Learning what the purchaser still needs

My first job involved keeping a sample cupboard intelligible. After completing a commerce degree at Suilan Commercial College in June 1996, I joined Panyuelin Ceramics in August. I was a product coordinator in a business that supplied tableware to domestic brands. A cup could have several versions with small differences in handle, glaze or packing. The label mattered because an old sample could be approved by mistake. I learnt to ask which version a person meant before treating a conversation as a decision. That was modest work, but it gave me a lasting interest in how a commercial promise becomes something people can actually use.

In January 2003 I moved into account management. I now heard directly from customers whose needs changed after an order had been placed. Some requests were expensive; others revealed a misunderstanding that we could have prevented. I was not responsible for the factory or the company result. I managed a defined customer portfolio and had to take unusual terms to the commercial director. The distinction taught me to be precise about what I could agree. I could explain a request, coordinate a response and recommend a concession without claiming that I had authority over every consequence.

The move to Lanshuyu in January 2010 placed me on the other side of the sample table. As merchandising director, I had to consider how a range looked in a shop, how it would be described online and what happened after a customer took it home. A product that met a purchasing specification could still disappoint because its dimensions were hard to judge or because replacing one damaged item required buying an entire set. I began bringing service colleagues into range discussions. Their accounts were not a substitute for commercial analysis, but they showed which assumptions deserved to be tested before a range expanded.

I became chief operating officer in February 2016. The remit brought shops, fulfilment and customer service into the same operating discussion. That was uncomfortable at first. A shop could meet its own sales plan while receiving requests that originated online, and an online team could report an efficient order while a store colleague spent twenty minutes helping the customer choose. I stopped assuming that the channel receiving revenue was the only channel contributing work. I also learnt that allocating credit casually could create a different problem: several teams might believe they owned the same sale. The eventual reward pilot needed a clear distinction between recognising help and recording revenue.

The board appointed me chief executive in February 2021. I had worked in the company for eleven years, but the role was not simply a larger operating remit. I now had to explain why a service proposal deserved capital that could have funded a new range or shop. The founding family cared about the durability of the brand; our minority investor wanted a more explicit account of the return on each initiative. I found those views could improve the same decision when we were specific about what was being bought. A replacement-piece programme was not a vague investment in loyalty. It meant stock, fulfilment work, a limited supported catalogue and a clear admission that some requests would remain unfulfilled.

I lead through proposals that retain their uncomfortable details. When colleagues presented the first replacement review, the successful requests deserved recognition, but the 560 unfulfilled requests belonged in the same paper. When clearer product pictures coincided with fewer fit-related returns, we also reported lower conversion and the limitations of the comparison. My role was not to insist that every initiative produce a favourable result. It was to make the decision understandable enough that we could continue, alter or stop it without rewriting the original purpose.

This approach shapes how I work with the board. I ask functional leaders to present their own evidence and explain where it stops. I try not to turn a challenge into a test of whether they can defend an attractive headline. A useful discussion can end with a narrower offer or a further experiment. I still spend time in shops and with service colleagues, but those visits should help me understand the operating system rather than provide anecdotes with which to overrule it.

I remain an executive director of Lanshuyu and am not seeking to leave the company through this website. I would consider one external consumer-business board where my experience of product decisions and service obligations would fill a real gap. I would need to learn that organisation's customers and economics before offering advice. The perspective I could bring is grounded in a specific career, not a claim that every retail business should make the same choices.

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