Google Area 120’s ‘Qaya’ makes it easy to create centralized web storefronts

Abner Li | Dec 15 2021 - 11:06 am PT

Just yesterday, Google said it was shutting down its “Museletter” experiment for turning Google Docs into paid newsletters. Area 120 is now back with “Qaya” for easily creating web storefronts.

The Area 120 incubator, now housed under Google Labs, wants to make it easy for creators to “sell products and services directly to their audiences.” This can include digital goods like pictures, downloadable content, and files, while Qaya also supports linking to other platforms where you sell physical goods and services. Doing this will “connect your storefront to the YouTube merch shelf, Google Search, and Google Shopping.”

Creators on Qaya sell everything from trapeze workout guides to wellness training videos, photo filters, beat packs, ASMR read-alouds, productivity templates, knitting patterns and much more. We support pay-gated and free products, with tipping, subscription and other monetization types coming soon.

In addition to having a centralized hub, Google says users will be able to “design a personalized storefront” that visually scales from desktop to mobile, complete with links to all your social platforms and other sites. Meanwhile, Qaya provides stats, customer management tools, and other analytics.

We provide custom yourname.channel or qaya.store/your-name URLs, with payment functionality built in.

Qaya began live testing early this year and is now seeing a beta launch in the US:

We’re focused on the U.S. today, but hope to bring Qaya to more countries soon. And, we’re exploring ways to support creators as they experiment with other types of digital goods.