WalMart is taking a unique approach to discovering new products. They have launched a contest called Get on the Shelf, in which inventors nationwide will compete to have their product sold by the discount retailer. There are three rules for the contest: the product must be legal, the contestant must own the rights to product, and the product must fit into a category that WalMart already sells.

So anything from toys, to televisions, to clothes and guns is fair game. The inventors will post promotional videos demonstrating their products to the contest’s website, www.getontheshelf.com.

Starting February 22, the public will vote for their favorites. The top three products will be sold on WalMart.com, and first prize will be sold in stores across the country.

Get on the Shelf is part of a plan initiated by @WalmartLabs, the retailer’s digital technology division, to decide what tech products they should stock. WalMart hopes that, by inviting inventors to come to them, they will “uncover products that we haven’t been looking at and give consumers a voice about what Wal-Mart carries.”

The contest will be promoted heavily through all social media channels in order to generate a large amount of consumer response, which WalMart can use to make further decisions about what tech products they should sell.

[http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/18/smallbusiness/walmart_product_contest/] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/18/walmartlabs-crowdsources-retailers-product-selection-with-new-get-on-the-shelf-contest/]