- Hey yo, Insiders.
I'm Pierce, a product manager working on satisfaction
in Search and Discovery at YouTube.
While this isn't something my team works on,
today, I'm here to give a sneak peek
into an exciting new feature called Product Drops.
Currently, when creators want to promote products
during their live streams,
they have to upload offers in advance before going live.
In the current experience,
the offers become visible to viewers before they're live,
which is not ideal for the scenarios
when creators wanna keep new products or offers in secret,
build excitement,
and announce a product at a specific moment during a stream.
With Product Drops,
creators will be able to release products
for the first time during a livestream
without disclosing them before the drop moment.
Creators with connected Shopify stores
or direct access to the Google Merchant Center
of their connected stores
will be able to set up Product Drops on YouTube
using the Live Control Room.
In this video, we'll cover how to set up Product Drops
in Shopify stores.
You can find more details about the setup process
in the Google Merchant Center.
Before we get into eligibility
and some frequently asked questions,
let's do a demo to show you how it works.
Once you've connected your Shopify store
to YouTube via YouTube Studio,
you can set up the Google Channel to sync your products
and onboard into YouTube shopping.
In Shopify Admin, go to the Products tab
and select the product that you want to drop.
You can schedule the online store availability
and the Google availability date and time
to your desired drop date
under the Sales Channel and App section.
Online store availability
is when your product will be visible to users
from your Shopify online store,
and Google availability
is when your product will be visible to Google Services,
including YouTube.
Unless you want to reveal your product
from your Shopify store
ahead of the product's drop on YouTube,
make sure the date and time
in the Google availability date and time
is the same as the online store date and time.
Also remember to set the product status as active
and product is in stock to make it taggable in YouTube.
This should be done at least one week ahead of drop
to make sure your scheduled product
is approved by Google Shopping Policy
and visible in the Live Control Room to be tagged.
Then, you can go to the Live Control Room in YouTube
to schedule a live stream to drop a new product.
Make sure you are using encoding software
to access the live shopping feature.
Set up the basic settings of your live stream
and go to the Shopping tab to tag the product.
Select the Customize button
and search and select the product
in the YouTube Live Control Room.
Your product drop will have a scheduled label next to it,
and you'll also see the date and time of the drop
indicating when the offer will be visible to viewers
in the specified time zone.
You should now see the product that you are dropping
in the Tagged Product section of your live stream.
The product will display the exact date and time
the offer will be visible to viewers.
Viewers will be able to see a mystery product
tagged at the product shelf and product list
until it gets revealed.
As the product gets close to its availability date and time,
you will see a timer bar
under the drop title and description.
You will be able to pin the product to the chat
at or after the drop time.
Now, let's talk about eligibility.
Where is this available and to whom?
Creators can use the feature
if they meet shopping eligibility criteria.
As for viewers,
any viewers in a shopping-enabled country
can purchase a product drop from a creator with access.
We'll leave a list of shopping-enabled countries
in the description.
Moving on, you may be asking,
"Can viewers still purchase the product
after the live stream?"
The answer is yes.
Viewers can still purchase items after live ends
as long as it's available and in stock.
Also, viewers can still watch archived live streams,
even if the product is no longer available.
The creator can decide to archive the live streams or not.
Speaking of products being in stock,
what happens if the product is out of stock?
When a product is out of stock,
we will still serve and show the product shelf
for product drops on YouTube.
When a viewer takes an offer click,
they will proceed with an offsite checkout flow.
On the landing page,
the viewer will be able to see
that the product is out of stock.
Now, what are some best practices to follow
when tagging products to my video,
and how do variants work?
YouTube supports offer tagging
and every variant of the product, every size, or color
is considered a separate offer.
For example, a sweatshirt in the color blue and size large
is one offer.
The same sweatshirt in blue and size small is another offer.
This means you could tag every variant combination
of your product to the video.
We have a few recommendations.
If you don't have many variants, you can tag them all.
If you have many variants,
then tag offers that are different prices.
When the viewer clicks on the product
under the YouTube live stream,
they will be taken to your website
and the Product Details page.
When they arrive at your Product Details page,
the variant will be pre-selected for that specific offer.
This will make sure that they see the same price on YouTube
and on your website.
Once on your website,
they can choose a different size or color.
Change the titles of your offers
to highlight the different variants.
For example, you might want to title
your '80s vintage crew neck
as rather blue '80s vintage crew neck.
A few things you can do
to optimize your audience for the product drop.
Promote your live stream,
share the broadcast URL on your own social channels,
and ensure users know when to tune in
at least 48 hours before your livestream.
Connect your social media accounts to your channel
for easy sharing
and inform fans on social channels
about your upcoming event.
Use Community Posts to extend your social strategy.
Leverage polls and interactivity
to invite users to be part of the event's content.
The team is beginning to roll this feature out
and will keep you updated
as it expands to creators in more regions.
As always, leave your questions and feedback below.
We'll pass it directly to the team working on Product Drops,
and you may see your question answered in a future video.
Keep it real.