YouTube partners with Shopee to launch shopping feature

YouTube has rolled out its first-ever shopping feature in Southeast Asia, choosing Indonesia as its inaugural market and partnering with Shopee to drive its expansion. YouTube Shopping will allow viewers to make purchases directly from its videos, shorts, and livestreams through embedded links directing them to Shopee.

This launch aligns with the rapid development of the digital economy in Indonesia, which is estimated to reach a gross transaction value (GMV) of $110 billion by 2025.

“There are over 250,000 creators in YouTube Shopping,” said Zaheer Travadi to Campaign, industry head at Google Indonesia. “The affiliate programme is currently available in the US and South Korea, and now, we’re expanding to Indonesia first in Southeast Asia, in partnership with Shopee. In the coming days, we’ll bring the programme to Thailand and Vietnam.”

A former industry executive (who prefers to remain anonymous) called the partnership a 'masterstroke', leveraging YouTube’s vast user base and Shopee’s ecommerce strengths to target younger consumers—and fend off competition from rivals like Tokopedia-TikTok. With Indonesia’s ecommerce users projected to hit 99.1 million by 2029, the market’s appeal continues to grow.

In Indonesia, 96% of users spend extra time watching online videos to research products before buying as per Kantar, and YouTube plays a significant role in making purchasing decisions.

“YouTube is committed to building an engaging, informative and entertaining shopping experience for both creators and viewers in Indonesia. To do this, we may experiment with a variety of YouTube Shopping features from time to time,” added Travadi.

Eligible creators will get access to tag products from small, medium, and micro businesses sold on Shopee in their content. They will also have the flexibility to tag products in both existing and new videos, as well as embed them during livestreams. The programme complements existing monetisation options such as ad revenue, YouTube Premium revenue, channel memberships, super thanks, super chat, and super stickers.

Viewers will be able to see a full list of tagged products and information about each product at a glance in the description and ‘products’ section of the video. Once they decide to buy, a simple click on the product will take them to an external sales page for quick check-out.

Monica Vionna, senior director of marketing growth at Shopee Indonesia, expressed hope that the content created by YouTube creators will especially help MSMEs and local brands on Shopee through interactive features such as Shopee Live and Shopee Video.

YouTube Shopping plans to invite more partners to the affiliate programme in the future.