With my devils advocate hat on- is this good news for UK businesses?
A version of MTN electronics in the UK would be awesome.
No, I doubt it. The price goes up way too much. I would not even consider buying a light here, businesses are just too greedy. After all, this is why we shop in China in the first place, to save big money - plus the almost unlimited choice online. People who have no cash worries likely already buy them locally for convenience.
I understand it if they have a physical shop (then it’s fair enough), but most internet based flashlight shops don’t I’d imagine nor do they have physical UK stock - they just order it direct from Aliexpress etc and have it sent to you via speedpak, with a 100% + markup. kerching!
Likelihood is I will buy a lot less lights now, maybe 1 per year and probably not mod at all after using up my stock.
I agree a MTN UK would be fantastic - but do you think there are enough people in the UK to ‘feed’ it? , I would have my doubts to be honest. It is hard enough to get a living from a worldwide audience of modders, which are in the minority flashlight wise, and even then it is such a ‘cheap’ hobby retentively to others there is little profit to be made on a £3 led or a £5 driver.
Most just buy lights and don’t mod at all.
Addressable base for flashlight modding parts in the UK would be very small. There will be other shops first, i.e. computer parts and modding parts for PCs make sense because there are a lot of gamers, people who want mechanical keyboards, etc.
we are a tiny community and even tinier in just 1 market.
Best thing we can hope for is that more parts will show up on amazon and that they will have some form of way to ship across EU/UK