Greetings to my visitors from the other side of the globe! I have been recently having a huge number of visitors from USA and Canada and I would like you to create a full guide about how to order musical instruments, accessories and pro-audio gear from one of the best musical instruments companies in the world, Thomann!
As many of you probably already know, Thomann is a German musical instruments store located in Germany. What most people are now aware of is that Thomann is the 2nd largest company and the fastest growing one in the musical instruments industry.
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About Thomann
For those who don’t know, Thomann was founded in 1954 in Germany as a family business and has become one of the biggest musical instruments stores of the planet. 🙂 At the moment, they have over 96,000 products in stock, 1560 employees and almost 12 million customers worldwide from 120 different countries!
To fully understand how big Thomann is and how the company has become the fastest-growing one, just have a look at this data here (Source: MusicTrades.com).
This data from 2018 shows annual revenues of giant musical instruments company in the world. According to this data, Thomann had $956,414,280 in revenue in 2017 which places the company in the 2nd position just after Guitar Center (founded in 1959) which had $2,140,000,000.
So what makes Thomann unique and special? If you already have a look at the data, you will notice that Guitar Center made this revenue with 11,000 employees located in 430 stores all across the United States. But what about Thomann?
Thomann made almost half of Guitar Center‘s revenue with only 1208 employees and from only a single location! This clearly shows how progressive and efficient Thomann has become during recent years. Their passionate approach to customers has yielded magnificent results.
As a former musical instruments professional, I would like to provide my visitors from the America continent (United States of America, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile and many others) with the most detailed guide for buying musical instruments from Thomann!
Does Thomann Ship to USA and Canada?
As I have mentioned above, Thomann is pretty unique in this industry by being a German and a single-location company in the heart of Europe. I strongly believe many people still are not aware of the fact that Thomann ships anywhere in the world!
Another point worth to mention is Thomann’s prices. Many people wouldn’t even start comparing product prices between their local stores against Thomann because they think Thomann doesn’t ship to their locations and buying something from another side of the world wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Buyers also consider shipping prices especially their orders are travelling from Europe to the Americas. Most of the time they are also worried about customs taxes for musical instruments. First of all, let’s have a look at the shipping costs for ordering from Thomann.
International Shipping Rates of Thomann
One of the most important parameters that you should consider when you are buying from overseas, is the total shipping costs. Below you can see a table of shipping costs for various countries in America continent. I have tried to list most of the destinations that I encounter in my web site analytics.
The total shipping costs for orders up to 30 to 32 kg changes from 30 Euros to 60 Euros. Note that these prices are flat ones. However, if you are planning to purchase huge items over 30 kg, you will receive a shipping quotation from Thomann.
Thomann has a full dedicated page for shipping rates here, to give you easier access, I have listed the most preferred locations on America continent below.
Your orders will be always carried by UPS, you will have 30 days money-back guarantee and 3 years warranty regardless of your country!
| Destination | Shipping Cost | Estimated Delivery Time | Max Weight | Warranty | Returns | Carrier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 30 Euro | 6 – 9 Working Days | 31kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Canada | 50 Euro | 6 – 10 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Brazil | 50 Euro | 10 – 15 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Mexico | 50 Euro | 9 – 14 Working Days | 32kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Colombia | 50 Euro | 10 – 15 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Argentina | 50 Euro | 10 – 15 Working Days | 20kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Peru | 50 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Chile | 50 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Venezuela | 50 Euro | 8 – 10 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Ecuador | 60 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Guatemala | 60 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Haiti | 60 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 31kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Dominican Republic | 60 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
| Bolivia | 60 Euro | 10 – 20 Working Days | 30kg | 3 Years | 30 Days Money Back | UPS |
Thomann Prices – Worth Buying From Overseas?
Many people feel like they should avoid buying from the EU while residing in America continent because of high overall costs. However, this is not always the case! There are hundreds of great musical instruments and accessories brands which are manufactured in the EU, meaning you can almost always get better prices because you are ordering from an EU-based company.
Let’s have a look at an example brand and a product. Nord (Clavia Digital Musical Instruments AB) is a Swedish company that manufactures handmade synths. Here are 2 screenshots taken from Sweetwater and Thomann below.
As you can see, when you visit Thomann (Try clicking here and see it is working) for Nord Lead A1, you will be directed to Thomann Music website where you will see the price in USD without 19% VAT.
So how much would you be paying in total including shipping and customs tax? Let’s take the United States of America, as an example.
Here on the United States International Trade Commission website under Chapter 92, you can download the full document on taxation of musical instruments, pro audio and accessories.
If you search for synths, you will see that synths (over item’s value) are taxed at 5 to 5.4%.
Example Order including customs tax + shipping for the USA
Buying Clavia Nord Lead A1 from the USA
– Thomann price for the US: 1279USD
-Shipping: 30EURO = 32.94USD
-Customs Tax: 1279USD*0.05 = 63.95USD
Total cost: 1375.89USD whereas it’s 1799USD at Sweetwater.
This example shows Thomann is the way to go when you can find really good value for efforts!
What about Canada?
Let’s take the same example above and apply Canadian customs tax rate. If you have a look at the Canada Border Services Agency page under chapter 92, and filter “synth“, you will see that the tax rate is 6%. So if we apply this to the example above;
Buying Clavia Nord Lead A1 from Canada
– Thomann price for the US: 1279USD
-Shipping: 50EURO = 54.90USD
-Customs Tax: 1279USD*0.06 =76.74USD
Total cost: 1410.64USD whereas it’s 1785USD (2375CAD) at Axemusic.
As you can see, almost the same numbers can be found by calculating the total costs of a value purchase.
Of course, not every single item will give you this kind of price edge. So it’s important to be able to calculate the total costs upfront and decide if it would be worth it.
***Since I don’t speak any of Latin America languages I’m not able to do research on musical instruments tax rates. Maybe you can inform us of various tax rates about each country. If you are from one of these countries (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile…), please go to the “Contact” section and share musical instruments tax rate information of your country so I can add this information to this guide article.***
What are the other examples of value purchases?
There are many excellent value purchases on Thomann! Let’s find some other examples. If you are drummer, you are probably aware of a Turkish cymbal manufacturer, Istanbul Agop. Since they are made in Turkey, it must be way cheaper in the EU than in the USA.
I take “Istanbul Agop 15″ Cindy Blackman OM Hi-Hat” as an example item, as you can see it’s 422USD on Thomann whereas it is 809USD on Musician’s Friend!
If you go back to that document on taxation of musical instruments, pro audio and accessories, cymbals are taxed at 4.8%.
Buying Istanbul Agop 15″ Cindy Blackman OM Hi-Hat from the USA
– Thomann price for the US: 422USD
-Shipping: 30EURO = 32.94USD
-Customs Tax: 422USD*0.048 = 20.25USD
Total cost: 475.19USD whereas it’s 809USD at Musician’s Friend.
Buying Neumann U87 Ai Studio Set NI from the USA
Another great example is the industry standard brand of recording leading studios all over the world, Neumann from Berlin, Germany! They have been in the industry since 1928 and are well-known with their high-end microphones. Here is their popular model Neumann U87 Ai Studio Set NI as the example product.
– Thomann price for the US:2299USD
-Shipping: 30EURO = 32.94USD
-Customs Tax: 2299USD*0.05 = 114.95USD*
Total cost: 2446.89USD whereas it’s 3599.95USD at Musician’s Friend.
If you search for microphones on the United States International Trade Commission website under Chapter 85, all microphones are taxfree. If you know why microphones are taxfree, please let me know so I can add this info to the article. So as an example, I have calculated 5% tax on this also. Even with this extra number added, it’s way cheaper than in the US.
Note that these calculations are estimated, total costs might be slightly higher or lower.
I hope this article guide has been helpful to you! Visit Thomann today and place your order. and don’t forget to share your Thomann experience with me! Go to the “Contact” section and tell me about your experience with Thomann.