Google plans to turn YouTube into a major online shopping platform where you can buy what you see in the videos
- Google suffered its first ever revenue decline this year, while Amazon’s profits have risen
- It plans to make more money from YouTube by cataloguing items in the videos and making them available to buy
Every toy, gadget and other item you see on YouTube could soon be for sale online – not on Amazon, but right on YouTube itself.
The world’s largest video site recently started asking creators to use YouTube software to tag and track products featured in their clips. The data will then be linked to analytics and shopping tools from parent Google.
The goal is to convert YouTube’s bounty of videos into a vast catalogue of items that viewers can peruse, click on and buy directly, according to people familiar with the situation. The company is also testing a new integration with Shopify for selling items through YouTube.
A YouTube spokesman confirmed the company is testing these features with a limited number of video channels. Creators will have control over the products that are displayed, the spokesman said. The company described this as an experiment and declined to share more details.
The moves have the potential to transform YouTube from an advertising giant into a competitor for e-commerce leaders such as Amazon and Alibaba. (Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.)
