Home Depot Penny Finds Go Viral

A TikTok creator has drawn millions of views by documenting a method that allows shoppers to purchase certain high-value items at Home Depot for just one cent.

The creator, who posts under the name Tylernap Deals, has built an audience around locating what are commonly referred to as “penny items,” products that remain on store shelves after being internally marked down to $0.01.

His videos show purchases that include a bathroom vanity originally priced around $1,100, a water heater valued at roughly $800, and a ceiling fan listed for approximately $450, all purchased for a penny each.

One of his most viewed videos featured the purchase of 101 smoke detectors with a combined retail value exceeding $4,000. According to the video, the items scanned for a total of $1.01 at self-checkout. Store employees questioned the transaction and reportedly offered a refund while raising concerns about whether the purchase should be allowed. After management reviewed the situation, the transaction was completed and Tylernap left with the items.

That video accumulated nearly 15 million views, with several others on the account reaching similar levels of attention.

The practice relies on internal inventory procedures used by many retailers. Products that are discontinued, recalled, damaged, seasonal, or otherwise scheduled to be removed from sales floors may sometimes be assigned a system price of one cent. Employees are generally expected to pull those products from shelves before customers encounter them, but items can occasionally remain available due to timing or oversight.

If an item remains available on the sales floor and still scans at the reduced amount, some shoppers view the listed register price as the purchase price.

Finding these items is not something stores publicly advertise. Instead, communities of deal hunters often rely on third-party tools and inventory trackers to locate markdowns.

Among those tools is Deal Soldier, a Discord-based service that Tylernap frequently references in his videos. Users can enter a ZIP code to search for discounts and clearance opportunities at retailers including Home Depot, Walmart, Target, and Lowe’s. The platform highlights both traditional clearance pricing and deeply discounted inventory that may include penny-marked products.

Deal Soldier was launched in 2024 by YouTube creator Sean Sweeney, known online as Super Unsexy, who has produced content focused on discount shopping and “hidden clearance” strategies. The service offers a free trial period followed by a monthly subscription.

The company’s website states that customers purchasing penny items are paying the price reflected in the retailer’s own checkout system and describes the transactions as standard retail purchases.

The concept itself extends well beyond Home Depot. Similar communities have developed around retailers including Walmart and Dollar Tree, where shoppers search for heavily discounted inventory left behind after markdown cycles. Social media users often refer to the process as “penny shopping” or “hidden clearance,” with videos showing shoppers scanning products in stores to uncover prices that are not reflected online or on shelf tags.

Additional videos tied to the trend have shown shoppers searching clearance endcaps, checking internal pricing patterns, and returning during seasonal inventory transitions in hopes of locating products before they are removed from store shelves. Deal hunters often describe the process less as finding pricing errors and more as locating merchandise that has already been marked for removal within store inventory systems.

At the same time, deal communities generally encourage shoppers to remain respectful toward employees and recognize that store management may still exercise discretion over whether a transaction is completed.

Home Depot does not publicly promote penny-item pricing, and there is no public company policy encouraging shoppers to seek out these products. In many cases, the items are intended to be removed before reaching customers, leaving penny shopping as a niche but increasingly visible corner of online bargain hunting culture.