Google Tests YouTube ‘Shopping Livestreams’ Pilot

E-commerce via YouTube is an “additional layer of opportunity” for Google, but an area “where it all feels very early to me,” said Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai on a Q4 call Tuesday. “We’re making it easier for viewers to buy what they see and simpler for advertisers to drive action with innovative solutions like product feeds and video action campaigns and emerging formats like live commerce.” YouTube’s commerce capability is focused on “onboarding merchants and all the back end so that we can have the broadest and the most comprehensive inventory available,” said Pichai. “Our partnership with other e-commerce platforms is a basic foundational layer we are putting in.” Though it’s “pretty early” in the initiative, “there’s a lot of pilots underway,” including “shopping livestreams” with brands like Walmart and Target, he said. “There’s a lot more to do,” he said, “but I find the opportunity space here pretty broad, and it’s exciting.”