Alan Coughlan founded Lansil Global in China in 2015, in a bid to link up online sellers with Chinese manufacturers. Photograph: Liao Hele
At the same time, however, Lansil Global – the ecommerce business he founded in China in 2015 – was growing rapidly and his services were in high demand. Coughlan’s decision to expand into the US proved to be well timed and when China began to lift restrictions, his order volumes spiked. ”We went from $19 million a year in revenue the year before to $40 million that year.
Eventually, Coughlan would end up meeting his future wife and living in China for another five years after he completed his studies. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I absolutely loved it. And it put me out of my comfort zone.” “Then I thought, well if I had these quality issues and I’m living in China, if somebody was ordering online from Alibaba, trusting in these factories, and then the goods are shipped, they’d only find out when the goods arrive in the USA or UK or Ireland via freight that there’s an issue.”
It wasn’t much but it was enough to convince Coughlan to take a lease on a 1,000sq ft office and warehouse in Shenzhen, China. “That allowed us to – rather than me going on the quality check, to check the products on behalf of my customer – the factory would send us the products to my little warehouse right where we would quality check the goods. They’re saving us time.”
In addition to its original function, Lansil now offers customers more basic fulfilment services, holding stock on behalf of its customers and shipping out orders daily. This service precipitated Coughlan’s big push into the US where he now operates two warehouses, one in Nevada and one in Pennsylvania, with plans to open more in the foreseeable future.