Cleanroom.net Exclusives : Interview With Bottomline Safety’s Kathleen Reed

Cleanroom.net Exclusives talks to Bottomline Safety founder, Kathleen Reed. Bottomline was established earlier this year and is an authorized distributor of the Original Wilkuro Safety Toes and Wilkuro’s Trademarks are used under license.

Cleanroom.net : Your company is the newest authorized distributor of Wilkuro’s Overshoe. Can you explain what is an Overshoe?

Kathleen : An overshoe, in particular, a safety overshoe is a form of personal protective equipment that is worn over regular everyday footwear. Over the years, it has been used for temporary workers, visitors to plants and/or in any area where toe and/or slip protection is required. However, as companies look to reduce costs, safety overshoes can be a viable alternative in a struggling economy especially in situations where the product would not be subject to extreme amounts of wear and tear.

The Wilkuro Safety Toe, as distributed by Bottomline Safety, is comprised of a molded, stretchy, waterproof, yet lightweight PVC material with an integrated steel toe cap inserted with a trade-secret adhesive, so there is no concern that the toe cap can accidently shift or fall out.

The Wilkuro also provides excellent slip protection.

Overshoes, like just like regular safety shoes, need to pass drop tests for compression, saying the toe cap passes by itself is misleading to consumers. It is important that overshoe purchasers ensure that the toe cap is an integral part of the safety overshoe, so that it can pass compliance testing to ASTM F 2412 / 2413. Paragraph 5.1.2 of ASTM F 2413-05 states: Footwear shall be designed, constructed, and manufactured so that a protective toe cap is an integral and permanent part of the footwear. The Wilkuro Safety Toe overshoe meets these criteria.

Cleanroom.net : What facilities should be using Overshoes?

Kathleen : Any facility where toe and/or slip protection is required. To cite a few examples, since its launch this past July, Bottomline Safety through Toeprotecion.net has sold the Wilkuro product into food production facilities, such as bakeries, beer companies, processed goods manufacturers, telecom and other high tech facilities, and even government.

Cleanroom.net : Are forgeries or unsafe replicates a major problem in the PPE industry?

Kathleen : Thankfully, it usually becomes obvious quite quickly to the purchaser that the knock off product isn’t what it claims to be.

However, as imitation Wilkuros made overseas hit the market, they are getting quite close in trade dress to the original product, using even the same colour-coded sizing chart. As a distributor, we are always concerned if we lose an order to a competing product that they have in fact found a knock off product imported from overseas that may or may not have been safety tested. With the true copycat products, knock offs are not always so easy to spot.

Therefore, I always recommend customers buy the original Wilkuro product from an authorized Wilkuro distributor as referred to you by the manufacturer close to the time of purchase. In a tough economy, the temptation may become too great for folks outside of the official Wilkuro channel to swap in an imposter.

Cleanroom.net : Many employers are looking more closely at their safety policies and seeing if they can replace expensive safety boots with overshoes. What is your opinion on this?

Kathleen : If toe protection is all that is required then why not? Companies can save money, and staff can have more flexible footwear options. It is also very easy to tell if someone has their toe caps on when wearing the brightly colour-coded Wilkuro product.

Cleanroom.net : What’s the general state of the PPE industry?

Kathleen : As emerging economies begin to produce more and more goods for sale into countries that are becoming dominated by knowledge workers, there remains sustainable growth, especially in lower cost PPE equipment. The markets are shifting, but there is still demand for safety overshoes in North America and Europe as priorities shift to improving safety, while reducing costs through accident prevention.

Cleanroom.net : Which colors are your bestsellers?

Kathleen : This seems to be unique to the distributor. The manufacturer tells me the red toe cap (large) and blue toe cap (x-large) are the most popular sizes. However, at Bottomline Safety, we have a strong female customer base and most of our sales have been in the new Wilkuro Pinks of all sizes, the original silver (x-small) and the white (small) toe caps.

Cleanroom.net : Does the colour coding of safety toes have any specific functionality or is it just a style feature?

Kathleen : It’s there purely for practicality. The colour-coded toe caps were designed for three reasons:
1) Ease of size identification in storage bins.
2) If someone is wearing steel toe caps, it is really obvious.
3) It helps prevents loss. Because Wilkuro Safety Toes are so light weight, visitors can easily walk out wearing them. So with the colour-coded toes, the honest mistake is easy really easy to spot.

Cleanroom.net : The Jumbo XXXL is Wilkuro’s latest product release. How is selling and how has it been received by the market?

Kathleen : There had been market demand and the manufacturer responded by creating this product. Even before the product was made, in the short time since our launch, we had received a number of requests for the product in a XXX-large size. Sales have been steady and in fact, a few customers have come directly to Bottomline Safety, since we have this product available for immediate purchase.

Cleanroom.net : Are Bottomline Safety products available worldwide?

Kathleen : Bottomline Safety sells Wilkuro products primarily over the internet with our online store at www.bottomlinesafety.com, so yes, we can ship worldwide. Our mandate is to fill gaps in distribution not served by the traditional Wilkuro vendor. We tend to have the most interest from people in remote parts of Canada and the United States, as our shipping costs are most reasonable in this region. In fact, Bottomline Safety even offers a flat rate shipping program for continental North America to make it easy for customers.

Outside North America, if there is not another qualified distributor in the region, we will service these customers, although payment and shipping becomes much more challenging. In the event there is no distributor in the region and it starts to get too costly for the customer, we will refer the order to Wilkuro directly for handling assistance.

Kathleen Reed Bio
Kathleen Reed founded Bottomline Safety as a division of her company Big Vox Marketing Inc. in 2009 to help bring cost-effective safety solutions to a wider online market and fill distribution gaps on behalf of the manufacturer.

Kathleen comes by her safety knowledge through her years working part time in the family business, Wilkuro Safety Toes. Before a strict anti-nepotism policy was introduced to ensure fairness for outside staff in 2006, she worked many capacities, starting out in assembly and delivery in the early days, right through to marketing communications and administration.

In her professional career outside Wilkuro, she climbed the marketing communications ranks at various rapidly growing ventures in variety of industries. She even did a two year stint on the health and safety committee at printing giant St. Joseph Printing/Networks Studios.
Kathleen studied printing technology and plant processes at George Brown College. She holds an MBA in International Business Marketing and Comparative Intellectual Property Law from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.

For further information about Bottomline Safety visit their website at http://www.toeprotection.net