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Hummingbird Apparel: Driving Incredible Sales with Exceptional Customer Service

By Matt Lawson on June 25, 2025

TOPICS:

“We’re highly invested in your team and your school and your company and how you’re doing. And I think that’s what sets us apart: we truly care.”

– Josh Kalkofen, Owner

About Hummingbird Apparel

Hummingbird Apparel primarily serves team uniforms and sporting equipment to athletic teams and local schools in the Appleton, Wisconsin area. The Hummingbird team drives more than 70% of their business through OMG Pop-Up Stores, and satisfies the rest of their business through direct bulk orders and filling occasional one-off individual orders.

Appleton, WN

2020

30%

Location

Year Founded

YoY Growth

OMG Users from the Start

Hummingbird Apparel's online stores for basketball team from OrderMyGearIf OrderMyGear Online Stores had “Super Users,” then Josh Kalkofen would certainly be one of them, and he’d be near the top of the leaderboard. After ten years of using OMG Online Stores at his previous two jobs, it just made sense for Josh to carry that expertise and success into his own venture: Hummingbird Apparel.

“When I first thought about the idea of starting my own company, literally, OMG was my very first call,” said Josh. 

And since that very first call in 2020, Hummingbird Apparel has experienced significant year-over-year business growth, and improved their sales in every successive year.

Key Stats

  • Hummingbird Apparel has been using OrderMyGear for 5 years
  • Josh Kalkofen, owner of Hummingbird Apparel, has been using OMG for 15 years
  • 70% of Hummingbird’s business generated through the OMG online store platform
  • Hummingbird experienced 30% year-over-year growth in 2023-2024, with over 237 stores opened last year
  • Annual revenue: $1.2 million

List of industries served and products offered by Hummingbird Apparel

Pop-up Stores for All

Hummingbird Apparel primarily serves team uniforms and sporting equipment to athletic teams and local schools in the Appleton, Wisconsin area. The Hummingbird team drives more than 70% of their business through OMG Pop-Up Stores, and satisfies the rest of their business through direct bulk orders and filling occasional one-off individual orders. 

When it comes to doing business online, Josh says that OMG stores are faster and more efficient than traditional sales processes in promotional products, “It’s strange. I mean, people are still doing paper forms like, the amount of work you put into doing paper forms is ridiculous.”

In addition to saving time on traditional order fulfilment processes, Josh notes that OMG stores make life a lot easier for him and his customers, “I think the ordering process is a heck of a lot easier. And the fact that it’s all broken down by style color size, is great…so much easier than when we had to literally add up each color, each size on the paper form and make tallies.”

By using OMG Pop-Up Stores, Hummingbird apparel has an efficient and simple way to create online stores for their customers and sell more promotional products.

A Truly Local Business

When Josh Kalkofen opened Hummingbird Apparel in 2020, he wanted to reap the full rewards of his efforts, and enjoy the flexibility that comes with owning his own business. He also wanted to use his business to create meaningful local relationships, and provide excellent customer care to his close network and local schools. According to Hummingbird’s Marketing Director, Whitney Otto, those local relationships are what makes Hummingbird so special.

“We’re truly local. You know, we put in the work, we have quality apparel, we work with quality companies and we develop lasting local relationships with our schools and all of our clients…what we do is so different than all the other companies.” said Whitney.

Josh added that Hummingbird’s success is largely due to the fact that he treats all of his customers the same – whether they order 12 pieces or 500 – each Hummingbird customer receives the same level of personal service.

“I have real relationships with them and it’s not just another transaction for us… they’re customers, friends, and family that we’re doing business with and it doesn’t matter to us the volume or the dollar amount. We treat each transaction, person and company and school like they matter,” said Josh. He continued, “We’re highly invested in your team and your school and your company and how you’re doing. And I think that’s what sets us apart is that we truly care.”

Hummingbird’s customer service and attention to care truly goes above and beyond industry standards, and that extends to how they deliver their orders. Josh thinks the extra attention pays off in the long run, “we usually hand deliver every order and I think dropping that order off to the school or business and that’s good business because then we can talk to them about future things or whatever else they have coming up.”

As commerce continues to shift from physical storefronts to online stores, maintaining close relationships with customers has become more important than ever. Because the Hummingbird team uses OMG Pop-Up Stores, they have regained valuable time to focus on going the extra mile for their customer. 

By taking time to invest in customer care, Hummingbird has established a real competitive advantage in their market that helps them generate more repeat business year over year.

Quote from Josh Kalkofen from Hummingbird Apparel about OrderMyGear online stores

The Hummingbird Family

One big perk to owning your own business is involving your family to create something truly special: a family-run business. Josh says that’s one of his favorite parts of owning Hummingbird, “It’s truly a family-owned business…I have a six and five year old. They put stickers on boxes, they help box up orders, my wife helps bag things, and my dad helps deliver orders throughout the state… It truly is a family company.”

Owning your own business is a fantastic challenge, but one that is made easier by having the right tools in place. By using OMG Online Stores, the Hummingbird team has the time needed to add a more personal touch to their operations. They’re not dealing with the headaches created by the old, manual way of doing things. Instead, they’re creating time for family involvement, having fun in the process, and generating meaningful sales revenue every year.

What more could you want out of a family-owned business?

How OMG Supports Hummingbird

At OrderMyGear, we’re always growing and evolving our suite of services to better serve our customers and make it easier for them to sell more products. That extends into caring for our own customers and making certain that they’re using OMG solutions as effectively as possible. So, when OMG Client Success Manager Maddy Dendy learned that Josh was building online stores by hand, she took the lead on helping him become more efficient.

“Maddy was like, ‘you know, you can just hit a button and it duplicates it for you to remove artwork. You just have to hit one button and it just wipes out all the artwork…I’ve saved so much time because I was literally going into every garment, every color and pulling up the artwork and dragging it off the screen and then uploading a new one like it…But this is just so much easier,” said Josh. 

At OMG, we’re committed to partnering with our customers to help them generate more sales and create easy shopping experiences for their end customers. We’re always available to talk shop, and help you understand how to best use OMG’s suite of services to sell more – more stores, more services, more sales, with one technology partner.

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