YouTube Begins Testing Shoppable Product Recommendations

The Google-owned company plans to roll out product recommendations to its viewers, which is expected to ‘help people explore videos and information’ about said products, the platform explained.

This change began its testing in January 2021, following a ‘small experiment’ with the feature in April last year.

“We’re testing a new way for people to easily discover and purchase products featured in YouTube videos,” explained the company in a press release.

How would this work? According to YouTube, the feature allows watchers to see an icon at the top of the screen with more information underneath, listing the item that was included in the video.

As an example provided by Google, a user would watch a video named ‘Top 10 Smartphones in 2020’ – here they would see a small icon on the top of the screen and read the information about the smartphones listed below.

YouTube is testing out shoppable product recommendations | via BBC

Currently, the service is still being tested, and is piloting the feature to a ‘limited number of creators’. Specifically, it’s currently available in the US on iOS, Android and desktop.

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