How Beijing's Yabao Road market started flourishing

However, Feng was able to capitalize on this downturn to sell products of a higher standard.

"The decreasing numbers didn't mean that there was no demand anymore, but showed that Russians had lost faith in Chinese products, the cheap ones," she said.

In 2000, she began selling down coats "with more fashion styles and good quality" in a 16-square-meter shop in Yabao Road. She expanded her business five years later by founding the brand "Clasna", which means "bright and beautiful" in the Russian language.

"Russian customers have brand loyalty when shopping, so we also took steps that are rare among our peers, staging new product releases, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and hiring local Russian stars to promote our brand," she added.

Feng even risked selling products to Russians on credit, and giving massive discounts to her Russian partners during the global recession in 2008.

"Actually, our Russian partners are trustworthy, and I should also stick to the high quality and good designs," said Feng, who hires designers in Moscow and Milan to follow the fashion trends.

After years of effort, exports of down coats from China to Russia have rebounded, along with the growing China-Russia trade, which reached $88.16 billion in 2012. China is currently Russia's largest trading partner.

Today's Yabao Road, one of the largest clothing wholesale centers in Beijing, has about 14 well-decorated shopping malls, full of foreign traders.

Despite the increasingly fierce competition at home and the still-weak purchasing power in Russia due to the ongoing recession, Feng said she was optimistic about the future of her company and of bilateral trade.

"Today's Yabao Road is not the old one ... Most of the traders here are nurturing their own brands for long-term development, and I believe the Russian market will also be better next year," she said.