New Delhi: YouTube on Friday announced an expansion of its YouTube Shopping experience in India, adding Nykaa and Purplle as new merchant partners alongside existing collaborators Flipkart and Myntra. The move aims to fuel the next phase of monetisation for the country’s rapidly growing creator economy.

With shopping-related watch time on the platform growing by more than 250 per cent year-on-year, YouTube is scaling its Shopping Affiliate Programme, which allows creators to earn through content-driven commerce.

“This expansion is built on a highly engaged audience base: Over 200 million logged-in users in India had shopping-related searches on YouTube,” the company said.

The rollout will be accompanied by new creator tools and brand partnership programmes, designed to strengthen YouTube’s position as a key platform for creators building sustainable businesses. Advertisers will also benefit from faster brand-building and high-intent traffic.

Gunjan Soni, Managing Director of YouTube India, 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 monetisation 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.”

The addition of Nykaa and Purplle will particularly bolster the beauty and lifestyle segment. According to YouTube, 89 per cent of beauty shoppers in India feel the platform helps them make confident purchase decisions. YouTube will also launch a programme with Nykaa to discover, enable, and accelerate the next generation of India’s beauty and lifestyle creators.

Launched a year ago, the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Programme has seen over 40 per cent of eligible creators in India enrol, with more than three million videos tagged with affiliate products.

Suyash Katyayani, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of 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.”

IANS