Why am I seeing so many people buy home depot products for $0.01 on YouTube?
Posted by iLoveSoftSkin@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 111 comments
I keep seeing shorts of dudes buying stuff from home depot and employees getting pissed.
Really weird, how is this guy able to buy stuff for 1 cent?
rawaka@reddit
It's finding left over clearance that they thought was all sold out. If you find it, it'll ring for a penny. Employees aren't supposed to let you buy it for that price but because of the fight that usually follows, some will just be angry with you and let you have it.
It's a fun contest for those with time to try and find them. Like a scavenger hunt.
Far-Egg3571@reddit
"For those with time" means people without jobs, on food stamps and willing to do some very questionable things in the bathroom for money
Silver-Pressure-5874@reddit
People with jobs do questionable stuff in the bathroom for free all the time. I have even paid to do that stuff, I mean I heard that’s what people do
MrLongWalk@reddit
I wish international audiences understood how YouTube algorithms worked.
Kawala_@reddit
he’s not asking how algorithms work he’s asking why the videos even exist in the first place, we don’t have home depot outside north america…
leave it to an american to be an idiot
MrLongWalk@reddit
“Why am I seeing so many”
Kawala_@reddit
you’re smart enough to know what that actually means
Yankee_chef_nen@reddit
In MyCountry people only upload videos of common occurrences, it’s actually against the law to upload something that isn’t an every day normal event just for views, so they can’t be expected to understand the algorithm.
ZombieLizLemon@reddit
I swear, at least half of the questions here are due to someone watching a couple of weird videos, then having their social media algorithm push more of that content.
MyUsername2459@reddit
Yup.
"YouTube shows me lots of videos of, why is that such a huge thing to Americans!" is SUCH a common question here.
. . .people seem to think the YouTube algorithm is driven by what's popular in America, not what they've already watched and liked and subscribed to.
Floppy-Over-Drive@reddit
When they zero out inventory, the price drops to $0.01. Ideally there should be no inventory left on the floor when it happens, and they’re not supposed to sell it if there is.
TManaF2@reddit
The employees may have missed the markdown because they weren't given an accurate inventory of items to be removed (out enough time to removed them).
Also, there's usually a pattern to the markdowns, and customers who try to take advantage notice the patterns and hide the items they want to buy specifically so the employees won't be able to find them before they're marked down to a penny.
Finally, the markdowns and removals may hit different areas of the country at different times. (Doesn't make sense, but apparently this happened at a company I used to work for.) This gives certain snipers the time to prepare (i.e., search for what they want and hide it).
My current store marks those shorts of items down to $0.00 so it can't be rung up at the register.
tc0843@reddit
what's the pattern before they mark down to .01?
TManaF2@reddit
Depends on the store. Lord & Taylor did 25% for the longest time with occasional "sales" at 30-40%, then 40-50% in the regular department, then 60% or more in a separate Clearance department. When it was more than a full season out-of-date, it might go down to $10 for a final (needs to be pulled from the floor to go to an outlet center) markdown.
TheBimpo@reddit
The employees are further aggravated because they’re being recorded against their will by some annoying jerk who is using them for content.
Expensive-Lunch-2109@reddit
Nowadays content is a job too
Phate1989@reddit
Just another risk associated with modern retail, grt use to it or get a corp job.
Outrageous_Border103@reddit
man something about you is really off, after glancing at your post history. you claim to be american, yet every post you've made has been with bad grammar and spelling, as if english isn't your first language. you hang out on the shitamericanssay subreddit, the most hostile site on the internet towards americans, and you shit on the little guy, something most americans would never do, they would stand up for the retail workers. if i had to guess, you're some teenager from india or brazil rping as an american online for the lols. that or you dropped out of school in the 3rd grade and have no skills, so you act toxic online to everyone you interact with
ClickClick_Boom@reddit
I disagree, people need to stop glorifying people who are shitbags in public for social media clout.
Phate1989@reddit
Dont like it grt another job, all jobs have unpleasent aspects
thatsad_guy@reddit
Why are you justifying people being shitty?
MyUsername2459@reddit
He's probably someone going around doing this stuff and doesn't like being called out. They're reciting the justification they have for doing this stuff themselves.
Phate1989@reddit
Its dumb to take a retail job and thrn complain about dealing with ass hole people.
Its your hob dealnwith it or find another.
thatsad_guy@reddit
Do you not read your comments back to yourself before posting them?
Phate1989@reddit
No
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Because they’re a shitty person and don’t like that people in this thread are calling them out
TheBimpo@reddit
"Hey victim, toughen up!"
Or maybe we can shame the jerks filming people for their selfish and humiliating practices instead.
Phate1989@reddit
Hey plumber you got some shit in your hand, ohh no your victim.
Hey election, did you grt a bite from an outlet your a victim!
Hey stock analysts did thr company you invest in tank, your a victim!
All jobs have risks grt use to it or get another one.
5usDomesticus@reddit
No, this would be like someone filming a plumber getting shit on their hand, laughing at them, then putting it on TikTok for views.
It's trash behavior.
Phate1989@reddit
No thats not a realistic event happening for a plumber, it is for retail.
Jobs have risks, this is one of them, its a free country.
MyUsername2459@reddit
It's perfectly appropriate for a business to say there's no recording allowed there.
Having some entitled asshole shove a camera in your face for their own crappy clickbait video shouldn't be a "risk" anyone has to endure.
5usDomesticus@reddit
Just because something can be done doesn't mean it's not horrible behavior.
You can film a guy in a wheelchair and make fun of him. It's not illegal. It doesn't mean it's asshole behavior.
Phate1989@reddit
I agree with you.
If the wheel chair guy went online and complained about being filmed i probably wouldnt tell him to grow legs.
He has no choice, unlike the retail worker...
5usDomesticus@reddit
No, the retail worker doesn't deserve that behavior just because technically it could happen to them. The wheelchair guy accepts the same risk leaving his house just as everyone else does.
You do, too. Anyone can come up to you, stick a camera in your face and start berating you. It's a risk everyone takes going out in public.
The person holding the camera is always in the wrong, no matter what.
Phate1989@reddit
Im not debating right and wrong, im just saying its pointless to complain about when the option to find another position exists.
5usDomesticus@reddit
There's nothing wrong with complaining that someone's being a dick. No one should be harassed when they're just trying to do their jobs.
Phate1989@reddit
What should be is not thr world we luve in.
Nah no need to complain just find another job.
Peace
77778888777888@reddit
Why would they not raise it to $1,000,000 instead?
Eccohawk@reddit
Does seem like the better option, but it might mess with their end of year inventory reporting for any accounting they need to do.
Independent-Cow-4070@reddit
Why would the employees care though?
MyUsername2459@reddit
Because those items aren't even supposed to be on the sales floor. They're marked down to a penny as a placeholder, and not supposed to be sold. They're probably expecting grief from management for it being sold.
Floppy-Over-Drive@reddit
Because by policy they’re not supposed to sell you the item if it’s a cent.
Imagine telling people who think they got a good deal that they can’t have it. It puts them in a tough spot because now you have a bunch of angry Karens yelling at you for following policy, something you shouldn’t have to be dealing with but now you do because your coworkers made a mistake.
Independent-Cow-4070@reddit
Bruh if im a cashier, the policy is to not give a fuck lol
grimegroup@reddit
Sure, until your boss fires you for letting it happen too many times. You may not need or want the job much, but some folks need to keep the ones they've got.
MyUsername2459@reddit
. . .and management is probably going to be upset about this, and they're mad that they're probably going to get griped at about it, and some bozo shoving a camera in their face to record it all for social media is NOT helping the situation at all.
ZotDragon@reddit
I honestly think the vast majority of Home Depot (or any retail) employees care what a customer pays as long as they keep the line moving and the transaction goes through. More likely they're pissed at being recorded without permission or they are acting for the camera.
AddictedToOxygen@reddit
Sometimes the employees have plans to purchase the zeroed out excess inventory for themselves. HD employee told us he was planning to grab the steel studs we were checking out that turned out to be $.01, but we needed them that day, so he was fine about it.
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
I assume these are some form of extreme coupon people....
This is a very rare thing that your algorithm has decided you love and is feeding more of it to you.
Without some context, I can confidently say either you are misunderstanding or it is scripted.
congressguy12@reddit
Imagine answering without even knowing the topic
Low_Contribution4739@reddit
Your wrong they just have a bad system where when they discontinue an item and are supposed to take it off shelves it rings up as one penny
Melodic_Armadillo_43@reddit
I think the more correct assumption is that the cashier is 100% sure that they are going to get reamed by a manager for something g that happened that is in no way their fault.
Lukewill@reddit
I am someone who has had the same experience as OP and googling the question brought me to this Reddit post a month later and I just wanna say that you might wanna think twice about responding to questions with speculation.
Do not do this. Your understanding of the situation does not increase without context. If your confidence increases with less knowledge, you need to look inward and figure out why your brain works this way because it is the exact opposite of sound logic.
Also, don't be an ass when answering questions.
Saltpork545@reddit
It is not. It's a trick of the inventory system of Home Depot to get stuff removed from their public shelves. Items that are meant to be pulled are set to 1 cent in price in their internal system.
The thing is that as long as they are still publicly available and they can legally checkout with the item, they're under consumer protection to buy the item for one cent, so there's lots of content and slop that is 'HOW TO HACK HOME DEPOT GET STUFF FOR 1C!!!!'.
It's just showing a flaw in Home Depot's ability to get staff to pull items or their inventory system in general that got turned into algorithm slop.
sojithesoulja@reddit
When I worked there they actually told me about this. These people try to capitalize on the small window where HD marks it down to 0.01 to shortly thereafter remove it from the floor.
Curmudgy@reddit
Is there a reason why they don’t just put a separate mark on it?
This reminds me of a common software tactic back when computers had 16K of RAM (yes, 16K, not M). Programmers would use special values to indicate special situations to avoid having to allocate more bits or bytes as a flag in each data structure. These days, I consider such programming tactics lazy at best.
PM_me_PMs_plox@reddit
Why wouldn't they mark it up to like $1,000,000 then instead of down to avoid this?
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
Artificially inflated the retail floor value.
PM_me_PMs_plox@reddit
Can you not carve out an exception in the procedure for calculating that, or is it really worth losing merchandise over these rules?
But now that I am thinking about it, it is probably a better solution to have the self checkout automatically decline the sale.
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
Yeah. This shouldn't be that hard to fix.
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
Ah. That makes sense.
Big box retail mistake due to oversight.
Weightmonster@reddit
Or Loss leader? Once they get in they buy other stuff hopefully?
Rommie557@reddit
Nope. If it's been marked down to $0.01,its not supposed to be on the shelves at all
chesbay7@reddit
Like the Dollar Tree thing. I would assume that employees get in trouble for not getting this marked down inventory off the shelves before customers discover it.
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
Nope. It's just an inventory management mistake.
seanymphcalypso@reddit
It could also be a display model. They typically are just to see dimensions but lack the “guts” that make them work.
For clarity: I worked at a red big box store, not the orange one. Our display models were more along the lines of small appliances and home health. It would be irritating bc if the guest called the cops in to enforce the sale we had to oblige. But then we would have to wait for a replacement piece to come in and hope corporate wouldn’t visit to audit our sets (which happened monthly) and we would have our asses handed to us.
Bib, I hope you’re enjoying your knife set you got for a penny! Can’t wait until you get the handles unglued just to realize I was in fact not lying when I said they have no blades on them! And your toothbrush doesn’t have any of the electronic components, so enjoy that one too!
iLoveSoftSkin@reddit (OP)
This isometric of them:
https://youtube.com/shorts/H7x5OzNQShU?si=JmVYrpfDVbuEZXld
ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit
Why are you watching these videos? What is the appeal?
bobbelings@reddit
I watch these videos too. I think this will answer your questions. here
Yankee_chef_nen@reddit
Yes that does answer all the questions. OP you really should click the link u/bobbelings provided.
therealdrewder@reddit
https://youtube.com/shorts/Hbe_gKiPnfc?si=w8pdipQJnPd5R5tf
This explains it
mockity@reddit
Why are they doing this? OP, lovingly, these answers are literally in the comments of that video. Why are you seeing so many? Algorithm.
JacobDCRoss@reddit
Yeah. I worked at Depot for a bit. Giant corporation and all that, but they did train us quite a bit that they expected us to be more about meeting a customer's needs than about make my an individual sale. Policy back then was that any floor employee had leeway to reduce the price of a ticket by up to 50 bucks in order to improve a customer's experience (although I imagine they would track it to prevent abuse).
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Another option for buying thing for 1 cent, depending on what it is some things sold are very cheap because you’re having to buy a lot of them. If you’re buying a single pebble that’s meant to be bought by weight to cover your dirt driveway I can imagine someone paying 1 cent for a single one.
Folksma@reddit
If the employee is at all aggravated, I'd assume its because they are getting filmed by an annoying person with a camera
Meattyloaf@reddit
Nah the penny stock people can be kinda rude and annoying in general. Also corporate can typically store sales and see if a lot of a penny item was being rang up. That can lead to possible disciplinary action for said item not being removed from the floor. This can vary from business to business. In my experience this happens because corporations have do a piss poor job of communicating to their store level.
Eric-of-All-Trades@reddit
Items marked down by the computer to one penny are not supposed to be out on the sales floor any longer, so when customers get ahold of them it means employees screwed up and naturally they're not looking forward to whatever repercussions management decide to dole out, especially if it's a recurring issue in the store, especially if the mistake is being filmed to encourage other customers to take advantage.
John_Tacos@reddit
Or it’s scripted.
Meattyloaf@reddit
Penny stock, some people get really annoyed with people finding this "sale". Essentially retail stores will mark items down toa penny before they get removed from the store/stock. Once they get penny stocked they should be removed. Only issue is in my experience corporate can do a piss poor job of communicating said items to the store level. Therefore, you get these people that will hunt high and low for said items.
deathbychips2@reddit
I know it used to be at dollar general that things they were about to get rid of would be priced as 0.01 to make it obvious to employees in the system, but somehow people figure out which items are priced that way.
GothDerp@reddit
I got behind someone in line last week that did this… it’s still around.
AlexandraThePotato@reddit
I mean I would be annoyed with a tiktaky holding their camera in my face
GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit
Me too
cardboardbelts@reddit
When Home Depot is removing an item from their inventory, they mark it down to a penny. The key thing is that these items are not meant to be sold to the public. However, with such a large store and so many items, sometimes they get missed and are left on the floor. Alternatively, they are placed high up on shelves meant to be inaccessible. People in these videos trick the workers there into getting the item for them since they are placed with overstock items that are meant to be sold. From there it’s a mad rush to checkout before someone knowledge notices what you’re doing. Despite what people in these videos may claim, they can deny the sale, but once you’ve paid it becomes a different legal situation. That’s why they are always trying to keep a low profile and get through self checkout as quick as possible. They know they are essentially stealing and exploiting something they shouldn’t be doing.
Weightmonster@reddit
Does Home Depot even carry though? Unless it’s gold or something, they would probably rather have a customer buy it then deal with trying to send it back.
PM_me_PMs_plox@reddit
If they cared they would update the self checkout to deny the sale, so clearly they don't. They also don't care enough about their employees to update the policy to something less insane.
hotdog257@reddit
never understood why they don’t just have the prices on items they’re getting rid of change to $9999 instead of 1 penny, it would completely solve this issue 😭
TManaF2@reddit
Depends on what they do with the merchandise, and why.
Merchandise can be destroyed on-site so that it's unusable. (This happens frequently with name-brand clothing.) This keeps up the value of the brand and disincentivizes someone donating it to someone in need and that person reselling it at a profit.
Merchandise can be returned to a facility for recycling. This allows new, hopefully more-desirable merchandise to be created; it also allows for items that deteriorate sitting on a shelf to be repurposed. The return on the recycled materials to the company is greater than $0.01 per unit.
Food items that are no longer for for human consumption can be composted, again repurposing wasted.
Merchandise can be donated to a charity (such as Habitat for Humanity, and the full retail value of those items deducted as a charitable contributions.
Merchandise can be resold to a salvage shop for pennies on the dollar. The salvage shop wiggle will either resell, donate, or do something else with the removed-from-floor merchandise
Acceptable-Care7129@reddit
Its employees fault for not removing item from sales floor yet. They’re held in inventory for a penny cause it can’t be in the system for $0.00. Often discontinued or phase outs. Some end up in dumpsters anyways. Not extreme couponing or fraud or schemes. Basically it’s super diligent people scanning items in store with Home Depot app. You find a score but it up and sell on Facebook marketplace. A glitch in the system if you will. Or matrix.
Federal_Jeweler_9514@reddit
How do you know if it’s going to scan for a penny or some other heavy discount
Sad_Boss4012@reddit
Why do people not understand or even think that workers getting mad are upset they didn't let their brothers/partners come buy the stuff instead of this guy
SkiingAway@reddit
Sounds like Home Depot has a dumb system.
Should just reprogram the checkouts to not scan anything that's $0.01 and throw an error instead of letting the transaction process, if they really don't want the stuff getting sold.
Melodic_Armadillo_43@reddit
That's why they use self checkout. If a cashier scans and sees it they stop the sell.
SkiingAway@reddit
How does that change my point?
You program the self-checkout to throw an error like "Item not for sale" and lock it/block checking out until the store employee comes over, just like self-checkouts do for all sorts of other malfunctions.
They haven't paid for it or even been allowed to ring it up, so they can't get away with saying they bought it already, too bad.
If they try to just walk out with it anyway, it's theft just like stealing any other item off the shelves is.
Melodic_Armadillo_43@reddit
I did not wven know this was a thing until I just recently found a facebook group about it. In this group people are posting and sharing g penny items that they want to purchase that have, for all intents and purposes, been removed from the sales floor. I. E. placed on the very top shelf of their store out of reach of customers. Many people in this group admit to/encourage others to grab the Home Depot rolling ladders and quickly take the item down from where it was placed and then purchase it at self checkout where a cashier can't perform a "stop sale".
BenchOrdinary9291@reddit
This is not a new concept, it has been going on for more than 20 years.
heatrealist@reddit
I got some garden stakes once for free at Home Depot. I went to buy 4, they rung up as $0.01. The cashier asked her manager and they said "oh these are free, we're clearing them out." So I went back and got the rest of the stakes they had.
Waisted-Desert@reddit
These are exceptions. Home Depot's inventory control; system has an issue where dicontinued products get discounted. Basically 50% off, then 75% off, then when they're supposed to be removed from the shelves, the system marks them down to $0.01.
They are not supposed to be sold, but rather returned to the distribution center or a discount set at the store level. Many of these items slip through the cracks and remain on the shelf priced at $0.01.
Longwell2020@reddit
I suspect its fake as I now belive everything is fake until proven otherwise.
pudding7@reddit
I work at Home Depot. This is a real thing. When we're stocking shelves and come across a $.01 item, we're supposed to remove it from the shelves.
aZealCo@reddit
Do you only notice them when stocking? I figured that if they were about to update an item to 1 cent, they would maybe give a warning that in 1-2 days this item will be 1 cent so remove them all from the shelves now. Not just suddenly changing it and hoping the employees notice in time.
Longwell2020@reddit
Ahh so there just getting to it first. Like recalled items.
pudding7@reddit
I thinknits more about getting $$$ items for a penny. And then taking them to the swap meet to see them.
Saltpork545@reddit
Posted this elsewhere in this thread.
It's a trick of the inventory system of Home Depot to get stuff removed from their public shelves. Items that are meant to be pulled are set to 1 cent in price in their internal system.
The thing is that as long as they are still publicly available and they can legally checkout with the item, they're under consumer protection to buy the item for one cent, so there's lots of content and slop that is 'HOW TO HACK HOME DEPOT GET STUFF FOR 1C!!!!'.
It's just showing a flaw in Home Depot's ability to get staff to pull items or their inventory system in general that got turned into algorithm slop.
It is likely going to be patched because of how fucking annoying it's become and I'm sure Home Depot's management noticed.
PartyCat78@reddit
I don’t know but whatever angle they are working seems like a lot of work and arguing to buy 5 bathroom vanities and 4 chainsaws for $1.00 and nobody is going to use 5 bathroom vanities and 4 chainsaws.
Home Depot can be shady though. I was searching for something - in their app, reflecting stock at my local store - and saw it was on sale for $40 off, dropping it to $80. Went over, got it and it scanned for $120. Long story short the manager came over and tried to tell me that was the “online price because the warehouse probably has a lot of inventory.” I was like… it’s showing this store. So basically if I ordered in the app for in-store pickup I would get this price and an employee would go get it for me? She blinked a couple times and did an override. Make it make sense. Sorry unrelated HD rant.
vanwiekt@reddit
I had the same interaction with an HD employee over six smart smoke alarms. The app had them listed at $20 a piece and the in store price was over $80. She would not give them to me for the app price in the store. So as we argued I placed the order through the app for store pickup. She seemed rather pissed 😡.
PartyCat78@reddit
Well they are still doing it. So stupid. And I suspect this is being out on the floor managers/supervisors to enforce from higher up which sucks for them. But come on.
JuanMurphy@reddit
Big box stores will discount low turnover. From what I understand AI will continue to discount the product and at a certain point where the store’s policy is to pull the item from the rack and place it in a spot where the customer does not have access to it. My assumption is they do this to sell these items in bulk at auction or something. The customers that buy these either get the item off the shelf (which isn’t allowed) or get an unsuspecting employee to do it for them. Then they go to a self-pay, scan and pay for it. Once the transaction is complete then the store no longer owns the item.
yurinator71@reddit
The employee is pissed for two reasons: 1) They are responsible for removing the item so it can't actually sell for a penny. The penny price is because the item has been closed out and technically not supposed to be available any longer.
2) The employee wants the item for themselves
DrunkBuzzard@reddit
I bought a storage unit years ago that had been owned by a Home Depot employee. He has been given hundreds of pairs of leather work gloves to donate to Habitat for Humanity but he didn’t. I also got a couple pair of Home Depot tennis shoes. Made $1500 on the gloves selling them at a reasonable price at the flea market.
Eric-of-All-Trades@reddit
Because merchandise priced at a penny is being removed from circulation, and while technically available for purchase should a customer find them theelse items are supposed to be in a back room away from the public.
Home Depot employees become mad because customers buying these items for a penny mean someone somewhere did not do their job and store management is going to find someone to blame. The videos have increased the number of people actively looking for penny merchandise not yet pulled from the floor, which increases the odds of employees being reprimanded for what used to be a rare occurrence because the workers were behind or short-staffed that day.
grimegroup@reddit
Home Depot has a progressive clearance pricing protocol, where unsold items are reduced in price at a regular interval until the price is 1 cent, which is an indicator that it should be taken off the floor and returned/disposed of/whatever the end of life for that product is, but it isn't meant to be sold to consumers at 1 cent.
I'm not clear on the exact details, but there are apparently labels that can be decoded to identify when a price will be reduced.
Savvy deal hunters will often watch or look for these products that aren't taken off the floor quickly and attempt to buy them, occasionally with pushback or refusal to allow the purchase.