On Tuesday, YouTube unveiled new Shopping features designed to enable creators to assemble shoppable collections, streamline the planning of shoppable content, easily monetize existing videos, and more.
This introduction occurs as TikTok Shop aims to challenge YouTube Shopping and its rivals in the marketplace, with ambitions to expand its TikTok Shop U.S. operations to potentially $17.5 billion this year, a significant increase.
With the introduction of “Shopping Collections,” YouTube offers creators the ability to compile their preferred products from various brands into browsable collections. These curated selections can revolve around specific themes, such as daily makeup routines or minimalist wardrobes, and will be accessible in the creators’ product listings, Store tab, and within the video descriptions. Initially, creators can set up these Collections using the Studio app on their smartphones.
YouTube plans to launch the feature on desktop soon.
In addition, YouTube is launching a new Affiliate Hub in its app to make it easier for creators to find information about the latest list of Shopping partners, competitive commission rates and promo codes. Creators will also be able to use the hub to request samples from top brands. YouTube says the idea behind the new hub is to make it easier for creators to plan their next shoppable video.
YouTube is also adding Fourthwall, a website builder that helps creators build shops, to its list of integrated platforms. By allowing users to connect their Fourthwall shop, YouTube is making it easier for users to create and manage their content directly in YouTube Studio. YouTube already offers integrations with Shopify, Spreadshop and Spring.
Last year, YouTube launched features that allow creators to tag products across their video library in bulk based on products added to the video’s description. YouTube is now expanding this feature to all Shopping creators. The company notes that this feature can help creators earn more revenue from their older content if it’s still getting high traffic.
As part of Tuesday’s announcement, YouTube revealed that users watched over 30 billion hours of shopping related videos in 2023. The platform saw a 25% increase in watch time for videos that help people shop on YouTube.
