SVDP Blog .. on education in the workplace

Safety Boots Move into The Mainstream

With the arrival of more comprehensive legislation surround safety and the utilising of private protection hardware in the office or workplace there was an increase in the amount of producers of safety shoes and safety boots. Last year alone sales rose by a stupefying 240% up on the previous year by a similarly staggerig 78%, figures which will without doubt prick up the ears of marketing reps up and back down the country.

Makers from all areas of Europe are now hot on the safety shoes bandwagon with Italy leading from the front with it's fashionable Cofra brand. Normal makers from the States and Nordic regions are standaing firm with their conventional hiking style safety boots and shoes, the primary forces being CAT Safety Boots, Bobcat, Dewalt Safety Boots and Timberland Safety Boots. In 2006 there had been far-reaching panic in the bizz after China started jettisoning off surplus stock shoes to Western Europe.

Plenty of the boots were sold at a complete loss to the corporations in an attempt to unlock money for the next production run. High import taxes make the product dearer than the 'locally ' made shoes and boots. Chinese importers already had to handle spiralling fuel costs which suggested shipping charges where on the rise and in reality haven't stopped since. The United Kingdom has robust ties with standard shoe and boot making and while the industry has had its highs and lows over time not helped much by again foreign imports, there's a still a robust market for traditional, hand made leather shoes. UK sectors have known about this for a while and brands like Doctor Martens, Fortec, Sterling and DeWalt all now have a product offering which reflects the existing trend in safety shoes.

The women market was the huge surprise for everybody in the sector.

Not one of the gigantic makers had looked for the gigantic rise in demand for female safety shoes and as a results there's now a huge scale battle for this sector ( especially in the narrow width shoe, size range 3 to 5 ). DeWalt hit out first with a rework of it's classic Apprentic boot, tidily presented in a beige nubuck outer with steel midsole and water-resistant higher.

So it seems like it's all to play for currently and it's looking the patron can be anticipating a year of good bargains with competition beig exceedingly high. Will we see some casualties during the lead-in to Xmas? Who know's but one things definitely for sure is that while demand remains high we'll all be keeping our feet forcefully on the ground, and with a little bit of luck wearing boots that are built to last at a price that's reasonable.