YouTube is getting ahead of holiday gift lists with live stream shopping.
During an Advertising Week panel, the platform announced it will be hosting a week-long live shopping event starting Nov. 15. Dubbed the Holiday Stream and Shop, viewers will see new products, receive limited-time offers, and be able to ask product questions through live Q&As. The first live stream event will be hosted by Veronica and Vanessa Merrell, known as the Merrell Twins on YouTube, and will feature products from Walmart, Samsung, and Verizon. The twins have 6 million YouTube subscribers. YouTube declined to reveal the other hosts.
Live shopping and social commerce are picking up speed as the holidays approach, and brands and platforms are pushing for consumers to buy early to avoid supply chain crunches.
See Ad Age’s 2021 Social Commerce Guide here.
• How NFTs and the Metaverse could solve supply chain issues
• All the social commerce capabilities introduced in 2021
• How retail chains are using social commerce this holiday
• Influencers impacted by supply chain shortages
This is YouTube’s latest step in the shopping space. In July of this year, the platform started testing live shopping features with its creators. One was Simply Nailogical (2.8 million subscribers) who launched a new nail polish collection, and Hyram (4.59 million), who dropped his own skincare line, “Selfless.”