YouTube, in India, is looking to evolve quickly into a shopping platform, with an expectation to give creators on the platform another avenue for revenue. The company is bullish on plans for the India region, having partnered with Flipkart and Myntra as the partner platforms. The way this will work is, creators on YouTube will be able to tag products in their videos, and earn revenue when viewers purchase them on the retailers site. This aligns with their plans to evolve YouTube beyond its popular proposition of video consumption, into one that’s a “marketplace”.
“We are looking at this as a marketplace. We want to create pathways for creators,” says Travis Katz, who is General Manager and Vice President, Shopping for YouTube, at a briefing of which HT was a part. Creators who will be eligible to sign up to the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program, must be part of the existing YouTube Partner Program, have more than 10,000 subscribers, must be based in India (or other countries where this is enabled, including US, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam), must not be running as a music channel and audience must not be limited to “made for kids”.
The way this is expected to work is, creators who become part of the program, will be able to showcase products as part of their videos. At their end, YouTube is updating the apps for smartphones, smart TVs and the interface on the web, to allow viewers to see some details of that product without having to leave the YouTube video interface.
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“The way it works with these partners is, viewers can see some top level info and they can then clock through to the website to purchase. At that point, you will have the full range of options available on that website,” adds Katz.
Later in that chain, if they do decide to proceed with that purchase, they’ll be redirected to the partner shopping platform—which at this time are Flipkart and Myntra. For connected TVs, QR codes will be used, redirecting users to continue the process on their smartphone. Once on the Flipkart or Myntra product page, the breadth of options such as faster shipping and payment offers, will be available for the purchase.
“The creator ecosystem was non-existent when we came into the country,” said Ajay Vidyasagar, Regional Director, APAC for YouTube, during the briefing. “Creators have brought enormous innovation, utilizing their partnership with us. What triggered this is the unique revenue sharing model we brought to the market,” he added.
YouTube had to quickly evolve with the shopping affiliate program for India, considering Meta’s duality of competition having rolled out the Instagram Creators Marketplace, their shopping revenue program, in the country earlier this year. That allowed creators on Instagram to collaborate with brands. In parallel is the Instagram Shopping platform for businesses.
“As a homegrown brand, with more than 500 million registered customers, Flipkart and Myntra understand the evolving and nuanced shopping needs of a diverse customer base,” points out Ravi Iyer, Senior Vice President and Head-Corporate Development and Strategic Partnerships, at the Flipkart Group.
“Using the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program, we aim to further boost the experience and engagement of customers using Flipkart and Myntra by enabling product discovery through videos by creators on YouTube. The innovative approach to product discovery will strengthen the trust and loyalty of customers as we continue to build on the opportunities that video commerce offers,” he adds.
YouTube points to the fact that there is as much as 30 billion hours worth of shopping related content on the video platform, watched in just the year 2023. They bet big on the ‘creator economy’ on the platform, pointing to more than 110,000 channels on the platform with more than 100,000 subscribers each. Their own data suggests that YouTube channels earning ₹100,000 or more in revenue, are seeing a 10% annual growth.
The YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program becomes another revenue stream in the country, following subscriptions, YouTube Ads, Brand Connect, super thanks, super stickers and channel memberships. “We will continue to expand YouTube shopping. We are building towards a future where discovering products on YouTube is engaging and creative,” Katz makes clear that they’re in for the long haul.