What would a “Disney World for music” even appear to be? Look no additional than Thomann’s headquarters in Treppendorf, Germany.

A musical Mecca situated in a tiny village of solely a pair hundred folks, Thomann HQ has a retailer with nearly each music merchandise you would dream of, and Europe’s largest warehouse, boasting a million cubic metres in quantity on 120,000 sq. metres of ground area.

2024 marks Thomann’s seventieth anniversary, so the workforce right here at Guitar.com took a visit to Treppendorf to go behind the scenes of the corporate’s monumental operation – which sees over 100,000 gadgets shipped day by day – and to study extra in regards to the family-focused ethos of CEO Hans Thomann that has turned Treppendorf right into a theme park for music lovers.

“My grandparents and my dad and mom had a small farm,” Hans recollects in regards to the foundations of the corporate of which he’s now on the helm. “In 1968 we had the primary actual brick-and-mortar retailer.” He says the targets for the corporate in its early days had been to have the “greatest costs” and “nice merchandise” clients had been on the lookout for.

The actual eye sweet comes when Florian Rittweger, Thomann’s Director of Gross sales, takes us on a tour of the shop’s guitar division. It’s a guitarist’s dream, certainly, with a whole lot of guitars from the likes of Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, and, after all, Thomann’s personal funds model Harley Benton.

However whereas the Thomann retailer is nothing wanting sprawling as it’s, Hans Thomann by no means takes his eyes off growth the place potential; as Rittweger explains, the guitar dept. at the moment has round 80 classical guitars, however sooner or later will home over 600.

It’s clear from our go to that Thomann’s customer-centric ethos permeates into each sector of the operation. “We’re normally the primary level of contact for the purchasers,” says Buyer Service Consultant Gabriel Smith. “Making that first impression is a large duty, as a result of if it goes badly, you’re not going to wish to take care of the corporate once more.”

And whereas the shop is spectacular sufficient, when Hans took us on a tour of the corporate’s gigantic warehouse, the sheer scope of its operation grew to become obvious. “We’ve got about 30 kilometres of conveyors,” he says. “We’ve got, on common, between 170 and 190 million Euros [worth] of inventory.”

A good portion of Thomann’s advertising and marketing effort comes from many YouTube channels, which showcase gear in a enjoyable and informative method. “It’s simple to suppose, ‘The warehouses, the methods within the warehouses, it’s all large. It’s very Amazon-like,’” says YouTube channel supervisor Guillaume Chenin. “I feel social media has been an enormous half – YouTube, amongst others – to place faces on the corporate and present people who we’re folks.”

Watch the highlights of our journey to Thomann HQ within the video above. Head to Thomann for principally any merchandise of musical gear you would ever want.