In praise of Thomann

TonyR

Last Friday Mrs R ordered a Takamine F250SM acoustic guitar from Thomann. See my thread here.

Not only was the guitar an absolute bargain basement price with 62% discount, no sooner had the order been placed it went out of stock. Then a day or so later it disappeared from their site altogether.

Throughout the whole process from ordering to the guitar's arrival today they sent emails to inform us of its progress.

The guitar and its hard case arrived in pristine condition (despite it being delivered by Parcel Force!) and that is in no doubt down to their superb packaging. The guitar was triple boxed with using cardboard with polythene padding in the spaces.

Overall I think their service has been second to none and I won't hesitate to use them again.

It's just a shame the guitar has got to go away now until my (50th) birthday in July :O

sunshinewelly

thomann are excellent - never had an issue with them

carlos

They are fantastic, aren't they? They regularly win awards in Germany and Europe as one of the best online retailers.

gearaddict

I would have agreed until recently. I had a couple of things which made me feel like I was dealing with a faceless box shifter...first, I was interested in a B-stock guitar and I emailed to ask if I could get details of why it was B stock and maybe get some photos. They sent me a generic blurb about why things in general are B stock and said no, they couldn't send any photos. I didn't buy it.

I did recently buy a 2014 LP std which did turn up in one piece and well packed but was a completely different colour from the one in the photos and within a week one of the Tronical auto-tuners had jammed. I then spent about 2 weeks haggling with them about sending me new tuners, which they refused to do, saying they didn't have them in stock (they were in stock on their website) and only offered to take the guitar back and maybe send it to "the manufacturer to be repaired" - why would you return a guitar to Gibson when they don't even make the tuners? Plus I can just imagine how long that would take. In the end I bought replacement tuners direct from Tronical myself.

I am trying to get them to refund me the cost of the tuners - I think they probably will, but I have had to send them 3 different documents to confirm I have bought and received them. At no point in this has anyone at Thomann expressed any kind of concern or regret that a 1 week old guitar they sold me was rendered unplayable by a hardware failure. I have felt very much like I have been dealing with someone who couldn't care less.

Teetonetal

gearaddict said:

I would have agreed until recently. I had a couple of things which made me feel like I was dealing with a faceless box shifter...first, I was interested in a B-stock guitar and I emailed to ask if I could get details of why it was B stock and maybe get some photos. They sent me a generic blurb about why things in general are B stock and said no, they couldn't send any photos. I didn't buy it.

I did recently buy a 2014 LP std which did turn up in one piece and well packed but was a completely different colour from the one in the photos and within a week one of the Tronical auto-tuners had jammed. I then spent about 2 weeks haggling with them about sending me new tuners, which they refused to do, saying they didn't have them in stock (they were in stock on their website) and only offered to take the guitar back and maybe send it to "the manufacturer to be repaired" - why would you return a guitar to Gibson when they don't even make the tuners? Plus I can just imagine how long that would take. In the end I bought replacement tuners direct from Tronical myself.

I am trying to get them to refund me the cost of the tuners - I think they probably will, but I have had to send them 3 different documents to confirm I have bought and received them. At no point in this has anyone at Thomann expressed any kind of concern or regret that a 1 week old guitar they sold me was rendered unplayable by a hardware failure. I have felt very much like I have been dealing with someone who couldn't care less.

Shame - I was interested in the CC masterbuilt pink paisley they had until last week. I didn't trust the colours of the photos on the website as it looked very dark, almost red. They sent me 7 or 8 shots of the guitar from a smartphone, which confimed it's vintage colour. someone else bought it the next day.

Then they offered to order me one from fender. 

Declined as I'd already decided on the green one, but the customer service was very good.

Shame to hear about the tuners hope you get the money back.

gearaddict

So they have refunded me the money to cover my tuner purchase and sent me a set of Gibson strings...so I can't complain too much in the end.

bingefeller

I just sent back my Fly Rig today. I'm sure there won't be a problem with refunds .

Phil_aka_Pip

Thomman are good. I've bought loads of stuff off them over the years. Not guitars though, although one or two have tempted me. Mainly because I usually don't like to buy without playing first. If they had a din house at Treppendorf it might be nice to drive over and try a few 

ToneControl

I've bought loads from them

so far, any issue has been resolved impeccably, including when I bought a 335 and moaned that the price dropped by 50 Euro the next day. They refunded 50 Euro. Can you beat that? 

Chalky

If you have any problem with anything from Thomann, talk to them and send it back. This simple process always works. Costs Thomann very little because they are geared up for it and their contracts with their suppliers covers this process.

The problem comes when people don't want to send it back, as in the example above. No online retailer copes well with this. Someone has to investigate - costs money. They have to send something like the Tronical tuners that the buyer suggested. Tronical only supply complete kits not spares. Because that is the Tronical contract with Tronical suppliers. If Thomann sent a complete kit to the buyer who pays for it? Gibson won't because their contract only covers complete guitars. Tronical won't because their contract only covers complete kits not Gibson guitars that are supplied with min-etune.

The buyer said they "only offered to take the guitar back and maybe send it to "the manufacturer to be repaired" - why would you return a guitar to Gibson when they don't even make the tuners?

Thomann will offer you your money back or to get the guitar repaired. Both are entirely reasonable offers to make as a retailer. Also, in effect Gibson >do< make the tuners. The contract for the guitar will have Thomann at one end and Gibson at the other end. Tronical will not be mentioned in that contract. So the Thomann-Tronical contractual relationship is irrelevant to your purchase of the guitar.

So the rule with Thomann is simple - if you like it keep it, and if you don't like it then send it back. Follow this simple rule and you will always get first class service from Thomann.

This sort of contractual process spaghetti applies to the retailers of most electrical things you've bought recently. Follow their process and don't try to invent your own.

Hertz32

I placed an order with them the other day, and emailed them afterwards asking them to remove an incorrect pot from my order.
It was shipped anyway and I never got a reply.
Now I have to live with £10 worth of incorrect potentiometer or post it back to them which will cost me again.

I'm ambivolent about Thomann. Great stock and prices, but seem too boxshiftery to me. I'll use Strings Direct or GAK out of preference.

57Deluxe

TonyR said:

<SNIP>

It's just a shame the guitar has got to go away now until my (50th) birthday in July :O

ermmm... at your age I would have thought that tempting fate a bit!

Every last day is precious here on in - get using it!

Chalky

@57Deluxe - Cruel. But very funny. )

TonyR

57Deluxe said:

ermmm... at your age I would have thought that tempting fate a bit!

Every last day is precious here on in - get using it!

Ooh that's harsh!

gearaddict

Tronical do supply parts in fact... I bought some. I appreciate Thomann's processes and how they work. What surprised me was the poor response times and the lack of understanding or interest in what I was saying. This seemed to me to be different from previous transactions I have had with them.

Chalky

If you worked in retail you would probably not be interested in what your customer is saying. You just want to know "Are you buying or not?" You can waste a lot of life on potential customers who want someone to listen to them. Try it as a job )

underdog

The rule with thomann (and lost retailers of any kind) is always if something is time sensitive (cancel an order before it ships) phone them, not email.

Dave_Mc

Chalky said:

If you worked in retail you would probably not be interested in what your customer is saying. You just want to know "Are you buying or not?" You can waste a lot of life on potential customers who want someone to listen to them. Try it as a job )

To be fair, he had already bought. Which changes things a bit, I'd say.

gearaddict

Chalky said:

If you worked in retail you would probably not be interested in what your customer is saying. You just want to know "Are you buying or not?" You can waste a lot of life on potential customers who want someone to listen to them. Try it as a job )

I guess it's the price you pay when you get something for £500 less than it would be in a shop (which I did)

sunshinewelly

I am lucky in that in my dealings with them and in particular over my purchase of my DG335 i now have a direct email of Olly who heads their guitar side of the business. He is brilliant. For example i wanted to order a line6 sonic port whilst waiting for the delivery of my dg335. I asked what the postage would be to deliver the line6 unit separately as i wanted it for christmas and he simply sent it without any postage costs. He has also agreed to offer me a sizeable discount on my next purchase due the issues i had with my DG335 as well as alredy giving me a partial refund on what i paid.

 

scrumhalf

How long does Thomann's free delivery usually take to the UK?