1. What is FTP and When to Use It

This article is important only if you wish to upload car part images to our platform. If you do not want to upload the images, please skip to the Uploading Inventory File guide.

If you prefer, you can watch this video guide on YouTube instead.

Important!

Images are always uploaded before the inventory file. Why? Read our explanation here.

Suppose you have already uploaded the inventory file and wish to upload car part images. In that case, unfortunately, you will have to re-upload the inventory file again- once the images are within the FTP Server.

What is FTP?

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a standard communication protocol. FTP allows the transfer of your image folders directly from your computer to our FTP servers.

For a successful image transfer to the FTP server, you require the following:

FTP client software
FTP login information

What is FTP Client Software?

To access and upload images to the FTP Server, you require to have an FTP Client Software. FTP Client Software is the tool you need to accomplish image transfer from your computer.

What is FTP Server?

FTP Server is like a waiting room. When you upload images to the FTP Server, they stay there for 72 hours to wait for the inventory file.

When an inventory file is successfully uploaded, the system checks whether image folder names match the asset ID column of the inventory file. If there's a match, the images are transferred further from the FTP Server and uploaded alongside your inventory. The images are deleted from the FTP Center if there's no match.

If no inventory file is uploaded within 72 h, the images are deleted from the FTP Server.

Where to get FTP Client Software?

There are multiple open-source and free FTP software out there. We have chosen to use FileZilla, which works for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. You can get the installation package here: https://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client .