YouTube’s Shopping Push Signals Shift in India’s Creator Economy and Brand Strategies

YouTube is accelerating the next phase of India’s creator economy by expanding its YouTube Shopping Affiliate programme, adding new merchants like Nykaa and Purplle. The expansion comes as shopping-related watch time in India has surged over 250% year-on-year, reflecting growing consumer appetite for content-driven commerce. Over 200 million logged-in users are now actively engaging in shopping-related searches on the platform.

The programme allows creators to tag products in their content, transforming traditional influencer marketing into direct commerce opportunities. AI-powered tools are being introduced to automatically tag products at the moment they are mentioned in a video, ensuring maximum purchase intent alignment. Additional features include Product Stickers on Shorts, timestamp-synced tags, and a Chrome extension for creators to save and tag products efficiently.

“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 programme to a complete monetisation ecosystem,” said Gunjan Soni, Managing Director – India, YouTube.

From a B2B perspective, this expansion has several implications:

Flipkart, Myntra, Nykaa, and Purplle are leveraging the capabilities of the YouTube Shopping Affiliate programme to blend discovery, engagement, and commerce—signalling a shift in how marketers can integrate video content into the purchase funnel.

1. Creator Monetisation and Scaling: Over 40% of eligible Indian creators are enrolled in the programme, with 3 million+ videos already tagged with affiliate products. For creators, this translates into predictable, scalable income streams, moving beyond ad revenue dependency. Short-form formats like YouTube Shorts are proving particularly effective, offering high engagement and higher purchase intent.

2. Brand ROI and Attribution: With new solutions like the Creator Partnerships Hub, brands can discover creators for partnerships and collaborate with them more seamlessly. Ad formats such as Creator Partnership ads that integrate product feeds—acting like brand shopfronts—to Shoppable CTV and Shoppable Masthead on mobile are enabling more shopping behaviour, making every surface actionable. Creators, on the other hand, can soon insert and replace brand segments dynamically and link directly to product pages for measurable conversions. This addresses a longstanding brand challenge: tracking ROI from influencer-driven campaigns.

3. Category Expansion and Market Potential: While beauty and lifestyle dominate, other categories — electronics, home goods, health and wellness — remain largely untapped, offering a potential first-mover advantage for brands willing to experiment with video commerce.

4. Data-Driven Insights: With AI analytics, marketers can optimise content by understanding viewer behaviour, engagement, and purchase intent, making campaigns more strategic than traditional influencer collaborations.

5. Macro Implications: India’s creator economy is maturing. The growth of digital commerce, the proliferation of short-form video consumption, and increasing brand sophistication indicate a shift from content as marketing to content as commerce. Marketers who integrate creators into sales strategies early could see significant ROI, particularly during festive and wedding seasons when discovery-driven commerce peaks.

Key Takeaway : YouTube is evolving from a brand awareness platform to a commerce engine. For creators, it’s a path to monetization beyond ads; for brands, it’s an opportunity to merge storytelling with measurable sales outcomes. The platform’s AI and commerce integrations make it essential for marketers to rethink campaign strategies, investment in creator partnerships, and cross-category experimentation to capitalize on India’s next-gen digital economy.