Our History
Our Beginnings
It all started in 2001, when I ordered, more by chance than by necessity, some neodymium magnets from a web shop in the US.
These magnets caused great amusement and amazement amongst all my friends.
Nobody had seen such absurdly strong magnets before.
When, at the end of 2002, a career move was in order, I decided to program a webshop, over which I would sell these type of magnets.
As a software engineer I had already made quite a few purchases on the web and had thereby encountered a lot of online shops that didn't work properly.
Chances that one could successfully close the order, and then actually receive the ordered items in the time span promised were at about 50%. Inquiries by e-mail were often not answered at all or one received a pre-fabricated answer that didn't answer the question submitted. On the phone often nobody could be reached. Delivery was rarely on time, products were suddenly not available anymore, orders were lost, and so on and so forth. I pledged to myself to avoid all mistakes that I had encountered on other shops, to keep the shopping process as simple as possible, and to answer each and every e-mail, if possible within hours.
Chances that one could successfully close the order, and then actually receive the ordered items in the time span promised were at about 50%. Inquiries by e-mail were often not answered at all or one received a pre-fabricated answer that didn't answer the question submitted. On the phone often nobody could be reached. Delivery was rarely on time, products were suddenly not available anymore, orders were lost, and so on and so forth. I pledged to myself to avoid all mistakes that I had encountered on other shops, to keep the shopping process as simple as possible, and to answer each and every e-mail, if possible within hours.
Meanwhile our team has quickly grown, but we keep with the principle of a simple and easy to use website as well as first class and personal customer care.
Today, a ton of overtime and over 3 million orders later, the numerous positive customer feedback seems to indicate that we are on the right track.
Your Matthias Ackermann, Owner
Milestones
| September 2024 | supermagnete can now also be found on the road. The customised tarp on the new Lamprecht lorry with super magnets and our brand ambassador Fausto is truly eye-catching! |
| June 2024 | The product groups include a practical product filter. It is a quick and easy way for you to narrow down our large selection of magnetic products to suit your needs. |
| April 2024 | Our newest feature at supermagnete.pt helps you search for the right magnets: the Magnet Finder. With this tool, you can locate the desired magnets in no time. |
| February 2024 | Our Facebook community is growing. It now has 50'000 fans! |
| October 2023 | supermagnete.pt can now also be accessed in dark mode. |
| September 2023 | With a quality manager and the expansion of our IT department, our team continues to grow to over 60 people. It enables us to fulfil your customer needs even better and faster. |
| June 2023 | When you find interesting customer applications, you can now save them to your customer account by adding 'Likes', making them easier to access later. |
| January 2023 | Hooray! We are celebrating 20 years of supermagnete! You can find exciting information about our anniversary on our anniversary page. |
| October 2022 | Our customer survey gets a makeover. We included valuable input from our customers and implemented various optimisations. |
| September 2022 | This year, we welcomed three new dogs to the Webcraft pack. The Security and Collections team now counts eight faithful companions. |
| August 2022 | Our first Webcraft apprentice begins his training as an application developer. |
| May 2022 | We expand our assortment and introduce the new category of magnet systems. They are available in various designs. Choose from rubberised magnet systems with hooks, eyelets or handles. |
The clever superflex wallpaper put to good use
| December 2021 | We break the record of 250 000 orders in one year. |
| October 2021 | At our headquarters in Uster, we are again expanding the office space and now have an area of almost 1 600 m² available to us. |
| March 2021 | We received almost 24 000 orders this month. |
| January 2021 | Sales launch of our superflex wall coverings for professional use. |
Hooray, 2 million orders!
| November 2020 | Instead of a Black Friday, we hold a Green Friday promotion. As part of the initiative, we donate 5% of our daily sales to ‘One Tree One Life’. The funds are used to plant 1 000 trees in destroyed rainforest areas in Indonesia and care for them for 5 years. |
| April 2020 | Our assortment of fishing magnets grows rapidly. We now carry extremely strong magnets and matching accessories for magnet fishing. |
| January 2020 | We received 2 million orders since the launch of our company. |
Our website has a fresh new look
| December 2019 | Our Facebook page now has an impressive 40 000 fans. |
| November 2019 | We updated the design of our website. You can now take advantage of a new and improved search function as well as an easy reorder function under the customer login. |
| February 2019 | With the help of our pole detector app you can now use your mobile phone to quickly determine north and south poles of magnets. |
The new customer service office space
| December 2018 | Our online shop features more than 1 400 products. |
| April 2018 | Our most popular YouTube-Video surpasses 250 000 viewings. |
| February 2018 | We expanded our office space at the Swiss headquarters by 400 m² to 1 300 m². |
| January 2018 | www.supermagnete.ch has been online for 15 years. |
| November 2017 | Webcraft has 50 employees by now. |
| November 2017 | Since the company's inception, we have processed 1,5 million orders. |
| January 2017 | 20 000 magnet fans follow us on Facebook. |
Our assortment now includes magnets of all kinds
| December 2016 | We break our record of 200 000 orders in one year. |
| November 2016 | We process more than 20 000 orders in one month. |
| November 2016 | The 750th customer project goes online. |
| November 2016 | On "Black Magnetic Friday" we processed almost 1500 orders in a single day - our absolute record! |
| July 2016 | We have more than 1000 products in our online shop, many of which are increasingly non-magnetic. |
1 million orders have to be celebrated
| June 2015 | Webcraft GmbH Switzerland (private limited company) becomes Webcraft AG (public limited company). |
| April 2015 | Since the company's inception we have handled 1 million orders! |
| February 2015 | Webcraft employs 40 people by now. |
Storage shelves at the Murghof workshop
| August 2014 | New logistics center and warehouse with approx. 2 000 m². |
| June 2014 | More than 500 magnets and magnetic products can be found in our online shop. |
| January 2014 | www.supermagnete.dk, www.supermagnete.fi, www.supermagnete.gr, www.supermagnete.pt and www.supermagnete.ro go online. |
The break room at the new office
| June 2013 | We move into Weiherallee 11a in Uster. Now we have 900 m² office space. |
| March 2013 | Webcraft Private Limited Company turns 10. Anniversary celebrations are held. |
| January 2013 | www.supermagnete.at goes online. |
Webcraft GmbH office building in Gottmadingen
| January 2011 | Subsidiary company Webcraft GmbH with registered seat in Gottmadingen, Germany, is founded. All EU customers are supplied by Webcraft GmbH (Germany). |
| September 2010 | Webcraft employs 25 people by now. |
| January 2009 | www.supermagnete.be, www.supermagnete.es, www.supermagnete.hu and www.supermagnete.nl go online. |
The new supermagnete logo
| October 2008 | Our logistics partner moves into a new dispatch center of 500 square meters that is being utilised for storage, packaging and shipment of our super magnets. |
| September 2008 | www.supermagnete.it goes online. |
| April 2008 | www.supermagnete.fr goes online. |
| November 2007 | We move into a three times larger office space. |
| January 2007 | supermagnete has a new logo! |
An earlier version of the online store
| December 2006 | The Spanish and Dutch versions of the online shop go online. |
| November 2006 | The Italian version of the online shop goes online. |
| August 2006 | The French version of the online shop goes online. |
| July 2006 | The English version of the online shop goes online. |
Building of the Murghof workshop
| November 2005 | All customers in the European Union receive their packages from our distributing warehouse in Konstanz, Germany. This greatly improves runtime, cost and quality of the deliveries for our EU customers. |
| June 2004 | Sheltered workshop Murghof takes over stocking, packaging and shipping. |
| March 2004 | www.supermagnete.de goes online. Deliveries to customers in Germany are sent from Konstanz, Germany. With that move, all customs and VAT red tape falls away for our German customers. |
The first supermagnete logo
| June 2003 | Storage, packaging and shipping is handed over to a third-party logistics company. |
| March 2003 | Webcraft GmbH (Switzerland) is founded. |
| January 2003 | www.supermagnete.ch goes online. |