Google is testing the ability to shop directly from YouTube videos

It’s easy to imagine scenarios in which this feature would work in an on-brand way, such as cooking creators linking to kitchen accessories, gamers hawking components from their PC build videos and, of course, unboxing channels hyping up the products they show off. Creators have been able to sell merchandise through a shopping hub on their channel for the last couple of years, and this latest experiment looks like another way for them (and YouTube) to generate revenue.

Reports have swirled for quite some time that YouTube has been exploring a feature along these lines. A number of platforms are incorporating more shopping features, including Instagram and WhatsApp, so it’s not too surprising that Google is doing the same on YouTube. After all, Google Shopping ads started showing up under YouTube videos back in 2015.