If you're part of the global e‑commerce scene—or aiming to be—you need to know about Cross‑Border Magazine's official YouTube channel! With a fast-growing community of over 7,000 subscribers, this channel has become a trusted source of insights for entrepreneurs, marketers, and tech professionals navigating the world of cross‑border trade.

At the heart of the channel is the “e-commerce quickFIX” podcast—an official production of Cross‑Border Magazine. Each episode features an in-depth interview with a leader from the e-commerce, cross-border, or tech industry. These are the people shaping the future of global trade, and they're sharing their experiences, insights, and bold ideas directly with you.

From hot topics like AI in logistics, international payments, and localization strategies, to emerging trends in global fulfillment, marketing automation, and regulatory compliance, the podcast delivers fresh, actionable content with every episode. It’s not theory—it’s real-world innovation from the people driving change.

Cross‑Border Magazine’s channel is more than just content. It’s a community of forward-thinking professionals who believe in the power of going global—smarter and faster. Join the conversation. Discover the strategy. Grow your business.

Head over to the Cross‑Border Magazine YouTube channel and become part of this global movement in e‑commerce!

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Google is revolutionizing visual search by integrating Google Lens into YouTube Shorts, offering marketers and content creators innovative ways to enhance visibility and engagement.

Google Lens Integration with YouTube Shorts

As of late May 2025, Google Lens has been integrated into YouTube Shorts, allowing users to interact with video content in unprecedented ways. Viewers can pause a Short, tap the "Lens" icon, and select objects, text, or landmarks within the video to learn more about them. This feature supports real-time translation, object identification, and location insights, all displayed seamlessly above the video content. 

Key Features:

• Interactive Search: Users can highlight elements within a Short to initiate a search.
  
• Real-Time Translation: Translate text within videos instantly.
  
• Object & Landmark Identification: Recognize products, animals, plants, and landmarks.
  
• AI Overviews: Receive AI-generated summaries and information about selected items.
  

However, it's important to note that Shorts containing affiliate tags or paid promotions are excluded from Lens functionality. 

Implications for SEO and Content Strategy

The fusion of Google Lens with YouTube Shorts signifies a shift towards visual-first SEO strategies. Marketers should consider the following:

• Enhanced Visual Content: High-quality, clear visuals are more likely to be recognized and favored by Google Lens.
  
• Descriptive Alt Text: Accurate and descriptive alt text can improve the discoverability of visual content.
  
• Structured Data Markup: Implementing schema markup helps search engines understand and index visual content effectively.
  
• Mobile Optimization: Ensure content is optimized for mobile viewing, as Google Lens is primarily used on mobile devices.
  

By adapting to these strategies, businesses can increase their visibility in visual search results and stay ahead in the evolving SEO landscape.

The Rise of Visual Search

Visual search is becoming increasingly prevalent, with Google Lens handling over 20 billion visual searches monthly. The integration with YouTube Shorts amplifies this trend, providing users with more interactive and engaging search experiences.

Integrating Google Lens into YouTube Shorts marks a significant advancement in visual search capabilities. This presents new opportunities for marketers and content creators to enhance SEO strategies by focusing on high-quality visual content and mobile optimization. Embracing these changes will be crucial for staying competitive in the digital landscape.

The post Google Lens Meets YouTube Shorts: A New Era for Visual Search and SEO appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

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.

The post YouTube and Shopify join forces to sell using YouTube Shopping appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Instacart has announced that it has expanded its partnership with Google Shopping Ads to YouTube to boost its Retail Media network to provide greater shopping reach for its advertisers. Specifically, as it reports, selected brand partners can inspire and convert consumers who view YouTube directly to shop for same-day delivery.

The YouTube ads—which can be purchased with Instacart technology—will help selected brands turn their ads into instant shopping experiences powered by Retail Media's technology and Instacart's fulfillment network. Clorox and Publicis Media have become the first Instacart partners to test the offering.

CPG advertisers can use Instacart's first-party data to find and reach high-intent consumers on YouTube and receive closed-loop measurements. Viewers who click on the ads will be directed to an Instacart product page to order the promoted items for same-day delivery.

"We are proud to continue to bring our world-class advertising capabilities to more platforms and unlock innovative new touchpoints to connect brands and consumers. By expanding into shoppable YouTube ad formats, we are merging the power of video creative with our valuable first-party data and a seamless shopping experience," stated Fidji Simo, CEO and president of Instacart, noting that "the ad marks an important step in making grocery shopping simple by helping consumers move more easily from discovery to purchase."

Google Shopping ads via Instacart 

Last January, Instacart and Google announced that Google Shopping ads would be accessible to Instacart's advertising partners using the company's Retail Media data, an expansion that allows consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies on Instacart, such as Danone's Oikos, Kraft, Lunchables, Oscar Mayer and Kraft Heinz's Philadelphia brands; and Publicis Media's CPG clients, activate Google Shopping ads, powered by Instacart's first-party data and closed-loop insights, to reach high-intent consumers searching on Google and get their products into consumers' hands in as little as an hour.

Instacart's retail media growth is based on its ability to help advertisers reach shoppers on other channels, particularly YouTube, which are important avenues for research and product discovery.

According to Nielsen's Gauge, YouTube dominates the total share of streaming and TV viewing time. A recent Google/TalkShoppe study found that YouTube is the top platform consumers use to research products and make purchasing decisions. According to eMarketer data, U.S. adults spend an average of 36 minutes a day on the platform, surpassing Netflix, Hulu and Facebook and making it highly attractive to advertisers.

The post Instacart expanded its partnership with Google Shopping Ads to include YouTube appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Buy on Google for Search and Shopping will be discontinued after September 26th, announced Google. Still, Buy on Google for YouTube will remain available for eligible U.S. merchants.

According to Google, the idea is to rebuild from scratch the buying functionalities in order to provide a seamless shopping experience in all the Alphabet Inc properties, mainly Google and Youtube. 

A Google spokesperson told to the website Search Engine Land the following: 

“Our goal is to support an open ecosystem by connecting shoppers directly with merchants, and this is a big priority for us. We developed a new streamlined checkout process that allows shoppers to go directly from Google to the checkout flow on a merchant’s website when they’re ready to buy. We’ve received great feedback from merchants and users. Buy on Google was a small feature that a very limited number of merchants used, so we’re investing in this new buying experience instead.” 

Buy on Google at Youtube? Only if you use Shopify 

From September 26th onwards, the Buy on Google program will only be available to merchants using the Google & YouTube app on Shopify. 

This program allows you to enable in-app checkout for your channel store on YouTube so customers can purchase products directly through it. The payment is processed with Shopify Payments, and the order shows up within 30 minutes in the “Orders” section of your Shopify admin.

Before you use Buy on Google, you must set up the Google & YouTube app on Shopify and enable Shopify Payments in your “Payment” settings.

The post Buy on Google will be discontinued after September 26th appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

YouTube will launch a new shopping feature within its ‘Shorts’ video format. In this way, the social network would be ahead of a very similar service that will also launch TikTok, the app that YouTube sought to counteract when it decided to launch Shorts. 

This means great future sales possibilities for e-commerce and a new access channel to online shopping for consumers.

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The feature is already being tested in some creator accounts in the United States, India, Brazil, Canada, and Australia. Although the company expects to expand product tagging in Shorts to more creators and countries in the short term. 

What is certain is that time is important in this competition that Youtube and TikTok are waging in the field of shopping associated with short videos. 

Video shopping wars? 

A few days ago multiple media outlets pointed towards the fact that TikTok could be thinking of setting up its own supply chain to act as an e-commerce/marketplace and expand the reach of TikTok Shopping, an e-commerce solution that allows sales and purchases to be made from the social network thanks to its partnership with Shopify. 

The shopping feature started in the UK, with the idea of boosting sales for the large community of small online sellers using Shopify in those countries.

Separately, YouTube is also experimenting with an affiliate program in the U.S. for content creators who sell on the platform. In this beta phase, referral links are being included in posts, an option that the company plans to progressively expand to more creators by 2023.

These changes come two months after YouTube announced the new YouTube Partner Program that will be in place in early 2023. 

Creators who meet two requirements - accumulating 1,000 subscribers on Shorts and 10 million views in 90 days - will be able to sign up and receive 45% of ad revenue from their videos on Shorts.

A profit boost for Youtube in times of need? 

These steps taken by the company come as no surprise, as despite Shorts reaching 1.5 billion monthly users, its quarterly ad revenue was down 1.9% year over year. This is due to the post-Covid economic slowdown, which has led many advertisers to cut their ad budgets. 

According to Alphabet's quarterly earnings report, in the third quarter of 2022 YouTube grossed $7.0 billion (about €6.82 billion) from its display ads, while in the same period of 2021 it achieved the sum of $7.2 billion (about €6.946 billion).

By virtue of increasing its advertising revenues, YouTube has been working to make its platform seen as a shopping destination by including product launches, ads with shopping links, and a live shopping feature. 

The latter did not garner the expected enthusiasm among Western users, so it is now focusing more on Eastern markets, including South Korea. 

In order to expand its shopping offerings, the company announced in July this year a strategic alliance with Shopify, so that the platform's users can integrate their stores and promote products through the social network.

The post YouTube will add shopping features to ‘Shorts’ appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

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. 

Do you want to know more about international commerce and e-commerce, and also get all the tips and news that might give your company an edge? Subscribe to Cross-Border Magazine and get your digital copy now for free!

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. 

The post YouTube and Shopify announce YouTube Shopping appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

According to

Influencer marketing is still an unclear subject. As a YouTuber himself, Van Teylingen is able to provide clarity and show successful and less successful cases. Reading into the subject is extremely important for marketers who want to start with influencer marketing. Doing good research in advance can determine if there is a match between the brand and the influencer.

There are many pitfalls between these two parties. Van Teylingen says: “If an influencer has something at its disposal, then it is data. Be critical as a brand, but also let go of the judgments about influencer marketing. Do not put everyone in one place. It is also important to analyse what the right platform is for you as a brand. There is no holy grail, it is and remains custom work.”

Controlling influencers

In five years, Van Teylingen believes that marketing will be under more control. Purchased followers, subscribers, views and likes will then be filtered (better than now) by software. He hopes that influencers will increasingly see themselves as a brand and that they will adopt that attitude. Indeed: professionalisation. In addition to this, Van Teylingen thinks that more and more brands will become influencers themselves. Ultimately, every company will also have to become a media company - but with the right partners.

The post Fake influencers will soon get caught appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

According to The Information, the company starts testing this with videos from global footwear giant Nike, among other things, and other brands that are connected to Google Express. Below the relevant videos, links are placed with recommendations that direct consumers to the product on Google’s marketplace.

Product information

In addition, reviews are included along the product information underneath the videos, and customers are informed about the return process. It is not yet known how far these new functionalities will be implemented, and whether all YouTube videos will soon be provided with product links. The Information based the news on a few anonymous sources. However, it is clear that the search giant wants to give its marketplace a boost, to compete against marketplace giant, such as Amazon, for example.

That last statement became clear last week as well, when Google announced that it wanted to significantly expand the Google Express portfolio with more retailers. In addition, the marketplace is undergoing a rebrand.

Shoppable ads

This is Google’s next step into making its content shoppable. In March, the company announced it will start testing 'Shoppable ads' in Google Images. This allows consumers to purchase an item directly from the image. As this is still being carried out on a trial basis, not everyone is able to use this function yet. In addition, the new shoppable ads are only applied to a small part of the images for now.

The post Google makes YouTube videos 'shoppable' appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.