Walmart Invites Contestants to "Get on the Shelf" with their Inventions

As the world’s largest retailer, Walmart is undoubtedly accustomed to thinking big.

But these days, the giant corporation is setting its sights on small business owners and inventors with big ideas.

In December, Walmart announced the launch of Get on the Shelf, a nationwide contest in which contestants, American Idol style, would get to showcase their inventions to a national audience.

Unlike TV’s popular Idol show, “Get on the Shelf” hopefuls aren’t required to sing their hearts out before Randy Jackson, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. Instead, contestants pitch their products by creating videos of their latest inventions - and members of the public vote online to determine the winners.

Voters may choose their favorite inventions in a two-round process, ultimately selecting the top three products to be sold on Walmart.com and featured on the site’s home page. Winning products will also have the opportunity to “Get on the Shelf” in select Walmart stores across the country.

To choose your favorite entry, visit www.getontheshelf.com before April 3 and follow the instructions to cast a vote online or via text messaging. People can vote once for a product using their Facebook account and once using text messaging every day. Votes may be cast for multiple products each day.

The 10 entries that receive the highest number of votes in round one will then compete in round two until voting closes for that round April 24.

According to Walmart.com, more than 4,000 videos were submitted to Get on the Shelf by the Feb. 22 contest entry deadline, and an average of 55,000 votes have been cast each day. 

"We have been amazed by the number of entries for Get on the Shelf, and by the community's passion and excitement for the contest," said Guha Jayachandran, principal engineer at @WalmartLabs, who developed the idea for the contest.  

"Discovering products we may not have otherwise known about combined with the power of social media makes this a unique and fun contest," Jayachandran said. "Small businesses can gain visibility and access to the scale of Walmart and customers get a direct voice in what they want to see on the shelves."

Walmart officials said the top five product categories submitted to Get on the Shelf include:

• Home improvement at 11.4 percent
• Personalized products at 10.2 percent
• Health/wellness/fitness at 9.6 percent
• Fashion apparel/home at 8.1 percent
• Outdoor home at 6.7 percent