About the Company
RYU Apparel, or Respect Your Universe, is an award winning urban athletic apparel and
accessories brand. Founded in
2008, RYU designs and develops products for the fitness and performance-oriented lifestyle
of athletic men and women.
The publicly listed Canadian brand started out as a maker of mixed-martial arts equipment
and eventually switched to
minimal, technology-advanced athletic apparel and accessories.
As RYU grew from a small startup into an international brand, it became increasingly hard to
keep up with the manual
processes and spreadsheets that were essential for managing product design and development.
RYU’s products are designed, developed and tested at their corporate headquarters in
Vancouver, Canada. While their
production takes place in factories located in North America and Asia. Their product
portfolio includes t-shirts, tops,
hoodies, jackets, tanks, bottoms, bags, socks and more.
As a technical developer, I am in WFX all day, every day. I’m working in it to do everyone from—create Bill of Materials, make grading charts, add styles or my fit comments. It’s become an integral tool for my job.
Cindy Hirschberg
Technical Development Manager, RYU
Challenges they faced
Before WFX, they were using spreadsheets to manually input and store data and then share these large files via emails. It was hard to make updates and changes as files were scattered across different systems.
This also made it hard to share information with vendors and partners which led to errors during product development as they couldn’t efficiently track changes across multiple versions of a product.
As RYU grew from a small startup into an international brand, it became increasingly hard to keep up with the manual processes and spreadsheets that were essential for managing product design and development.
RYU was experiencing growing pains. They needed a way to track inventory levels across multiple locations, and make sure that all information was properly updated on time so that everything was ready and packed when it was time for shipping.
Impact after implementing WFX
WFX provides RYU with a centralized platform for all product data, enabling easy access and deep insights by season, style, and category.
Real-time visibility and Time & Action calendars empower teams to make agile decisions and track task progress effectively.
The intuitive interface simplifies inventory, sales order, and purchase order management, leading to faster processes and improved customer service.
WFX’s digital Tech Pack tool streamlines design workflows, enabling quick tech pack creation with drag-and-drop features and embedded AI files.
The vendor portal enhances collaboration with manufacturers and suppliers, ensuring data accuracy and seamless communication.
Templated workflows and centralized data have accelerated RYU’s go-to-market speed, helping them stay ahead of seasonal trends.
