YouTube Announces Holiday Shopping Showcase as it Works to Maximize its Commerce Opportunities

YouTube’s looking to give live-stream shopping another push, with a new series of shopping streams, and other in-app shopping activations, hosted by some of the most popular creators in the app, in the lead-up to Thanksgiving.

As per YouTube:

“With the holiday season quickly approaching, more and more people are looking for a one-stop shop for their gifting. That’s why we’re excited to make the holidays easier than ever with From YouTube to You, a series of videos, livestreams and Shorts featuring your favorite creators, their curated gift recommendations and exclusive product drops and deals to help get your shopping wrapped.”

The activation will see some of the top stars in the app, including MrBeast, Bethany Mota and iJustine, broadcasting over 10 days, showcasing various products and offerings, while YouTube will also be running Shorts Challenges to tie into the shopping event.

That will expose a lot more users to the potential of in-app buying, which could give YouTube’s commerce ambitions a big push as it works to maximize opportunities.

YouTube’s been trying to generate more interest in in-stream shopping as a means to generate more revenue in the app, while also providing additional monetization pathways for creators. Along this line, YouTube’s added product tags, ‘merch alerts’ and AR try-on videos, among various other elements tied into this shift.

But live-stream shopping, in particular, is the trend that it really wants to rack.

YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are all working to develop their own live-stream commerce elements, after seeing the process become a huge driver of in-app shopping activity in Asian markets.

Thus far, however, western audiences haven’t shown as much enthusiasm for buying products in-stream. But with billions of dollars on the line, you can bet that each platform is going to exhaust every opportunity to make live-stream shopping a thing, with YouTube and TikTok, in particular, pushing to make it a more significant trend.

Will that work? Time will tell – but again, live-stream shopping is currently driving hundreds of billions of dollars in sales in China.

For comparison, total eCommerce sales in the US reached $870 billion in 2021, which underlines the potential, if social platforms can make live-stream commerce happen.

This latest push from YouTube will certainly give it a shove, with some of the app’s top stars likely to bring in huge audiences, exposing them to the possibilities of the process.

And if it takes off, that could provide a whole new range of considerations for retail brands in the app.