Balenciaga joins JD.com’s luxury platform, Toplife

Kering’s Balenciaga has joined JD.com’s luxury platform, Toplife. Launched in October 2017, Toplife is JD.com's response to Alibaba's Luxury Pavillion, released two months prior. Balenciaga is the third Kering-owned brand to join Toplife this year, following Alexander McQueen and Yves Saint Laurent.

"Bringing Balenciaga to Toplife helps further cement our position as the go-to platform for luxury shopping in China”, said Xia Ding, President of International Fashion at JD.com and head of Toplife, in a statement. Cédric Charbit, CEO of Balenciaga, added that the partnership is “an important step for Balenciaga’s omni-channel strategy in China”.

The news marks one more step in JD.com’s plans of expansion in the luxury market. Last year, the Chinese e-commerce giant invested 397 million US dollars (approximately 303 million pounds) in the British luxury e-commerce platform Farfetch, which acquired the Chinese digital marketing CuriosityChina a few days ago.

Earlier this year, JD.com received an even bigger investment from Google. The search engine allocated 550 million US dollars to a strategic partnership with the Chinese company. Yesterday, JD.com’s CEO, Richard Liu, announced plans to expand not only in China, but in Europe as well. According to a German newspaper, the company aims to open an office in Germany by the end of 2018.

Photo: Courtesy of Toplife