China Southern Airlines transported more than 600 tons of online purchases back to China from overseas destinations last week.

The airline’s higher-than-average cargo load is one manifestation of Chinese consumers' response to the new cross-border e-commerce retail import tax that will be officially implemented on April 8.

As for online shopping, different sites are competing against each other to roll out sales in advance of the new restrictions. Naturally, consumers who are fond of buying overseas goods online are jumping at the opportunity to hoard their favorite products before taxes go up.

The new tax policy will eliminate duty-free exemptions for goods whose postal taxes do not exceed 50 yuan. For instance, a customer has to pay 111.9 yuan for imported goods worth 100 yuan if the tax rate is 11.9 percent. This helps explain why sales of imported milk powder, diapers and food have soared recently.

Of the items being transported back to China by air from Australia, Japan, Europe and the U.S., 80 percent are imported goods, according to the freight department of China Southern Airlines.