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YouTube announces Shopify partnership and other “shoppable” innovations

By | Published on Wednesday 20 July 2022

YouTube

YouTube has announced a new partnership with e-commerce platform Shopify as it – like most of the user-generated content and social media platforms – seeks to extend the ways creators and influencers can generate revenue from their online presence.

And that includes by making content that is more “shoppable”. Yeah, that’s a word now, people. We’re stuck with it and there’s nothing you can do about it.

In a blog post, YouTube’s VP Shopping Product David Katz said that, via the new Shopify partnership, eligible creators will be able to connect their Shopify store and YouTube channel in just a few steps, and then “easily feature their products across their YouTube channels and content”.

“Creators who link their stores can display their products across their channel and benefit from Shopify’s real-time inventory syncing so that viewers are never disappointed to find a product out of stock”, he added. “And, for a more seamless shopping experience, creators in the US can enable onsite checkout so that viewers can complete their purchases without leaving YouTube”.

Confirming the partnership from its side, Shopify’s VP Of Product Kaz Nejatian said: “Shopify is the commerce infrastructure of the internet, powering millions of independent businesses all over the world. We believe creators are the next generation of merchants, and YouTube has been a long-time leader in powering this new cohort of entrepreneurs. We’re excited to partner with YouTube, and help scale the creator economy into its next phase of growth”.

Most of the user-generated content and social media platforms have been expanding the ways creators can make money beyond sharing in any ad income generated by the platforms themselves. That includes making it easier to upsell products and merchandise – often via partnerships with companies like Shopify – as well as offering membership and digital gifting tools. YouTube has been active in all three for a while now, of course.

The Shopify partnership isn’t the only innovation YouTube is introducing to make videos and livestreams on the platform more – and I’m really sorry about this – “shoppable”. Just to be clear, we did check if we’re definitely stuck with that word. But, alas, for now at least, we are.

“Starting next week we’ll be introducing a new shopping destination in the explore tab that will feature shoppable relevant content for viewers in the US, Brazil and India”, Katz also wrote yesterday. And that shopping destination for shoppable content will roll out to other countries later this year.

Plus “we’ve introduced new tools within YouTube Studio’s ‘Shopping’ tab so that creators can easily manage how their products are tagged and appear across their channel” and “all eligible creators can now access live shopping features like the ability to tag products to a live stream directly from the Live Control Room”.

It’s unstoppable shoppable madness! Enjoy it everybody.



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