Key takeaways
- Shoppable video is video with clickable product tags. Viewers can see an item, select it, and add it to a cart without leaving the video.
- JOIN’s 2026 report on more than 350 e-commerce brands found average uplifts of 3.8% in add-to-carts, 6.1% in conversion, and 6.7% in revenue per visitor.
- A 2025 academic study of a European beauty retailer found that clips showing products in use raised add-to-cart rates.
- Cloudinary Video Player supports shoppable video through a shoppable configuration with a products list and optional hotspots.
What Is a Shoppable Video?
Shoppable videos are a new way to drive revenue for e-commerce businesses. These new videos enable customers to see your products in action and add them to their cart in a natural, accessible way. This article will explain why shoppable videos are so important, what they’re made up of, and how you can use them in your business.
A shoppable video is a video that allows viewers to purchase a product directly from within the video. This can be done through embedding on websites or social media platforms, but most often, it’s done through an embedded player. These videos allow customers to make purchases without directing them away from the original page, making them perfect for brands that don’t want to interrupt their customer’s experience.
Shoppable videos are typically hosted on third-party websites because they require more complex technology than standard video hosting. They’re also usually longer than other types of digital content, ranging anywhere from five seconds up to several minutes long.
How Shoppable Video Works
- Tag products. You pick each product and the moment it appears.
- Show a products bar or hotspots. A bar lists the products. A hotspot sits on the video where the product appears.
- Link to buy. Each tag links to a product page or adds the item to a cart.
- Track results. Events show which tags viewers select and what they buy.
Benefits of a Shoppable Video
Shoppable videos are a new way to sell products, communicate with customers, and create an immersive experience. It’s also a great way to build brand awareness.
Why? Because shoppable videos are highly engaging, they can be shared across social media platforms and are easy to share with friends. Shoppable videos are becoming more popular because they allow people to interact with brands in a personal way that wasn’t possible before – all while making it as easy as possible!
The benefits of a shoppable video are obvious. Not only will it increase revenue and customer engagement, but it can also help you increase brand awareness, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, and retention.
Shoppable videos help you to:
- Increase sales. Shoppable videos directly boost sales by enabling instant purchases within video content. This feature taps into viewers’ impulse buying tendencies, significantly shortening the path from product discovery to purchase, and leading to a noticeable uptick in sales for businesses employing this innovative approach.
- Improve customer experience. Shoppable video enhances the shopping experience by merging entertainment with convenience. Viewers can effortlessly learn about and buy products without leaving the video, making the shopping journey more engaging and efficient, which aligns with the expectations of today’s consumers.
- Target campaigns to the right audience. By leveraging viewer data from shoppable videos, businesses can tailor their marketing efforts to match audience preferences. This targeted approach ensures that content is more relevant and engaging to specific viewer segments, increasing the overall impact and effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
- Boost conversion rates. Shoppable videos streamline the purchasing process, greatly increasing conversion rates. The ability to instantly buy products within a video reduces the chances of potential drop-offs, transforming viewer interest into action more effectively than traditional e-commerce methods.
What Does the Data Say About Shoppable Video?
| Source | Sample | Finding |
|---|---|---|
| JOIN, State of Video Commerce 2026 | More than 350 e-commerce brands, July 2025 to July 2026 | Average uplift of 3.8% in add-to-carts, 6.1% in conversion, 6.7% in revenue per visitor, and 4.6% in session duration |
| JOIN, same report | Top 10% of brands | 17.7% conversion uplift and 21.0% revenue per visitor uplift |
| Schraml and colleagues, European Marketing Academy, 2025 | Shoppable clips from one European beauty retailer | Clips showing products in use raised add-to-cart rates, mostly for experience products and strong brands |
JOIN sells video commerce tools, so treat its numbers as vendor data. Test shoppable video on your own store before you set targets.
Best Practices for Shoppable Videos
Shoppable videos are a great way to increase sales and drive traffic to your website, but they’re not just for brands. You can create shoppable videos using the same principles that apply to regular e-commerce content.
When creating a shoppable video, there are several best practices that will help you maximize its effectiveness:
- Inform Your Viewer. Be sure to include all relevant information about each product before it appears on screen – this includes color options where applicable; material type; whether or not something is eligible for free returns; etc.
- Encourage Interaction. You want to keep the viewer engaged, so make sure they know what they can do inside the video. Show them they can click around and explore the options on-screen. Including a link within the first few seconds of the video helps immensely, too!
- Give Them Time. Shoppable videos are going to be longer than your typical product video, and you want to leverage that to show them all that you offer. Keep shots on screen longer, so they have more time to see the product and view their options.
- Don’t Overload with Products. Your shoppable video shouldn’t have too many products in them. In fact, less is usually more! Keep each video centered around a few different products for the best results instead of showing them your entire selection.
- Show products in use. The 2025 study found this raised add-to-cart rates.
- Set a poster image. The poster shows while the video loads, so the player doesn’t look blank.
- Start muted. Browsers block autoplay for video with sound unless the viewer has interacted with the site.
- Run an A/B test. Compare pages with and without video, and track add-to-carts, conversion, and revenue per visitor.
Where to Place Shoppable Video
- Video feeds and collection pages, where the 2025 study saw stronger results.
- Product detail pages, near the main image.
- Campaign landing pages.
- Links from email and social posts to a video page.
Common Mistakes With Shoppable Video
- Tagging every product on screen. A crowded products bar makes the viewer choose instead of buy. A few tags outperform many.
- No poster image. The player renders as a black rectangle while the video loads, and viewers scroll past it.
- Autoplay with sound. Browsers block it, so the video silently fails to start.
- Linking tags to a search page. Each tag should land on that exact product, not a filtered list the viewer has to work through.
- Shipping without a measurement plan. Without tag-level events you cannot tell whether the video or the page change moved the numbers.
How Do You Create Shoppable Video With Cloudinary?
Shoppable videos are changing the way people shop. They allow brands to connect with customers and provide an experience more engaging than traditional advertising. By using shoppable videos, you can increase sales and build stronger relationships with customers by showing them exactly what they want–and then giving it to them!
Cloudinary Video Player supports shoppable video out of the box. In the player configuration, a shoppable object holds a products array with each product and any video hotspots. You can also set how the products bar looks: its start state, the toggle icon, its width, and how long it stays open with autoClose. You can apply image transformations to every product image in the bar, which keeps them the same size.
Check the documentation for syntax. Property names and options can change. Use the Cloudinary shoppable video documentation for current examples.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is shoppable video?
Shoppable video is video with clickable product tags. Viewers can learn about a product and buy it without leaving the video.
How is shoppable video different from regular video?
Regular video informs. Shoppable video adds product tags, so viewers can act on what they see.
Does shoppable video increase conversion?
JOIN’s 2026 report found an average conversion uplift of 6.1% across more than 350 brands, and 17.7% for the top 10%. Results vary, so run an A/B test on your own store.
Which platforms support shoppable video?
Many video and e-commerce tools offer it. Cloudinary Video Player supports it through its shoppable configuration.
Should shoppable video autoplay?
Autoplay works only if the video is muted or the viewer has interacted with the site, according to MDN. Start muted and add controls.
Check Out Our Tools That You May Find Useful:
