found to run the “Goodie Store” and schedules have to be set up and opening hours determined.

At the end of the day, the goodies have to packed and the “books” balanced. For some the effort continues into happy hour, when some of the volunteers are still running around trying to locate someone who was promised a different size or was owned some change.

While the upside of all this effort is happy members who enjoy more convenient access to the logo clothing, the down side of the program is the time and effort required to make it happen.

If we had an on-line store, as some have suggested, there would be further requirements to handle payments, pack, and ship product. This would almost a require a full time manager. So, in an effort give the maximum number of Club members access to Club apparel, the Goodie Store appears at all the track events.

Should there be members that want to see the Goodie Store at more events and would like to volunteer some extra time, please raise your hand. Your help would be gladly accepted.