Well there is about 19 days left for people to enter this contest. I have done some digging around and have some number for you. To date my estimate says Walmart has had 2028 video’s submitted for the contest! WOW! If I counted correctly there have been 738 accepted into the contest . This means the estimated acceptance rate is about 36%. I know I had some challenges when I submitted my video and I have been reading about others having similar problems.


First thing I noticed is there was no acceptance email confirming you video was received. For the first week a small “Thank You” appeared under the description box after you hit submit. I actually submitted twice because I didn’t see anything confirming that my entry was received. I sent a note in on the FAQ (and I would guess others did too) and now after you hit submit you get this message “Thanks! We'll be in touch about your entry within a week.” Now I have 3 inventions but ZooPoo Kids Shampoo and Bath Toys has the most mass appeal. I waited a full 7 days and heard nothing from my Jan 19th submission. I them submitted my other two products just to see if I would hear anything. Two of my 3 products were accepted. I only heard back from Walmart on the product accepted (with the same email from my earlier post.) I still haven’t heard anything back about my third product. I have to admit it’s a bit out there (a snow plow attachment you attach to your self-propel lawn mower so you can clear snow www.SnowMower.com but it’s not that crazy!)


I also believe my ZooPoo Kids Shampoo and Bath Toys product name was too long for the form. I think this slowed my acceptance. My product name got shortened to just ZooPoo Kids Shampoo. Although it was accepted the same day my second invention I submitted it a full 7 days earlier. So watch the length of your product names.


Next thing I see is users having problems with their YouTube URLs. When you are ready to submit your product you will get normally one of two things. A successful submission will result in this sentence appearing under the Description box “Thanks! We'll be in touch about your entry within a week.” If your YouTube URL is bad or it has problems you will get a message saying the URL has errors. This best URL to use it the “SHARE” url displayed by hitting the SHARE button under your video on its YouTube page. IMHO It’s best to use that URL.


That’s it for today! More to come. I still really excited. Good luck to all the other hopefuls! Thanks! We'll be in touch about your entry within a week.