YouTube & Shopify

Youtube and Shopify have launched a new listing feature, allowing content creators to share Shopify stores with viewers on Youtube.

Channels will now be able to list their products directly on live streams, videos, and the new ‘Store Tab’. This new integration will allow users to go from a video or the home page to a ‘shopping destination’, going from a viewing experience to a shopping experience on Youtube.

Creators will also be able to tag products in live streams meaning streamers can push products to viewers in real-time. This will have huge consequences with how integral live streams are to the modern online experience.

One thing to think about is how this will affect influencers with affiliate partnerships. Will an ambassador be able to list store products with their specific partner link? If so, will we see a reemergence in review channels and the like? And could this mean merchants will have to review affiliate percentages to factor in any possible financial incentives Youtube may have for using this integration? To know this, we’ll have to wait on more information on the particulars of the Youtube/Shopify agreement.

The criteria for this new integration raise some questions as well.

• Channels with 10,000+ Subscribers
• This means that relatively small channels won't be able to use this new feature.
• ‘Licensed’ artist accounts
• What Youtube means by ‘official’ or ‘licensed’ artists is quite confusing, this could mean that independent music creators with their own merch stores may not be able to use this feature.
• Channel’s audience is not set as ‘made for kids’
• Channel doesn’t violate YouTube’s monetization guidelines
• We all know that Youtube has struggled with disputes from creators who feel they’ve been wrongfully robbed of their monetization rights.
• Channel must be from ‘eligible’ countries

So why did Youtube choose to take this huge step?

From what we could tell, this has to do with the pressure from competitors.

For example, Tiktok introduced a similar feature in select regions. Instagram recently took a step in this direction, allowing users to place orders via direct messages. Meta also added the store function on both Facebook and Instagram.

Integrations and partnerships like this will become more common and intricate as time goes on, some will work, and some will fail. Whether this will be a winner or loser depends on how seriously Youtube and Shopify considered their users' experiences when drafting the plans for this partnership.

We can be sure of one thing. And that’s that if this works the way it should, it could open a whole new approach to Shopify selling and video creation and how they fit together.

Later on, we’ll analyse how smaller Shopify stores can use this to grow by studying how the larger stores use this new integration to increase their traffic and sales.

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