Thomann Company History - Thomann Belgium

On this page we'll show you a collection of interesting milestones in Thomann's history. As we've grown so fast in more recent years, we will spare you the meticulous details on the various renovations, extensions and new buildings :-)

The Thomann siblings from left to right Doris (accounting), Stefan (EDP), Gabi (self-employed), Hans (managing director))

1954

The Idea

In 1954, Hans Thomann Sr decided to quit his job as a travelling musician. Among other engagements he had worked for a circus company, as you can see on the picture. He also had to take care of the family farm and drove to Würzburg (70 km) almost daily in order to study the trumpet.

1960s

Arduous Beginnings

In the 1960s, Treppendorf was just a handful of houses - among them was the Thomann farm, and a real farm it was! with livestock farming and agriculture. However, music was Hans Thomann Sr's hobby, and he spent more and more time travelling with brass combos and selling equipment to other musicians. His wife Betty, meanwhile, took care of the farm and gave birth to their children :-)

1970s

The Wild 70s

More and more rooms in the house were turned into showrooms. Those were the glorious days of organs, guitars and the first synthesisers. Hans Thomann, still a young boy, made his first deals.

1980s

Living in a Shop

This is how the shop still looked in the late 1980s... all nice and orderly! The barn was the stage lighting department and warehouse at the same time; the former kids room was turned into the accounting office. The house on the left is the Thomann family home, and to this day both buildings still exist unchanged.

1990

Hans Thomann Takes Over

Hans Thomann (Junior) as the eldest son takes over the management from his father. His sister and two brothers help, too. The picture shows Hans Thomann to the right with Manni from Metal Hammer Magazine. Editor's comment: Usually Hans only makes faces like that when he misses a deal :-)

1992

The Birth of Our Hot Deals

In 1992 the first Hot Deals brochures were sent out to our customers (about 10,000, mostly from the surrounding area). The first Hot Deals contained about 100 products and no pictures. Later, pictures were simply cut out of manufacturers' brochures and the accompanying texts for each item were handed to the printer as handwritten notes.

1996

The Early Days of the Internet

After somewhat unthrilling experiences with the BTX-Technology of the German Post, we were the first music store in Germany to put up its own website. In the beginning, emails were printed out and delivered to the individual departments who replied by reguar snail mail. Today, that really wouldn't be too practical anymore, given a number of 120.000 per day :-)

1997

The RoadStar-Takeover

The RoadStar company in Eisingen used to be Germany's largest mail order retailer of musical instruments. When Thomann accquired RoadStar, the customer base more than doubled to almost 100,000 customers.

1998

A New Shop

Accepting an offer they just couldn't refuse, our neighbours eventually moved and made room for a new PA/Lights hall and new showrooms for the studio and drum departments. The planning and realisation of the acoustically optimised PA showroom (including ambiphonics) took two years.

1999

The First Call Centres in Treppendorf

Outsourcing has never been our way of thinking - we like to keep our team together. That's why we decided that our call centres - like all other departments - would have to be in Treppendorf. We operate two call centres with 40 workplaces, one for Germany and one for foreign countries. A few customers actually said they don't mind our dialect :-)

2000

German Invasion

In the year 2000 we printed our first English language Hot Deals catalogue with prices in British Pounds. UK Dealers were "not amused" and tried everything to stop us. A magazine which contained our Hot Deals almost folded, because most of the UK dealers cancelled their advertising.

2001

Thomann Audio Professional

On the strength of a growing number of installation projects, we decided to found a separate department for sound installations and projects. Our Audio Professional department takes care of installations in theatres, town halls, museums, discos etc. Meanwhile the Audio Professional team has grown to 14 members.

2003

A New Logistics Centre

"Logistics is the Future" - that's what the Gottschalk brothers kept repeating in their famous DHL campaign on German TV. Who would have thought they were right? We did. Our old mail order warehouse was about to collapse. So we built a new logistics centre of 4800 square metres and a maximum capacity of 5400 parcels per shift. A short time later, we already had 100 employees working there.

2004

"Bayern's Best 50" Award

In 2004, Thomann, as the first company in the music industry, received the "Bayern's Best 50" Award for being one of the most successful companies in Bavaria. The picture shows Hans Thomann (in the middle), Minister of Trade Otto Wieshue (on the right), and Bernd Rödl (who was responsible for the nomination).
Still, it was a sad year: in May 2004 our founder Hans Thomann Sr. passed away.

2005

Construction Site 2005

We'd had enough of new buildings and extensions to old ones, actually. But we knew we would soon need more space for storage and offices. So we decided to build everything we would eventually need at once: a container warehouse holding more than 10,000 pallets (7700 square metres), a four storey office building, and new showrooms for our guitar, brass, and stringed instrument departments.

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The times, they are-a-changing! Left: Hans Thoman, Senior's business card - still no zip-code, but a telegraph address. Right: Meanwhile, almost all Thomann employees have also business cards in Chinese.

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