Shopify on Tuesday entered into a partnership with YouTube to enable merchants to sell via the video platform. The move is meant to shore up sales from content creators launching their own brands. This collaboration will allow merchants to integrate their online stores with YouTube.
YouTube said the U.S., Brazil and India will see products in the explore tab starting next week, while additional countries will have to wait till later this year.
YouTube is one of the most influential channels on the planet. Shopify’s new YouTube integration will fundamentally change what opportunity looks like for independent brands in the creator economy.
Kaz Nejatian, VP of Product, Shopify
What Does It Mean?
YouTubers can tag and pin products during live streams, add a store tab beneath their channel to feature their entire list of products and show a curated list in a product shelf below on-demand videos.
Simply put, if you are watching a YouTube video, there are chances you can see a list of items on the page which the content creator thinks might interest you. For example, a viewer of a YouTube channel on technology can see a list of gadgets which can be bought directly from the page with the help of Shopify. The entire transaction will occur while the video is being played. This might let YouTube retain the viewership, which otherwise would have gone to purchase products on some other site. YouTube said that it plans to expand the features to its Shorts, Live and long format videos as well.
For years, creators have built businesses around their YouTube content, often extending their entrepreneurship into building their own brands, but it hasn’t been as seamless to reach their audience with these products directly on YouTube.
David Katz, VP of Shopping Product, YouTube
The ‘Shopping’ tab in YouTube Studio, will enable creators to manage the products included.
Other Collaborations
To offset the post-pandemic decline in online shopping, the Canadian company, in June, rolled out new features to let its clients sell to Twitter and other businesses. Shopify that tied-up with other social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok said it witnessed orders placed through such integrations quadruple in the first quarter of 2022. This year the company, which makes tools to help merchants set up their online store, has lost more than three quarters of the value of its shares.
🛒 YouTube is now more shoppable 🛍️
— YouTube Advertisers (@YTAdvertisers) August 4, 2022
Find out more about our exciting new partnership with @Shopify → https://t.co/66VRx74Q3m https://t.co/lpaGfCZZf5
Official Statements
“Commerce today is multichannel, and YouTube is one of the most influential channels on the planet,” said Kaz Nejatian, VP of Product at Shopify. “Shopify’s new YouTube integration will fundamentally change what opportunity looks like for independent brands in the creator economy. We’re thrilled to expand our long-term partnership with Google to push the boundaries of D2C commerce on YouTube,” he added.
“For years, creators have built businesses around their YouTube content, often extending their entrepreneurship into building their own brands, but it hasn’t been as seamless to reach their audience with these products directly on YouTube,” said David Katz, VP of Shopping Product at YouTube. “We’re excited to partner with Shopify to help creators easily bring their stores front and center for their communities on YouTube, who are increasingly turning to them to shop,” he further said.
