Likely you should retain the '$' character in the command line, so escape it, by preceding it with a backslash. Otherwise, perl will fill in the value of the variable $(. 
$x = `grep orderNumber \$(find /home/homedepot/ECOM/prod/in -mtime -1)
+ | wc -l`;

[download]
Alternatively, use the qx with single quotes: 
$x = qx'grep orderNumber $(find /home/homedepot/ECOM/prod/in -mtime -1
+) | wc -l';

[download]

In reply to Re: Perl 'pipe' problem by bart
in thread Perl 'pipe' problem by mifflin

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