Wal-Mart is running a progressive and innovative campaign called "Get On The Shelf". They have contestants submitting new products that get reviewed by Wal-Mart lead buyers and if lucky enough, move on to become finalists. Those finalists get the chance to be voted by the American, Wal-Mart public, online to "Get On the Shelf".
They are running 5 webisodes, where the individual or business entrants products are broken down into the following categories 1) Living Better 2) Around the House 3) Kid Stuff 4) Great Gadgets and lastly 5) Made in America. Right now, you can cast your vote for the first webisode "Living Better" finalists (watch below)...next week is 2) Around the House and so on.
They are running 5 webisodes, where the individual or business entrants products are broken down into the following categories 1) Living Better 2) Around the House 3) Kid Stuff 4) Great Gadgets and lastly 5) Made in America. Right now, you can cast your vote for the first webisode "Living Better" finalists (watch below)...next week is 2) Around the House and so on.
On a closer look, Wal-mart seems to have gently, or not so gently, borrowed an early Everyday Edison (E.E.) casting call premise that put inventors and entrepreneurs in front of large retail buyers to pitch their product. In the E. E. model, attending big box buyers would let the honchos at E. E. know which new product pitches they had interest in possibly selling. This interest triggered Everyday Edison's to make a licensing deal with the inventor to further develop the product and to hopefully get market ready to sell to the retailer.
This was basically Darwinism for new product ideas, where only the strongest new product ideas would survive by buyer interest and the shunned weaker ones would be left to wither on the vine (no interest for development). With the buyer liking the product and a licensing company to help develop it, the product was being pushed farther down the road to hopeful retail life. But there was still a question if consumers actually liked the product and would buy it or not.
Large corporations in the past have typically shied away from wanting to deal directly with inventors and new product innovators and sometimes have relied on licensing companies to do the job of weaning out the weak, weird and undesirable new product ideas. But with Wal-Mart experimenting with direct requests for consumer innovations, it could eventually cut out Licensing companies such as Everyday Edison's. We now have the retailer dealing directly with the innovator. And now the burden shifts mainly on the individual or small business innovator to get their product market ready so it can be sold in the store.
Wally World, an admitted low price leader, aims to sell the least expensive product for their consumers...and wholesale prices on these newly brought in products would not reflect any royalty add-on (commonly a split between the licensing company and inventor). They're effectively bringing in non-licensed product and keeping their vendor's wholesale prices as low as possible, which keeps their retail prices as low as possible. So, I can understand their reasoning for this innovation experiment. Then, for this campaign, they let the buying public decide which product they deem best, thereby reducing the unknown consumer purchase risk to help it have the best chance of an extended life on store shelves.
There is one huge upside for winning this"Get On The Shelf" contest. Many a company have become overnight successes through the opportunity to sell product into a store with such high consumer buying power. For those of you looking to capitalize on this, sorry, but it is too late to submit your products for consideration. But you can be an armchair consumer and cast your vote for your favorite finalists, and possibly help get their products to "Get On The Shelf"!
Check it our for yourself at: https://getontheshelf.walmart.com/
