Seoul: Google’s YouTube will launch its official shopping channel in South Korea later this month for live commerce in a world first, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The new channel, which will open on June 30, will provide businesses with a live commerce platform and plans to live broadcast shopping content from around 30 brands at launch, according to people familiar with the matter.
This is the first time that YouTube has launched an official shopping channel in any country in the world.
“YouTube is committed to creating an engaging, informative, and fun shopping experience for all users, including South Korea. To this end, we may experiment with various YouTube shopping features from time to time as we continue to strive to optimize and provide the best Good experience,” a YouTube official told Yonhap, without giving details.
Last year, YouTube rolled out a new Shopping tab in its Discover section, allowing eligible creators to tag products during their live streams or list products under their videos, where viewers can buy them.
On Alphabet’s fourth-quarter 2022 earnings call, the company’s chief commercial officer, Philip Schindler, said Alphabet would focus on making YouTube more “purchasable” as part of an effort to grow more creators. This will lead to more content and viewers, and ultimately more opportunities for advertisers. Alphabet is the parent company of Google and YouTube.
“It’s still early days, but we see huge potential to make it easier for people to shop from the creators, brands and content they love,” Schindler said.
YouTube’s ad revenue fell 2.6% (year-over-year) in the March quarter — its third straight quarter of decline.
YouTube recorded $6.69 billion in ad revenue in the quarter ended March 31, compared with $6.87 billion a year earlier.
However, the company is seeing growth in Shorts as watch time and monetization “are going well.”
“People are engaging with Shorts ads and converting at an increasing rate,” Schindler said.
