New Delhi, Oct 10 (IANS) To give a further boost to India’s rapidly growing creator economy, YouTube on Friday announced fueling the next phase of monetisation for the creator economy by expanding the YouTube Shopping experience with the addition of new merchants–Nykaa and Purplle as new partners alongside Flipkart and Myntra.

With shopping-related watch time growing more than 250 per cent year over year on the platform, Google’s own video streaming company is scaling the YouTube Shopping affiliate program.

“This expansion is built on a highly engaged audience base: Over 200 million logged-in users in India had shopping-related searches on YouTube,” the company said.

According to YouTube, this expansion will kick in along with new creator tools and brand partnership programs, which will further solidify its position as a key destination for creators, building sustainable businesses.

The development will also allow advertisers to expedite brand-building and high-intent traffic.

“The next era of video commerce is already being defined by India’s vibrant creator economy on YouTube. We are scaling content-driven shopping from a successful program to a complete monetisation ecosystem,” said Gunjan Soni, Managing Director, India, YouTube.

By empowering our creators with new tools, offering new engaging formats to our viewers and deepening and forging new partnerships with top merchants, we are cementing YouTube’s role as the leading platform for the next generation of shopping experiences, Soni added.

Addition of new merchants will support the beauty and lifestyle segment, with 89 per cent of beauty shoppers in India, according to the company, feel YouTube helps them make confident purchase decisions.

YouTube will also launch a program designed to discover, enable, and accelerate the next generation of India’s beauty and lifestyle creators, with Nykaa.

The YouTube Shopping Affiliate program, which launched a year ago, saw more than 40 per cent of eligible creators in India enrolled in the program, with more than 3 million videos tagged with affiliate products.

“Our collaboration with YouTube Shopping is anchored in a shared vision to make beauty discovery engaging, content-driven, and impactful. YouTube’s unparalleled reach across India allows us to connect with consumers at scale and translate engagement into measurable business growth,” said Suyash Katyayani, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Purplle.

–IANS

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