An Apparel Brand Replaced MOVEit With Files.com, One Partner Connection at a Time

A US apparel brand designs and sells its products through direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels.

Its wholesale business runs on file exchange. Orders and EDI documents move between the brand, its vendors, and its warehouses. Product doesn't move unless those files do. Replacing the platform behind them would mean moving live SFTP and AS2 connections partner by partner, without forcing every counterparty onto the same cutover schedule.

An Order Flow That Had Outgrown MOVEit

That order flow ran on MOVEit. The platform's volume and storage economics worked against the brand as use grew: more traffic meant more to pay for, so the price of the plumbing scaled with the business instead of disappearing into it.

Yet the traffic on MOVEit was live. Order exchange with vendors and warehouses was not a workload the brand could simply pause while it changed platforms.

Why Live Partner Traffic Couldn't Move in One Weekend

Platforms like this survive past their economics because the traffic on them is live. The brand's vendors and warehouses connected with their own clients and credentials. Some used standard SFTP tools. EDI trading partners required AS2. Every one of those connections was a working order channel, and a replacement could not ask every counterparty to change how it connected on the same weekend.

So the requirements were set by the traffic. The new platform had to speak the protocols partners already used: SFTP for anyone with a standard client, and AS2 for the trading partners that mandated it. It had to initiate outbound delivery to vendor and warehouse systems, not just receive. And it had to absorb connections a few at a time, so the migration could run partner by partner and team by team. The brand selected Files.com as that platform.

One Workstream at a Time Onto Files.com

The build ran the way the constraint demanded: workstream by workstream. The Files.com implementation began with supplier compliance intake, and the move off MOVEit began in 2023.

For inbound traffic, Files.com became the SFTP endpoint for the brand's vendors. The brand also enabled AS2. Files.com Outbound Connections delivered files to vendor and warehouse systems on the brand's initiation. Files.com supported inbound SFTP, AS2, and outbound delivery while the brand moved connections in stages.

Other workstreams followed the same pattern. Creative media moved onto the site through 2024, with files routing into the brand's Azure storage. The brand later deployed the Files.com Remote Agent on a Windows server inside its network, making on-premises paths reachable through the same site over an outbound-only connection.

Files.com could accommodate inbound, outbound, cloud, and on-premises workflows while each team moved on its own schedule. The staged build removed the need for a synchronized cutover across every partner and workstream.

Steady State on Files.com

With operations and EDI moved off MOVEit, Files.com became the steady-state endpoint for file movement with the brand's vendors and warehouses.

• Partners connect to Files.com over SFTP and AS2 using the standard protocols already built into their operations.
• The brand has continued adding Outbound Connections as its trading-partner footprint has grown.
• What began with individual workloads is now one Files.com site serving operations and EDI, production and compliance, creative, and legal.

Growth Becomes Configuration

Before the move, growth in the brand's trading volume increased its volume and storage costs on MOVEit. On Files.com, the brand has expanded its trading-partner footprint by adding connections while existing partners continue using SFTP and AS2. Growth is now absorbed one connection at a time rather than through another all-partner migration.

The Files.com rollout advanced a workstream at a time, from compliance intake to live EDI traffic to creative media and on-premises paths. A live order flow does not have to be rebuilt in one weekend to leave the platform it has outgrown.