Connecting your sales website

If you have a website that lists cars for sale, you can connect it to ImportOps so vehicles appear automatically when they're ready, and disappear when they're sold. Your website's developer (or the person who built the site) handles the connection. This article tells you what they need from you.

What this gives you

Vehicles in Sale ready appear on your website without you re-entering them.
When a vehicle moves to Reserved or Sold, your website hides it.
Photos you upload in ImportOps show up on the listing.

What your website builder needs

You give them three things:

Your ImportOps web address (the one you use to sign in).
An API key with the right scopes:
- vehicles.read, so the site can read vehicle details.
- vehicle-photos.read, so the site can show your photos.
A copy of the API guide PDF from Settings then API keys then Download guide. The guide has the technical details they need.

If they also want to show buyer information, like reservations on a "Coming soon" page, add customers.read to the key.

Creating the key

Go to Settings then API keys.
Name the key after the website, like "Acme Motors website".
Tick vehicles.read and vehicle-photos.read.
Pick an expiry. A year is reasonable for a website integration; you can rotate the key at any time without breaking the site, your developer just needs the new key.
Click Create key and copy the token. The token is shown once. Send it to your developer through a secure channel (a password manager share, not email).

How photos behave

When your website asks for a vehicle's photos, ImportOps returns links that are valid for a day at a time. Your developer's job is to refresh those links during each sync. You don't need to do anything; this just explains why a sales-website setup includes a regular sync rather than running once.

Checking it's working

After your developer has connected the site:

On the API keys page, the key shows a Last used time. If that updates, your data is being read.
Move a vehicle to Sale ready and watch your website. Once the next sync runs, the vehicle should appear.
Move it to Reserved. On the next sync, the listing should disappear.

Something not appearing?

Last used is blank or stale. Your developer hasn't pointed the site at the key yet, or they're using a different key. Confirm with them.
One vehicle is missing. Check it really is in Sale ready in ImportOps. Vehicles in earlier stages aren't shared with the site.
Photos aren't loading. Ask your developer when their site last refreshed photo links. Links older than a day are expected to stop working.

If you've checked all the above and still need help, contact support.