YOUTUBE MERCH SHELF HAS ARRIVED IN EUROPE

Get your wallets ready, because your favorite internet personality could be potentially expanding their merchandise inventory. As an additional component of youtube talent agency's new monetization plan, ten thousand creators across seven European countries will now join their fellow youtube talent agency creators in the United States in selling merchandise directly through their Youtube channels. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the UK will make up the second group phase of onboarding for the feature.

Customized merchandise for many creators isn’t a new concept, nor is it uncharted waters. However, the accessibility of connecting viewers and subscribers to products in their content marketing strategy a new opportunity for branding and monetizing creators' channels. And that is an encouraging sign for a community struggling to generate revenue with their content, despite massive audiences and viewership. YouTube creators The Most Popular Girls in School partnered with the video-sharing website to create this commercial of sorts that highlights this new feature.

Thus far, the feature has proven successful with its US creators, with the companies claiming that Merch Shelf click-throughs are 30 percent higher than other traffic sources, including annotations, links in video descriptions and banner links. This means more people are checking out creators' merchandise. If you're a fan of a creator who currently uses the feature, you'll already see their products below their videos on both desktop and mobile.

YouTube is implementing this tool in partnership with Teespring, an online customer merchandise platform. Chris Lamontagne, Vice President of the company, offered merchandise as a hopeful solution to existing monetization issues that have plagued creators looking to make their passion their career.  This prevailing theme has YouTube aggressively promoting this feature as a key solution with substantial upside and opportunity, despite low per-stream payouts.

“This expansion demonstrates Teespring’s continued dedication to providing creators with a platform on which they can grow their businesses, supports their passion, and delivers products their communities love.  As statistics show traffic on the Merch Shelf overtaking YouTube’s standard description links, we are confident the Merch Shelf will support the success of creators across the globe.”

Teespring is giving eligible creators access to its designers to help them create products. Eligible creators need to be in the YouTube Partner Program and have at least 10,000 subscribers to qualify. Additionally, the companies are incentivizing creators to add the store to their channels by offering a $1 bonus (or equivalent, depending on where they are) per item they sell directly through the Merch Shelf until June 2019. 

YouTube is still a business of course and will take a cut of the merchandise sold through the feature. YouTube’s Senior Director of Product Management, Rohit Dhawan, explains that the company wants merchandising options "to be a collaborative experience." Their intent is not to take advantage of the creators. In fact, quite the contrary. They are very much looking to work with them – taking a minor cut of the profit. This profit percentage figure is, to this point, yet to be determined. Teespring, on the other hand, is far more transparent; outlining data figures like profit breakdowns and price factors.

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