YouTube Takes on TikTok Shop Challenge with Expanded Partnership with Shopify

As TikTok Shop grows in popularity, YouTube is expanding its partnership with Shopify to bring more brands into its YouTube Shopping Partner Program, the company announced Tuesday. The expanded partnership means creators will have access to thousands of new brands they can tag in their shopping videos, a significant increase from the few hundred brands they currently have access to.

As part of the expansion, all eligible Shopify Plus and Advanced merchants in the US can now sign up for the Shopping Partner Program.

The YouTube Shopping Partner Program gives creators a way to earn money through their videos while helping their audience find new products. For brands, it’s another way to reach customers and increase sales.

The expanded partnership will better position YouTube to compete with TikTok, which is reportedly looking to grow its TikTok Shop US business tenfold to $17.5 billion this year. While TikTok is newer to the US e-commerce space compared to YouTube, the company has been onboarding merchants at a relatively rapid pace, as TikTok said in April that it had 500,000 US merchants on TikTok Shop by the end of 2023.

YouTube also announced a new Chrome extension that will allow creators in the United States who participate in the Partner Program to save products while browsing a brand or retailer’s website, allowing them to quickly find them when they’re ready to tag them in a video.

The expansion of the Partner Program comes as YouTube has ramped up its e-commerce efforts over the past few years as a way to boost revenue amid a slowdown in digital advertising. Its efforts appear to be paying off, as YouTube previously announced that people will watch more than 30 billion hours of shopping-related videos on YouTube in 2023, and the platform saw a 25% increase in watch time for videos that help people make purchases.

Of course, the program also benefits creators who want to make more money through the platform, which is why YouTube recently launched new Shopping features to help creators sell products more effectively and increase their revenue.