YouTube Enhances Shopping Experience in India
YouTube is elevating its shopping experience in India with the introduction of new merchant partners, sophisticated AI tagging tools, and initiatives designed to enhance collaborations between creators and brands. On Wednesday, the platform revealed the expansion of its YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program to now feature Nykaa and Purplle, two leading beauty and lifestyle retailers in the country.
This initiative follows a remarkable increase in shopping-related watch time on YouTube, which has risen by over 250% compared to last year, with more than 200 million logged-in users in India actively searching for shopping-related content.
Gunjan Soni, Managing Director – India, YouTube, stated that the next phase of video commerce is being shaped by India’s dynamic creator economy on YouTube. The platform is transforming content-driven shopping from a successful programme into a comprehensive monetisation ecosystem. By equipping creators with innovative tools, offering new engaging formats to viewers, and establishing stronger partnerships with top merchants, YouTube is reinforcing its position as the premier platform for the upcoming generation of shopping experiences.
Creators who participate in the affiliate programme can now tag products from Nykaa and Purplle, complementing existing partners such as Flipkart and Myntra. This expansion grants both creators and viewers access to an even broader selection of products and brands.
According to YouTube, an impressive 89% of beauty shoppers in India believe that the platform assists them in making confident purchasing decisions. To further support this trend, YouTube will introduce a new initiative in collaboration with Nykaa aimed at discovering and mentoring the next generation of beauty and lifestyle creators in India.
Pratik Arun Shetty, Vice President – Growth and Marketing at Flipkart, remarked that their partnership with YouTube signifies a powerful fusion of commerce and creativity, where discovery occurs in real time alongside shopping. Over the past year, YouTube creators have pioneered a fresh way for countless Flipkart customers to explore, connect, and shop through engaging video content.
Deepash Jain, VP Marketing at Myntra, expressed that their collaboration with YouTube remains robust and fruitful, unveiling exciting prospects at the junction of creators, content, and commerce. Their joint ventures on YouTube have expanded threefold over the last year, underlining the evolving influence of social-driven commerce in promoting authentic discovery and inspiration-led shopping.
Nykaa shared similar sentiments, stating that they have always believed in content-led commerce, placing creators at the heart of their connection with consumers. Partnering with YouTube Shopping allows them to build upon this strategy and connect with audiences in more genuine and impactful ways.
Suyash Katyayani, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Purplle, conveyed that their collaboration with YouTube Shopping is rooted in a shared ambition to make beauty discovery captivating, content-driven, and impactful. Together, they aim to cultivate a model where creators inspire, consumers discover, and brands flourish.
In a bid to further improve the shopping experience, YouTube is launching AI-powered product tagging, which will automatically display tagged products at the precise moment they are mentioned within a video. This feature is designed to capture viewer attention during peak engagement moments. Later this year, YouTube plans to trial automatic identification and tagging for all qualifying products mentioned in videos.
Additionally, the company has introduced tools such as Product Stickers on Shorts, timestamp-synced tags, and a Chrome extension to facilitate easier product saving and tagging.
Beyond the shopping realm, YouTube is also focusing on new features to enhance partnerships between brands and creators. These enhancements will include flexible brand segment insertion in sponsorship videos, direct brand link integration in YouTube Shorts, and a newly created Creator Partnerships Hub within Google Ads to assist brands in efficiently discovering and collaborating with creators.
With over 40% of eligible Indian creators already involved in the affiliate programme and more than 3 million videos tagged with products, YouTube is cultivating an ecosystem where content, commerce, and community come together.
