YouTube shopping ecosystem expands in India with new merchants and creator tools

New Delhi: YouTube is scaling its shopping experience in India, reflecting the rapid growth of the country’s creator economy. 

The platform has expanded its YouTube Shopping affiliate programme with new merchant partners and introduced additional tools to support more efficient collaborations between creators and brands.

Shopping-related watch time on YouTube in India grew over 250% year on year, with more than 200 million logged-in users conducting shopping-related searches. 

The platform has added leading beauty and lifestyle merchants, including Nykaa and Purplle, allowing creators to monetise content by tagging products from these and existing partners such as Flipkart and Myntra.

Gunjan Soni, Managing Director, India, YouTube, said, “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 monetization ecosystem. 

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, a powerful engine where authentic discovery and trusted creators directly fuel sustainable business growth for everyone.”

Pratik Arun Shetty, Vice President, Growth & Marketing, Flipkart, said, “Our partnership with YouTube represents a powerful intersection of commerce and creativity, where discovery meets shopping in real time. India’s creator economy is transforming how people engage with brands, and over the past year, YouTube creators have helped unlock a brand new way for lakhs of Flipkart customers to explore, connect, and shop through engaging video content.” 

He also explained, “Considering the festive season drives peak discovery and purchase intent, this ecosystem enables creators to turn inspiration into action, seamlessly. For a marketplace like Flipkart, this partnership reflects the potential for building the future of entertainment-led commerce in India, where content, community, and commerce come together to make shopping online more relevant and joyful.”

Deepash Jain, VP Marketing, Myntra, said, “Our association with YouTube continues to be strong and rewarding, unlocking exciting opportunities at the intersection of creators, content and commerce. Our creator collaborations on YouTube have grown 3X in the last one year.” 

He added, “The momentum is translating into a meaningful engagement across categories with Beauty and Fashion at the epicentre driving a growing share of new customers. This reflects social-led commerce's evolving role in fostering authentic discovery and inspiration-led shopping.”

A Nykaa spokesperson said, “Nykaa has long believed in content-led commerce, putting creators at the centre of how we connect with consumers. Many of them have been brand advocates from the very beginning, helping us pioneer how beauty is discovered in India. Collaborating with YouTube Shopping allows us to build on this approach and reach audiences in more authentic, meaningful ways.”

Suyash Katyayani, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Purplle, said, “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. 

We’re proud to partner with YouTube, blending content and commerce to create a seamless, trusted shopping experience. Together, we’re shaping a model where creators inspire, consumers discover, and brands grow, driving the next wave of digital commerce in India.”

YouTube has introduced an AI-powered system to automatically display product tags at the exact moment they are mentioned in a video. The platform will also begin testing the ability to automatically identify and tag all eligible products in videos later this year. 

Other recent features include Product Stickers on Shorts, timestamped tags, and a Chrome extension that allows creators to save products to tag in their videos.

To further strengthen brand-creator partnerships, YouTube is rolling out new tools such as a flexible format for brand segments in videos, links to brand websites for YouTube Shorts creators, and a Creator Partnerships Hub inside Google Ads. 

These tools allow brands to discover new creators and integrate authentic content into their marketing strategies, potentially enhancing conversion and engagement.