In your face, Jack Ma: JD launches ‘French Mall’ to push its authenticity advantage

China’s biggest ecommerce giant, Alibaba, has found itself in a bit of trouble recently. Chinese authorities have criticized the site for featuring too many fake knock-off products, and Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s most recent response has left many unconvinced.

But bad news for Alibaba is good news for its biggest domestic rival, JD, which is taking the opportunity to push its chief advantage: authenticity. On Wednesday, the company announced that it is launching a new section of its site called “French Mall.” French Mall is “dedicated exclusively to sales of authentic imported French products,” according to JD. At the Paris launch of the new subsite, JD and French government officials pledged together “to uphold the highest quality standards, with a focus on product authenticity.”

Although plans for French Mall have obviously been in the works for some time and thus it may be coincidental, there’s no denying that the timing of the announcement is great for JD. Just as its biggest rival is getting kicked around for selling too many cheap fakes, JD steps to the plate with a new site of authentic French imports. The branding message couldn’t be clearer: JD is a high-end platform for quality, authentic products. Alibaba’s Taobao, in contrast, is not.

JD, of course, is not entirely innocent when it comes to selling less-than-official products. Like Alibaba, the company was called out in a recent Ministry of Commerce report on issues with the products on ecommerce platforms, although it’s not clear what issues the Ministry found with products purchased from JD, and the Ministry’s sample size was extremely small. Update: Actually, the MoC didn’t find any issues with its sample of Jingdong products, although the sample size was very small.

It’s not yet clear what sorts of French products JD intends to offer on French Mall. French designer clothing is quite popular with China’s wealthier consumers, but there’s also a high demand in China for imported French wines, as well as other fine food and lifestyle goods. Child and baby items could be another area of focus: China’s middle-class mothers are rightfully concerned about the safety of domestic milk formula, and France has lots of forumla to offer because breastfeeding is out of fashion among French mothers.