“Our Tmall Global store is live — and flat.”
Traffic is bought, not earned. Reviews, price and search results don’t catch the interest your ads paid for.
For CEOs & CMOs of Western consumer brands
Your brand already won at home.
China grades it on a different operating system.
The China Operating System is a field manual written from inside Alibaba, a 2,000-store dairy group and a consumer-health startup whose channels crossed RMB 67M in a single Double 11. It shows why proven brands bleed money in China — and the exact decisions that make a China business compound instead.
No newsletter spam. One chapter, one audit, one honest follow-up.
RMB 67MDouble 11 campaign, channels I helped build*
RMB 14Min 9.5 hours, 618 mid-year sale*
Ex-AlibabaTaobao Xinxuan private label & Taobao Union traffic
15 chapters+ 5 board-ready worksheets
Two stories that end most China board decks
A RMB 1,000 livestream order. Where did the money go?
Your agency sends a screenshot: “RMB 10M GMV in one night!” Here is the same evening, reduced to a single RMB 1,000 order — the ledger from Chapter 8. Move the sliders to your own assumptions.
Simplified illustration from Chapter 8: COGS incl. duty & packaging at 30% of retained sales; fulfilment & reverse logistics RMB 80; slot fees, samples & content team RMB 100. And the cash leaves your account two months before the platform pays you.
Chapter 4
The “Melbourne headquarters” that turned out to be an auto-repair shop.
Top Chinese livestream hosts told us they would only carry imported brands for kids — their favourite was a “premium Australian” supplement selling at 2× local prices. When national TV reporters visited the Melbourne HQ printed on its packaging, they found hydraulic lifts and engine oil. No shelf in Chemist Warehouse or Priceline had ever stocked it.
Read it the other way round: Chinese parents just proved — with billions of yuan — that they will still pay a 2× premium for genuine overseas science. The fakes are being cleared out. The window is open for the real ones.
Get the full teardown in the free chapter pack →Chapter 12 · The moral edge
The best salesperson
dares to say “don’t buy.”
Eight real WeChat conversations with anxious Chinese parents. Instead of pushing our own products, I told them to rely on daily diet first, get more sunlight, or buy a cheap pharmacy OTC — and to stop worrying.
“Every other brand wanted to convince me my kid was deficient in everything. You were the only one telling me to stay calm and go outside.”— a mother in our community, Chapter 12
In categories built on parental anxiety, restraint is not charity. It is the most defensible repeat-purchase engine in China — and one your China team’s KPI system is probably punishing.
1 / 8
Case 01 / 08
Pointing a parent to a cheap pharmacy OTC
If any of these sound familiar
Opening a Tmall store takes a few weeks.
The expensive questions start the day after.
“The distributor wants more rebates every quarter.”
Grey-market daigou prices undercut you on Taobao, and your price system — your brand’s lifeline — is gone.
“HQ’s clinical claims don’t translate.”
Your science is real, but nobody turned 12 years of research into a reason a Shanghai mum buys tonight.
“We’re not sure if we’re a ‘blue hat’ or cross-border product.”
Product identity decides your traffic pool, your claims and who will legally sell you. Most HQs decide it last.
“The agency says first-order losses come back through repeat.”
Ask for a full-denominator 90-day cohort. Most “50% repurchase” numbers quietly delete the 90% who never return.
“Who actually owns our Chinese trademark and store logins?”
One US kids’ brand fought its former distributor all the way to a RMB 50M court judgment. Chapter 15 shows why.
Who wrote this
Not a consultant who studied China.
An operator who paid China’s tuition.
My career happens to cut through four layers of China’s consumer machine — so I can see where your plan will break before your P&L does.
- Media & brand marketing. The old world multinationals know: HQ budgets, 4A creative, media reach.
- Alibaba. Ran full-lifecycle marketing for Taobao Xinxuan, Alibaba’s own private label — from factory sample to repurchase — then worked inside Taobao Union, the engine that distributes traffic across the ecosystem.
- A ~2,000-store regional dairy leader. Built online and private-domain systems before its IPO. Learned why a 7-day fresh-milk SKU can’t survive cold-chain courier maths.
- Consumer-health founder-operator. Kids’ nutrition, no safety net. Defended our gummies in a two-hour Beijing tea-house cross-examination by top community sellers — and told anxious parents not to buy. That brand reached a RMB 67M Double 11.
*Campaign figures as reported on channel announcements; channel names redacted. GMV is not profit — which is precisely the point of Chapter 8.
Inside the book · 95,000 words · 15 chapters
Five decisions every China entry gets right — or pays for.
Shatter the illusions
Turning overseas success into a Chinese reason to buy · choosing your first household pain point · “blue hat” vs cross-border identity · the fake-import collapse and your window.
Ch. 1–4Build for real Chinese households
Localisation starts from real usage barriers (humid summers, kids who hate pills) · the 5-step test that told us to kill a probiotic gummy after batch one.
Ch. 5–6Channels, price & the real P&L
Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Tmall and private domain as five different cities · price control as a lifeline · the ledger behind a ten-million GMV report · earning a channel’s endorsement.
Ch. 7–10HQ and China, one operating model
A “marketing middle office” that translates clinical parameters into buying reasons · the 6-layer claim pyramid · why restraint builds repeat purchase.
Ch. 11–12Compound & protect it
From hero SKU to family portfolio and search ownership · where the next dollar goes — brand or factory · the governance tables that stop a RMB 50M distributor dispute.
Ch. 13–15Executive worksheets
Five operational worksheets, including the 75-question HQ–Local alignment log and a one-page entry decision memo for your board.
AppendixFree executive pack
Read the chapter your China agency hopes you skip.
- Chapter 8 — The real ledger behind a ten-million GMV report, incl. cohort rules for true repurchase.
- The 75-question HQ–Local readiness audit — run it with your China team before the next budget.
- The fake-import teardown — what the collapse means for genuine overseas brands.
Work with me
Start with 60 minutes. Decide with evidence.
Before you sign a distributor, a TP agency or a seven-figure media plan, get an operator’s read on your brand.
China Entry Call
$490 · 60 min · Zoom · Bilingual
- I review your brand on Tmall, JD & Xiaohongshu before the call
- Grey-market price gaps and review red flags
- Your biggest single risk — and the next decision to make
- 100% credited against an Audit if you proceed
China-OS Entry Audit
from $5,000 · 14 days
- Full-web price and channel map for your category
- Product identity: blue-hat vs cross-border, claims boundaries
- Product & pack changes for Chinese households
- Channel P&L model and a board-ready entry memo
Advisory & Board Seat
By application
- Monthly operating reviews with HQ and China team
- Distributor, TP and creator negotiations
- High-trust channel introductions where there is a fit
- Governance: trademarks, store ownership, rebate definitions
A good fit
Consumer health, nutrition, beauty, baby & food brands with real R&D, a proven home market and leadership willing to change pack, price or channel for China.
Not a fit
Brands looking for a store set up “in a few weeks”, guaranteed GMV, or help making claims their science can’t support.
Questions executives ask
Why is the first call paid?
Because I do the homework before we meet: your listings, price gaps and reviews in China. A paid call keeps the time focused on your decision — and the fee is credited against an Audit.
Are you an agency or a distributor?
No. I advise leadership on the decisions agencies and distributors are paid to execute — so you can brief, negotiate with and measure them properly.
Are the stories in the book real?
Yes. They come from my own work between roughly 2020 and 2024. Names of private parties are redacted; public cases are drawn from court records and national media. Recommendations are updated to China’s rules as of October 2026.
Is it still worth entering China in 2026?
Not by spreading products everywhere. Chinese families still pay for genuine, evidence-backed products — they’ve stopped paying for slogans. The book shows how to tell which side your brand is on.
When is the book published?
The manuscript is final. Join the free pack list and you’ll get first notice of the launch and early-reader pricing.
One wrong China decision costs more than a year of advice.
Spend 60 minutes finding out which one you are about to make.