YouTube is introducing live stream shopping on their site for the first time, with a view of taking advantage of the upcoming holiday season.
It will preview a series of shopping live streams, where viewers will be able to interact with the items that they see on screen. These live streams will also enable viewers to interact with their favourite influencers and celebrities as they show off the items being sold.
Viewers will be given access to direct shopping in-app. This is something that YouTube is looking to expand upon in the future saying that their hope is that they will eventually “allow anyone with a mobile device and a product to easily host a live shopping stream.”
It is common practice for content creators on the YouTube platform along with viewers favourite celebrities to advertise shopping products. There is a huge industry of Beauty content creators selling sponsored items.
YouTube’s shopping live streams will merge the two together by allowing viewers to buy products in real-time within the YouTube app. Wendy Yang, a product designer on YouTube shopping said that,
“The exciting thing about live shopping, and shopping generally, is that we’re already seeing it happen on YouTube – with creators revealing a product line, dropping new merch, or discussing their latest shopping haul. People want to shop on YouTube and, according to a study we ran in partnership with Publicis and TalkShoppe, 89% of viewers agree that YouTube creators give recommendations they can trust.”
“We want to bring you closer to your favourite creators and make these live-streams interactive between creators and fans. Creators can offer their audience live product drops, exclusive discounts, and even poll fans during their shopping livestreams to interact with and get feedback from their fans.”
For Gen Z, YouTube is the platform where they find a lot of their e-commerce and so by introducing live stream shopping, YouTube is entering a large market already.
YouTube is using this holiday system to trail the shopping live streams in a hope that users and viewers will feedback in what features they want the live streams to have in the future. As well as feedback from YouTube content creators on what worked for them when streaming.
These live-streams will be fully interactive, including allowing the host of the live streams to create polls and exclusive discounts whilst they are live.
You’ll be able to view YouTube’s upcoming live shopping events at: youtube.com/Shopping
