YouTube partners with Shopify to deliver shopping tools for creators, brands

Starting next week YouTube viewers will see a new shopping destination in the explore tab. The tab will feature shoppable relevant content from the creators in the US, Brazil, and India.

YouTube Studio’s Shopping. YouTube has also introduced new tools within YouTube Studio’s Shopping tab so creators can manage how their products are tagged and appear across their channels. Additionally, 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.

Shopify partnership. YouTube also announced a partnership with e-commerce platform giant Shopify. The partnership would allow creators and merchants to feature products across their YouTube channels and content. Eligible creators can link their Shopify stores. 

How it works. Creators who link their stores will be able to display their products across their channels. Shopify will perform real-time inventory syncing to ensure product inventory is always up to date. US creators can even enable onsite checkout so viewers can purchase without having to leave the channel. 

“We believe creators are the next generation of merchants, and YouTube has been a longtime leader in powering this new cohort of entrepreneurs,” said Kaz Nejatian, VP of product at Shopify.

Who is eligible. To be eligible for YouTube’s shopping features, user must meet certain minimum requirements. These include: the channel must be approved for monetization; if the channel is a music channel, it has to be an officially certified artist channel; if it’s not a music channel, it has to have more than 10,000 subscribers; and the channel’s audience must not have a “significant number” of videos designated as made for kids. You can view the eligibility requirements here.

What YouTube is saying. YouTube is also exploring additional shopping options across other video formats. “We’re continuing to expand shopping across Live, Shorts and long-form video to help more creators connect with their viewers and fans in fun, creative ways and we can’t wait to see how our creators bring shopping to life on YouTube.” You can read the announcement from YouTube here. 

Why we care. The launch of several social media shopping tools in the last few weeks means that creators and brands have more ways than ever to compete with Amazon. Just like with the new Instagram payments in chat feature, we’ll be interested to see the shift from consumers purchasing on Amazon, directly through the website, or within social media. If you’re a creator or brand with a Shopify store and you’re eligible for YouTube Shopping, be sure to connect your store and take advantage of this new feature.

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