A recent grad's $145 Target haul
Socially-acceptable cart snooping, ft. Hummingirds!
Hello hello!
SO excited to see so many familiar faces this weekend at Fancy Food Show in NYC! Hit us up if you’ll be in town :)
Before we get to the snooping, a quick word on something new from our friends at Hummingbirds. They just launched Offers, a feature now in early access that ties word-of-mouth to actual, receipt-verified purchases at the shelf.
Most marketing tools stop at the post: the impressions, the saves, the engagement rate that may or may not mean anything… but Offers keeps going. A shopper discovers your product through a creator they already trust, buys it on their next run to Target, Whole Foods, Costco, Sprouts, or Walmart, uploads the receipt, and earns a little cash back. You get verified velocity data tied to a specific SKU, sitting right in your dashboard with the redemption proof attached.
Because it surfaces to Hummingbirds’ community of 55,000+ discovery-driven shoppers and everyday creators, the trial starts the day you launch. Run an Offer on its own to build velocity ahead of a buyer meeting, or pair it with a creator campaign and watch the content and the purchase data land in the same view.
The short version: Offers is proof that your marketing actually moved product, so you never have to guess what’s working.
And now, speaking of what actually ends up in carts…
Welcome back to Real Receipts.
We have another special edition of Weekly Pickups this week: Real Receipts, powered by Hummingbirds—the brilliant platform that helps brands activate everyday creators in targeted markets and at real points of purchase.
Real Receipts exposes the actual grocery carts of real consumers across the country. If you often find yourself snooping on the grocery cart of the person in front of you at checkout, this one’s for you—and this time (thanks to our friends at Hummingbirds) it’s solicited. 🤝
Time to cart snoop. →
Meet Olivia Vald, an everyday creator on Hummingbirds. She’s 22, an Iowan living in California, freshly post-grad and working in social media. Olivia fills her off-hours with reading, hiking, and a healthy amount of Pinterest scrolling (she’s a social media girlie, after all).
First, let’s see the receipts:
This Target run rang up to $145.11, and offers a clear depiction of her shopping philosophy: “half list, half vibes.” Olivia keeps her non-negotiable staples on rotation and gives herself room to explore the aisles for whatever stands out. “I always joke that if it’s cute, I’m much more likely to add to cart,” she told us. “I’m just a girl, okay?!”
That philosophy is all over the receipt. The staples show up—Banza rotini and penne, Goodles, Graza, Molly’s Suds Laundry Powder—sitting right next to the more exploratory grabs like a little Swedish-candy detour (Sockerbit, BUBS) and a Bloom Pop to sip on.
Clean ingredients are the throughline: she scans labels for “clean and minimal” before anything makes the cut.
She shops with cost in mind, but she offers herself some wiggle room: “I try to be intentional about it—I have my staples I know I’ll use, and then I give myself permission to try a few new things each week.” Anything she’s eyeing but doesn’t strictly need stays on the shelf until it earns a spot in one of those “few fun purchases.”
Olivia shops weekly, and almost always in person. “I’m a big Trader Joe’s gal and get most of my staples there,” she said, “but I love browsing at Target and Whole Foods for the brands I love and to discover new-to-me products.” This week’s snoop is one of those Target browse-and-discover runs.
While Olivia does consider herself brand-loyal, she’s endlessly curious at the same time. “I love learning about brands’ stories, female founders, social initiatives, and supporting them through my purchases,” she said. She also loves to spread the word about her faves—she’s the type to text a rec to friends and family (and happily collect plenty back). A few tried-and-true favorites are:
Cocojune: “Currently quite obsessed with the vanilla chamomile.”
A dip of some sort: lately it’s Ithaca Hummus (lemon dill) and the Bitchin’ Sauce x Yellowbird collab.
Protein pasta: Banza and Goodles have both been earning their spot.
Graza: “Not a weekly purchase, but crucial to have in my kitchen!!”
One Trick Pony Peanut Butter: “Cute and super clean”—and freshly landed in Target, which she’s thrilled about.
Joolies Dates: “My fave snack with One Trick Pony PB!”
Shoutout to Olivia for opening up her cart and showing us how a brand-obsessed 22-year-old shops. Stay tuned for the next Real Receipts edition, thanks to our friends at Hummingbirds.
Hummingbirds is a community-powered retail velocity platform that connects CPG brands with discovery-driven shoppers and everyday creators.
With the new Offers feature, that same community now closes the loop—tying creator-driven discovery to verified, receipt-backed purchases at the retailers where you actually sell. One platform, one dashboard, one story: from content to conversion. Get started as a shopper or book a call to see it in action.
PS. Check out our most recent episode of The Curious Consumer, where Jenna is joined by Mike Messersmith, CEO of Lasso Labs—a Harvard-born food tech startup using a patented fiber spinning platform to create high-protein, high-fiber foods with cleaner labels and no compromise on texture or taste.
Mike shares his journey from legacy CPG to Chobani and Oatly (both at their peaks) to food tech founder, how the tech actually works, and why he believes the future of food will be won by changing the process, not just the recipe.
Thanks for reading! Anything you think we should try for an upcoming edition of Express Checkout? Email us at hello@expresscheckout.co