YouTube is looking to strengthen its position in the market by extending its partnership agreement with Shopify, using the YouTube Shopping affiliate program. This initiative will give content creators access to new brands to tag in their videos, offering them more opportunities to generate revenue and connect with their followers through sponsored content.

In 2023, YouTube reached an impressive milestone: more than 30 billion hours of shopping-related videos were played. This figure reflects the platform's enormous potential to facilitate deeper, easier, and more satisfying connections between content creators and their fans.

YouTube partnered with Shopify in 2022, providing merchants and creators an innovative way to connect with consumers, expand their businesses, and share their stories. With this new expansion of its partnership, the platform is looking to continue leading the way in integrating shopping into the digital environment.

YouTube Shopping: What is it and how does it work? 

This partnership will allow eligible Shopify Plus and Advanced merchants in the U.S. to sign up for the YouTube Shopping affiliate program through the Google & YouTube app on Shopify, a free app that allows Shopify merchants to 

sync products from their online store with Google Merchant Center.

Creators who meet the conditions to be part of the program can proceed to activate it and:

Set a default commission rate: this rate applies to all products shared with Google Merchant Center and all YouTube Shopping affiliate program creators.

Set commission eligibility: this is where you can set your pending period and attribution period.

Add billing profile: A valid billing profile is required to participate in the YouTube Shopping affiliate program. We currently accept credit cards as a valid billing method and are working to add more options in the future. Learn more about billing settings.

Agree to terms and conditions in the onboarding flow.

Shopify merchants can now take advantage of thousands of creators showcasing their products on a large scale in their videos, thus reaching a larger number of consumers. In addition, sellers can easily manage the program and view analytics, content, and products directly from Google Merchant Center.

Content creators can use a new Chrome extension for U.S. creators in the YouTube Shopping affiliate program to save products while browsing a brand's site. 

They will soon have access to thousands of new brands to tag in their YouTube Shopping content, including brands like BK Beauty, Popflex, HexClad, and GoPure.

The expansion of the affiliate program comes at a key time. YouTube has stepped up its e-commerce efforts in recent years to diversify its revenue streams, especially in the face of a slowdown in digital advertising. This move could be paying off, as the company went from $7.665 billion in revenue in the second quarter of 2024 to $8.663 billion.

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Shopify announced its first round of upgrades for 2024, the so-called 'Shopify Editions Winter 2024', and it is filled with over 100 improvements and new functionalities. 

The company has unveiled more than 100 updates to help merchants be more productive and creative. Among the new functionalities are features based on generative AI, new and better conversion tools, new sales channels tools, new operations tools, and a development Shopify Flow tool. 

All to facilitate domestic and international sales, both on the store's own website and across other channels. In honor of the Shopify brand name, which comes from the word "simplify," the company has emphasized that it "works to make things easier," highlighting the power of AI, which is now incorporated throughout its platform.

Among the new features is Semantic Search, a new AI-powered feature that goes beyond searching for matches to terms or keywords and better understands shopper intent, returning richer, more relevant search results that can help drive conversion.

Similarly, with Magic Media Editor, Shopify wants to help sellers edit their product image backgrounds using AI. With this tool, they will also have the ability to match the background style of an image to an existing image to maintain the visual consistency of their respective brands and even remove unwanted backgrounds.

Shopify goes for ‘AI-driven’  

Perhaps one of the clearest trends in the Shopify Editions Winter 2024 is the use and integration of powerful AI tools to help businesses sell more, better, and more efficiently. 

In this sense, Shopify has pushed forward AI implementation with their now famous AI assistant Sidekick and now, just revealed in this Winter Editions, its new AI-enabled image editing features. 

This functionality, called Magic, will allow businesses to Instantly generate, match, or remove the background of their existing images using just a few clicks or keywords. No design skills are needed. Available in early 2024.

Magic also provides AI-generated text to complete new pages in your store more quickly with or you could also ask Shopify Magic to write an About Us or FAQ page for your business to help customers build trust in your brand.

Shopify goes for the head with Headless Storefront 

The Headless B2B Storefronts feature helps stores create highly personalized shopping experiences, including using Shopify APIs and developer tools to enable B2B checkouts and access personalized products and pricing within headless stores. It also includes the 'Sales rep permissions' update that allows merchants to "assign sales reps to B2B customers, allowing them to place orders and view information only for assigned customers." This way, specific access levels can be defined for sales reps through roles.

Among other novelties, the new Editions Winter 2024 brings the following features: 

Shopify Combined Listings

Products that come in multiple colors or styles can all be merchandised from a single parent listing, each variation with its own description, media gallery, and URL with the Combined Listings app. Exclusive to Shopify Plus.

Rich attributes for each product category

Our updated taxonomy maps each standard product category to a rich set of associated attributes, making it easier to create, classify, and organize products, and automatically generate variants.

APIs supporting up to 2,000 variants per product

We’ve released new product APIs to unlock up to 2,000 variants per product to better support more complex catalogs. Available in developer preview, and to select businesses in 2024.

POS UPGRADES 

• POS Go is now available in the UK and Ireland

• Remote logout for POS Go

• Manage language settings for POS devices from the admin

Manage UI extensions across locations in the admin

Retailers with multiple locations and hardware devices can more easily install and activate new UI extensions from the POS channel in the admin.

New smart grid editor in the admin

Reduce setup time using the new smart grid editor in admin, where you can configure and assign smart grid layouts on a per-location basis.

Customized receipts that match your brand

The new Liquid code editor for printed receipts is an easy-to-use editor that customizes the presentation of printed receipts so that they can reflect your brand.

MARKETING UPGRADES

Sync customer data from 3P marketing channels

Understand your marketing ROI with more insights across channels. Pull customer events from Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Seguno, and Pinterest. Plus, you'll soon be able to surface ad cost and impression data from Google, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok.

Know and predict the value of your customer cohorts

Use historical and predictive spend metrics found in the Cohort Analysis report to gain Shopify-powered insights into the long-term value of your customers, and optimize customer retention over time.

Import and export customer metafields

You can now import the exact customer information you need on Shopify and export metafield information for analysis.

You can find out much more about Shopify new features by visiting the Shopify Editions Winter 2024 dedicated website here

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Shopify has announced the sale of its logistics business, Shopify Logistics, including the company it acquired for $2.1 billion less than a year ago, Deliverr, to Flexport for a 13% equity stake. 

In a letter on the platform's blog, CEO Tobias Lütke noted that "Flexport, led by CEO Dave Clark and founder Ryan Petersen, is the best builder and operator in the logistics world. Contributing our work to Flexport, under the leadership of Harish Abbott, allows everything about Shopify Logistics to be more ambitious and global," reiterating that "making global supply chains efficient and software addressable is Flexport's core pursuit, so this is the perfect home for this part of Shopify."

Shopify also sold 6 River Systems, another retail fulfillment automation startup for which it paid $450 million in 2019, to Ocado. Expanding into logistics services as part of Shopify's ambition to support merchants selling on its platform with a one-stop shop.

However, as the Covid-driven e-commerce boom slows and Shopify's revenue growth slows, it's spending on the fulfillment network has come under closer scrutiny by investors, who fear the capital-intensive project could weigh on earnings. Indeed, in an interview with the Reuters news agency, Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify, noted that "the change in strategy was a result of prioritizing product acceleration." "We can give our merchants great value. Flexport gets tons of new customers to use their amazing product, and we can refocus on what we do best," Finkelstein stressed.

Massive layoffs 

Shopify Inc. also said past Thursday it would cut 20 percent of its workforce, the second major round of layoffs at the e-commerce company in under a year. The layoffs came immediately after the public announcement and impacted multiple roles in the European and APAC regions. 

The official communication was done by CEO Tobi Lutke, who said, "This means some of you will leave Shopify today," told staff in a memo. "I recognize the crushing impact this decision has on some of you and did not make this decision lightly."

Affected employees have already been advised, via email, if they still have a job. Everyone will receive a minimum of 16 weeks severance plus a week for every year they worked at the company.

Shopify slashes at managerial roles

The company appears to be targeting managerial roles for the cuts, as opposed to people who work on the company's software, with Lutke saying in his note to staff that the company had too many of the former.

"The balance of crafter to manager numbers is a tricky one to strike. Too few and you risk misalignment on the most important things; too many add heavy layers of process, approvals, meetings, and… side quests. Our numbers were unhealthy, just like it is in much of the tech industry," he said.

It's the second major round of layoffs at the company in under a year. The company announced last summer that after expanding aggressively during the pandemic, it would lay off 10 percent of its staff, as sales growth on its e-commerce platform was slowing.

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Online video platform giant, YouTube, and renowned e-commerce software, Shopify, announce the launch of YouTube Shopping. It is a platform that offers new live shopping options to allow users to access products directly from YouTube's website, without having to leave the site. 

Starting with this launch, YouTube Shopping users will be able to purchase products from merchants that are present on Shopify while watching a video or live stream. In addition, an interesting new feature that this platform introduces is the ability to checkout via YouTube as well. This new feature is now available worldwide and merchants will need to have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers to be able to use it. 

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Shopify's global growth 

Over the past few years, and especially during the pandemic, Shopify has gained many users worldwide. While live shopping is currently very popular in Asian countries, it is not yet widespread in Europe. According to a survey conducted in the Netherlands, only 13% of consumers participated in live shopping in 2021. However, this trend is expected to continue to grow. 

At the same time, Shopify has recently entered the influencer market. In 2022, the company acquired Dovetale, the well-known influencer marketing startup, launching its own influencer engagement tool. 

The retirement of Tik Tok

Despite its age, YouTube today has more than 2 billion monthly users. Its main competitor today is Tik Tok, which is estimated to be surpassing the classic platform in popularity. Tik Tok launched its own live shopping tool in Europe towards the end of last year. However, in July 2022, it decided to withdraw it in the West after disappointing results. 

Towards multi-channel commerce 

According to Shopify spokespersons, commerce today is characterized by multi-channel commerce. In this respect, YouTube represents one of the most influential channels worldwide. As such, it is hoped that the new integration between the two platforms, Shopify and YouTube, will be able to change the commerce opportunities for independent brands in an increasingly creator-driven economy. 

From this launch, merchants will be able to tag products in a live stream or display a list of products on the back of videos. In addition, they will be able to manage, via the "shopping" tag, which products are shown to users. There is also the possibility to add a "shop" tab to the merchant's YouTube channel. 

As far as the product information is concerned, the products are automatically synchronized with the Shopify catalog, so that the products disappear from YouTube when they are displayed in the Shopify catalog.

YouTube maintains that:

“We’re continuing to expand shopping across Live, Shorts and long-form video to help more creators connect with their viewers and fans in a fun, creative ways and we can’t wait to see how our creators bring shopping to life on YouTube”. 

All in all, this new integration might become a valuable way to further monetize the powerful video platform, for brands and businesses. 

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The new categories that are supported on Amazon.com are Health and Household, Beauty and Personal Care, Home and Kitchen, Patio and Garden, Sewing, Arts and Crafts, Sports and Outdoors and Toys and Games. The category Clothing and Accessories were already available.

If you are Brand Registered on Amazon.com, you can submit your Brand Registered listings from Shopify by adding your Amazon registered brands in Shopify. This way, you can easily create new listings and manage existing ones. Brand Registry on Amazon protects makers and brand owners, setting yourself up as a brand owner makes listing on Amazon even easier as well. You get full control of your listings and won't need UPC/EAN codes for example. The new feature in Shopify makes it possible to list Brand Registered products without leaving the Shopify environment.

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