Today is a very sad day for us at Mobineko.

Although Mobineko is a mainly Taiwan based business we have several British and ex-British people working here. So it made perfect sense for the UK to act as our EU base where we handle most of the English speaking customer service and imports/exports into and out of the EU. Just like several thousand other SMEs in a similar situation it was a win-win for both sides – the UK government received significant tax revenues and we got easy access into the whole EU market.

Now, of course, after almost two decades that has to end. Although we have long since had a loyal UK following – for which we are grateful – we are still a relatively small business and couldn’t afford to continue running a separate UK office when our main customer base is Europe and Asia. We will need to find a new EU home in mainland Europe.

On a personal level most of us are shocked that the UK people as a whole have decided to take this route. We think it will be disastrous long term for musicians and the British music scene, and the world always gets a little bit darker when a country decides to cut itself off from a friendly and worthwhile union.

On a practical level there are a few small changes that we will need to make very quickly. EUR will soon become the main currency for our CD pricing, and we are discussing whether to continue offering GBP pricing on CDs in future. We don’t currently have plans to remove GBP pricing for vinyl, but it depends on how volatile the exchange rates become. Our priority for UK customers at the moment is to try and maintain current vinyl pricing despite insane currency fluctuations. It will be difficult but we have a few ideas and don’t plan to make any rash price changes just yet.

Longer term our VAT registration, banking information etc. will change but we will of course give plenty of notice beforehand.

Good bye, UK. Sorry it had to end this way 🙁