Despite a downward pressure for the overall economy, Chinese consumers' appetite for higher quality home appliances and electronics, which in a lot of cases fit into how foreign brands position themselves in the Chinese market, continues to grow.

That is according to Suning.com, one of the largest electronics appliances retailers and e-commerce platforms in China, who placed 16.5 billion dollars' worth of purchase orders from abroad at the first China International Import Expo in 2018.

Xu Hailan, the vice executive president of District II of Suning.com's east China section, said to meet the trend of consumption upgrade, Suning International has established a department that is specifically tasked to purchase high-end products from overseas. 

"Previously, we had more domestic brands, but in recent years more foreign brands are entering China. Take A.O. Smith, Beko, Whirlpool, Noritz, Rinnai. These are the main brands we are cooperating with. They are all devoted to developing new products for the Chinese market," said Xu.

A lot of the new products also premiered at the first China International Import Expo, which is seen as a flagship event in China's continuous efforts to further open up its market.

Italian home appliance maker De'Longhi, for example, says the brand's new products were typically launched one or two years later in China than in the European market. Still, since the first CIIE, which, together with the ensuing super brand day event on Alibaba's Tmall, boosted the brand's online traffic by ten times, De'Longhi decided to release their most high-tech products in the two markets simultaneously.

Suning.com says after the 2018 expo, sales of overseas-sourced goods on its platform grew by a rate of over 200 percent; foreign home appliances and electronics brands are also launching new products faster, which accounted for more than 43 percent of their sales.