Mobilizing our store customers

As we continue to improve the mobile commerce experience, we’re very excited to roll out major updates to our iPhone and iPad apps for Walmart in the United States.  For the iPhone, it’s all about in-store aisle location and our new In-Store Mode.  For the iPad, we’ve introduced a new interactive Local Ad feature.  These new mobile enhancements put more power at the fingertips of our customers, allowing them to shop our brand anytime, anywhere.

iPhone: In-store Aisle Location

We’ve expanded the in-store aisle location feature to help customers easily find products on their shopping lists in our stores.  As customers add items to their mobile shopping list, they can also see the aisle where they’ll find their product.  Previously a limited beta,  we now offer the in-store aisle location feature for all U.S. stores and thousands of products across consumables, grocery, electronics and toys.

In addition, customers can set their local store within the app, plan their visit and create a shopping list at home by scanning, typing, or speaking items to buy.  One of the unique features of our app is that we pull item prices from your local Walmart store and calculate total price in real-time as items are added to shopping lists.  We’re able to do that for any of our 3,800 Walmart stores across the U.S. so no matter where you happen to be, only our app helps you see the estimated total of your Walmart shopping trip before ever leaving home. 

iPhone: In-Store Mode

This tool was specifically created to help customers while they’re shopping in our retail stores. Now, when you launch the Walmart for iPhone app from one of our stores in the U.S., you will be prompted to enter In-Store Mode.  Features include scanning – price checking from product barcodes or learning more about products and special offers displayed in-store as QR Codes – and easy access to the Local Ad product list and general store information.  

iPad: Local Ad

We’ve introduced an interactive Local Ad experience that presents our customers with a preview of store specials and featured products. The format of our iPad Local Ad will be familiar to customers who are used to flipping through our printed Local Ads. They will be able to browse our Local Ads from their iPad page-by-page, with the ability to tap on a product to view more information, and purchase the item online or by visiting the store.

You can download our iPhone and iPad apps from the App Store.

Walmart for iPhone:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/walmart/id338137227?mt=8

Walmart for iPad:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/walmart-for-ipad/id473539089?mt=8

Happy shopping!

Get on the shelf Contest Winners Announced!

Today we announced the final winners of our popular Get on the shelf contest: HumanKind Water, PlateTopper and SnapIt Eyeglass Repair Kit which will be sold at http://walmart.com/getontheshelf.

More than 4,000 inventors, entrepreneurs and small businesses from across the country entered the contest to have the opportunity to be carried on Walmart.com and in Walmart U.S. stores.  The most popular products ranged from categories entered were home improvement,  to personalized products items and health and wellness.  Over one million votes were cast by the public to compete for the opportunity to be carried at Walmart.com and in Walmart U.S. stores. The public cast over one million votes through Facebook or text.

Throughout the contest, the winning inventors went the distance to market their participation through word of mouth. Humankind Water transformed its homepage into a “war room” completely dedicated to getting votes. PlateTopper deployed humorous videos and social marketing tactics to raise visibility, including a YouTube video, which has been viewed more than two million times. Nancy of SnapIt even went to the NBC Today Show’s plaza in New York where her assistant dressed as a giant screw and was seen on national television with a sign asking for votes.

We are now at the end of an amazing adventure.  Get on the Shelf surpassed our expectations and surprised us all here.  We congratulate the winners for their creativity and passion and thank every single one of the 4,000 contestants for taking a leap to join in the first contest ever of this kind from.  

Get on the shelf, launched in January of this year where contestants sent in videos of their latest inventions to be voted on by the public.  During contest voting, nearly 95 percent of the participants received a vote via Facebook or text. 

We thank all contestants for their participation and enthusiasm for the "Get on the shelf" contest. We congratulate them for their creativity and passion. We are amazed by the visibility so many have received for their products, whether online or through traditional news media, and we hope the boost in awareness We hope the GOTS experience accelerates their your business going forward.

The Walmart Get on the shelf team

For more information, visit http://getontheshelf.com.

CONGRATULATIONS GET ON THE SHELF FINALISTS!!!

Back in January, we announced a nationwide contest called Get on the Shelf. Get on the Shelf allows anyone the chance to get their product on Walmart shelves.

We have been inspired and amazed at the products entries from around the country. Over 4,000 contestants participated with products ranging from household and food items to wellness and green ones.

Every product, from the fork designed specifically for a dog, to the gadget that turns an ordinary water bottle into a baby milk bottle, reflected the creativity and passion of our contestants.

After the first round of voting where over one million votes were cast, here are the ten finalists that move to the next round listed in alphabetical order:

- Bios Clinical Acne System is an acne system that uses topical probiotics to treat adolescent and adult acne.

- Humankind Water gives 100 percent of its net profits to provide clean drinking water for some of the one billion people in this world dying without it.

- Mr. Spritz Mysterious Shirts are entertaining t-shirts containing hidden images that appear when the garment gets wet and disappear when dry.

- Plate Topper transforms dinner plates into airtight food storage containers to save meals, leftovers and snacks. They are dishwasher-safe, microwave-safe and 100 percent BPA-free.

- Sola-Bag Forever Carry Refrigerator is a lunch bag that stays cold forever by generating energy from solar power and indoor lighting.

- Soleeze Spring Loaded Insoles are spring-loaded insoles and shock absorbers that fit into any shoe or boot and last for years.

- SnapIt Eyeglass Repair Kit is an easy way to fix your sunglasses or eyeglasses in 30 seconds.

- SUSIE Magazine is a bimonthly Christian print magazine and online sisterhood for teen girls promoting healthy relationships, good role models and positive self-image.

- Veterans Farm Datil Pepper Salt is a datil-infused kosher salt created at a Veterans Farm, where disabled combat veterans are taught farm skills to help them overcome physical and mental barriers and get jobs.

- We the People Bracelet features silver sterling beads with ingrained detailed descriptions of the Amendments to the Bill of Rights.

Thank you to all for your participation. We hope you have enjoyed the experience and made new connections along the way.

The final round of voting for the contest begins April 11. Please cast a vote for your favorite via text message or Facebook.

Let's have a fun race…and may the journey be the best reward of all.

For more information and to vote, visit http://getontheshelf.com

The Community is pushing the Mobile Web Platform

At @WalmartLabs, our focus is to develop technologies that provide an innovative shopping experience to millions of users around the world. Our customers spend their time on a variety of platforms of their choosing, so we aim to be where they are. One of the key platforms is the Web, and much effort has been spent over the last few years to ensure that users visit Web sites via rich Web runtimes. The mobile Web used to be about feature phones getting minimal content, but that world has changed quickly over the last few years and the mobile device in your hand has an amazing engine that has the power to do as much as your desktop computer.

There have been a number of efforts to standardize features for the mobile Web, but none of them have taken off. Partly, this is due to the fast evolution and change from the world of WAP to the world of HTML5 on the phone. Today, it has reached a point of critical mass where people are looking to push development of the mobile Web platform. This push won't happen with only certain perspectives, and needs broad participation across the industry.

We have been talking to Facebook about the issues surrounding the mobile Web for quite some time, and I am very excited to have @WalmartLabs be a part of a new community effort, the forming of W3C Core Mobile Web Platform Community Group whose goals are clear:

Accelerate the adoption of the Mobile Web as a compelling platform for the development of modern mobile Web applications.

The Community Group will bring developers, equipment manufacturers, browser vendors, operators and other relevant members of the industry together to agree on core features developers can depend on; create related conformance test suites; and provide to W3C (and non-W3C) groups use cases, scenarios, and other input to enable successful mobile Web app development.

A critical topic to address is for most important specs to be supported across a wide range of browsers. But, support is only half the battle. The quality and performance of a feature is crucial as well. This is why we are looking forward to seeing rich test suites that go into that side of things too.

We love the Web, but users -- and thus developers -- demand that the platform evolves faster than it has to date. As we push the boundaries of the mobile Web at @WalmartLabs, we look forward to the opportunity to discuss the needs of users and developers as we work with community members to make the Web a better place.

Join us!

A Welcome to Guna, our new head of @WalmartLabs India

Just a few short months ago, we announced our intention to set up @WalmartLabs India. Since then, we’ve added several incredibly talented people to our Bangalore team in the areas of machine learning, social analytics and big data infrastructure. Today, I’m delighted and excited to welcome the newest member of the Labs India team, who will also be its leader: Gunaranjan Pemmaraju (aka Guna).

Our search attracted some of the top talent in India:  people who have set up and managed large operations in India for globally recognized Internet and technology companies. As part of the process, I met many of these incredibly talented individuals. What attracted me most to Guna is the combination of his technical depth, leadership skills, business acumen, passion for excellence, and, of course, his love for cricket (Ok, I was just kidding about the cricket).

Guna is a seasoned technology leader who comes to @WalmartLabs from Amazon.com Bangalore, where in his role as Director of Engineering responsible for global payments, he set up and grew teams that delivered business-critical technology and services. Prior to Amazon.com, Guna was vice president of product development at i2 Technologies, where he held various product, technology and leadership roles in an 11-year career spanning across Dallas and Bangalore.  Guna holds a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a master’s degree in business from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

I would like to take a moment to thank everyone from @WalmartLabs Silicon Valley who contributed to the founding of @WalmartLabs Bangalore.   Their efforts under the guidance of STS Prasad, our Vice President of Infrastructure here in the Valley, enabled us to move from vision to reality in record time.  As I welcome Guna to our group, I am confident that he will hire, develop and deliver innovative technologies that will accelerate the new generation of e-commerce for millions of Walmart customers around the world.

Jai Ho!

Get Your Product on Our Shelves

Have a great product that you wish you could sell through Walmart? Do you wish Walmart carried your favorite product, but does not today? Wish no longer! Just in time for the premiere of the new season of Americal Idol we have launched our own contest. Welcome to Get On The Shelf a new contest similar to American Idol where we are searching for the next great product. The latest in a series of innovations from @WalmartLabs, Get On The Shelf offers anyone with a product the chance to make it to the major leagues and have their product carried by Walmart.

How does it work? Pretty simple actually. Submit a video of your product to Get On the Shelf and then, when voting starts, rally your family, friends and fans to vote for it. The product video with the most votes wins. That's it. Simple. Any product in any category currently covered by Walmart is eligible - from housewares and electronics to toys and apparel. Learn more here .

Who will win to have their product carried for millions across the United States. It could be you!

Small is the New Big...

I’m excited to announce that Small Society, a highly respected mobile agency, is joining the @WalmartLabs mobile team. Small Society embodies what has made us successful in 2011 and will help us accelerate that success in 2012.
As I reflect on why this is such a great opportunity, it is clear that there are three things that matter most to building great teams:


Talent Matters
The power of current mobile SDKs means that small groups of talented people can deliver incredible products. This has always been true in software development, but the concentration factor is even more pronounced in today’s smartphone apps. When looking to expand our team, we were incredibly selective.
As we got to know the Small Society founders, they impressed us with their understanding of mobile platforms, their passion for building great products, and their awareness of the unique opportunities for mobile in the retail space. They’ve delivered apps for huge brands, from the Democratic National Committee to Starbucks, all from a small office over a kebab restaurant in downtown Portland. We quickly realized that Small Society could be a potent addition to our existing @WalmartLabs Oregon office.
“Portland?” you say? Yes–Portland! When we acquired Set Direction in April 2011, one of their employees was a crack iOS developer based in Portland. Since then, we have recruited a few more talented developers in the area. Our Portland office works closely with the rest of the team here in Silicon Valley, and together we will deliver world-class experiences for all of Walmart’s global businesses.


Product Matters
What we loved about our first interactions with the Small Society founders was their laser focus on product. They showed us their portfolio and they critiqued ours; it was refreshing to meet a team with concrete ideas on how to make our experiences stronger. The conversations were facilitated with working software more than PowerPoint­–it was great! We didn’t talk about abstract “this is the way it should be done” concepts; instead, we looked at what they had already done and how their product development skills could be applied to our businesses. We came away impressed. One example we looked at was the Zipcar app. The app is a spot-on intersection of technology, brand and business. Named one of Time Magazine's “50 Best iPhone Apps for 2011,” it enables Zipcar members to find and book a Zipcar quickly, but also to honk the horn and lock or unlock the doors—all from their iPhone
From the other side of the table, with our millions of weekly customers across dozens of countries and businesses that range from groceries and pharmacy to financial services, we offered them an unparalleled variety of challenges, and they too were impressed.


Customers Matter
At Walmart, our target market is one of the broadest in the world. If you go to Walmart every week for all your groceries or if you live 100 miles from the nearest Walmart but want everyday low prices shipped to your front door, we want to be your mobile experience be your mobile experience be it iPhone, iPad, or Android.
We’re here to serve people with busy lives and much bigger concerns than the coolness of our apps. If we provide them a way to save time, save money, and get done with their shopping so they can enjoy their loved ones, we’ve achieved success. We obsess over the small details so our customer doesn’t have to. We saw that clear customer focus in the Small Society portfolio and in the people we met.
A focus on talent, product, and customer­s embodied in small teams of talented people – this is what has mattered most to us as we have built the @Walmartlabs mobile team. Our ambitions aren’t small – we believe that mobile can have an impact on every part of the shopping experience for Walmart customers, whether in-store or online. We’re very excited to have such talented new team members to help us make that impact.