About ElektroWirtschaft

ElektroWirtschaft

ElektroWirtschaft is the monthly trade journal of the German electrical wholesale sector, published in Dortmund by the century-old family-owned Fachverlag Dr. H. Arnold GmbH. As the official organ of the Bundesverband des Elektro-Großhandels (VEG) e.V. — the federal association of electrical wholesalers — it addresses the merchants rather than the technicians of the electrical industry: entrepreneurs and senior staff in electrical wholesale businesses. With its deliberately economic editorial angle, cross-media portfolio, and the #Forum ElektroWirtschaft event, it is the central information platform of a trade navigating digitalization, the energy transition, and the transformation of the three-stage distribution model — the journal where the wholesale trade thinks aloud about its own future.

Overview

ElektroWirtschaft appears monthly — in its 79th year in 2025, indicating a founding around 1947 — as the platform for electrical wholesale and the association organ of the VEG, serving the trade without interruption for nearly eight decades. Its editorial positioning is distinctive within the crowded field of electrotechnical trade journals: where most titles address the technician, ElektroWirtschaft deliberately addresses the merchant — the buyer, the branch manager, the managing director. The entrepreneurs and senior employees in electrical wholesale businesses read their association journal intensively, devoting more time to it than the multitude of specialist magazines generally allows — a claim the publisher makes with the confidence of an organ that reaches its members by membership, not by newsstand competition.

The preferred topics are economically accented: reports on companies and new products, detailed articles on trade fairs and events, short reports from the electrical industry, wholesale, and the skilled crafts, illuminating statistics, and interviews with industry representatives — the full information diet of the wholesale merchant, from the warehouse floor to the boardroom. In nearly every issue, the VEG's board and management address wholesalers with suggestions, comments, and statements on current market-policy questions — the association's voice speaking directly to its members through its own journal, unfiltered by outside editorial interests.

The cross-media portfolio extends far beyond print: the website with daily news, thematic newsletters, the digital edition, social-media activities, in-house video productions, and the #Forum ElektroWirtschaft — the industry's discussion forum — form an integrated offering. A bookshop sells specialist books for the B2B segment, extending the publisher's information services into the professional literature the trade's managers need.

History

The publisher's history reaches back to 1911: the Fachverlag Dr. H. Arnold is a traditional company with seats in Dortmund and Freiburg, family-owned for a century, standing — in its own words — for the combination of tradition and modernity in publishing. The ElektroWirtschaft itself dates to the post-war years, reaching its 79th volume in 2025. As the organ of the VEG, it has accompanied the electrical wholesale trade through the Federal Republic's economic miracle, the consolidation of wholesale structures, European integration, and the digital revolution — a continuous institutional memory spanning nearly eight decades.

The wholesale trade the journal serves occupies the middle position of the three-stage distribution model — manufacturer, wholesaler, electrical contractor — a structure the magazine itself analyzes as coming under pressure from the internet and direct sales. The journal's history is thus intertwined with the defense and modernization of the wholesale function: documenting how wholesalers add value through logistics, financing, technical advice, and assortment breadth in an age of disintermediation — and giving the trade the arguments and the strategies to defend its position.

The cross-media expansion — website, newsletters, digital edition, video, the #Forum — represents the publisher's answer to the same digitalization it covers editorially: a traditional publishing house practicing the transformation it preaches. The family ownership, now in its second century, provides the continuity for long-term investment in the brand: a century-old publishing house serving a trade association's members is a relationship built on institutional trust rather than quarterly results.

Coverage and Content

The editorial agenda follows the wholesale merchant's concerns. Company coverage reports on the wholesalers themselves — mergers, successions, strategies — and on the manufacturers whose products fill the warehouses. Product coverage spans the electrical assortment: lighting (innovative lamps, light-management systems, and the sales-promoting effect of optimal shop lighting), roller shutters and sun protection, electrical household appliances, and the growth categories of electromobility and building technology. Trade-fair coverage reports in detail on the industry's events, while statistics illuminate market developments.

Trend coverage addresses the forces reshaping the trade: digitalization, electromobility, automation, and Industry 4.0; climate protection, sustainability, and energy efficiency — the policy-driven markets that are filling wholesalers' order books as Germany electrifies its buildings and transport; modernization and new standards and directives. The magazine examines how companies must adapt in the course of digital transformation, with industry experts offering tips on replacing existing processes with more efficient digital ones. Energy-saving in the company and energy efficiency through presence and motion detectors are typical practical topics.

A signature analytical theme is the three-stage distribution model itself: the magazine illuminates the model, questions its chances in the course of digitalization as customers buy directly from manufacturers, and shows ways to offer customer-oriented solutions — the strategic debate of the wholesale trade conducted in its own journal, with the candor that an association organ can afford. The VEG board's regular contributions provide the association's market-policy positions, making the magazine essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where the organized wholesale trade stands.

Organization and Ownership

ElektroWirtschaft is published by the Fachverlag Dr. H. Arnold GmbH, Siegburgstraße 5-7, 44359 Dortmund (telephone 0231/3369-0) — a traditional company founded in 1911 with seats in Dortmund and Freiburg, family-owned for a century. The publishing house's core business comprises the specialist journals ElektroWirtschaft, BUS/SYSTEME, and NahverkehrsPraxis, each with a large-scale online operation publishing daily news, digital editions, regular newsletters, and video productions — a compact but complete B2B media house. The contact for the publishing house includes Gudrun Arnold-Schoenen, reflecting the family ownership.

As the organ of the Bundesverband des Elektro-Großhandels (VEG) e.V., the magazine carries the association's communications; the media data also references the EUEW (European Union of Electrical Wholesalers), the European wholesalers' organization — placing the German wholesale trade's journal in its continental context. The editor-in-chief is not publicly confirmed in the accessible sources. Circulation figures are not publicly confirmed. Financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The digital flagship elektrowirtschaft.de publishes daily news — the continuous layer beneath the monthly print rhythm — alongside digital editions, thematic newsletters, and social-media activities. In-house video productions extend the brand into moving images, and the #Forum ElektroWirtschaft provides the discussion platform where the industry debates its future, from the survival of the three-stage model to the opportunities of the energy transition. The app edition (ElektroWirtschaft VEG, iOS) contains the complete editorial content of the print issue, supplemented with videos, image galleries, links, and multimedia elements — single issue 5.99 euros, annual subscription 59.99 euros.

For a trade-association journal, the digital strategy centers on member service: the website keeps wholesalers current between issues, the newsletters deliver curated briefings, and the forum convenes the community — the digital extension of the association's traditional member communication. The combination of a century-old family publisher, an association organ with an engaged membership readership, and a modern cross-media portfolio gives ElektroWirtschaft a distinctive stability in the B2B media landscape — the merchant's journal for a trade that, for all the pressure on the three-stage model, continues to move the electrical goods of Europe's largest economy.