Bootliner

Hi readers! I previously introduced myself in a previous blog post, but if you are new, I’m Evie and I am the Digital Marketing Co-ordinator at Hatchbag. I thought it would be fun and informative to take you through a day at work. We are a business based on The Wirral in the North West of England, and make tailor-made boot liners for your car. I am part of the marketing department at Hatchbag, but I get to see all the departments at work.

I am always curious about what people in the marketing field get up to in a day as the term ‘marketing’ covers so many aspects. Whether that’s the more technical side or the more interactive side, marketing is all about showcasing our product. I have been working with my manager, Halley and my co-worker, Fabian, changing and adding to the Hatchbag website. I have also been interacting with all of our customers on social media and posting content. Posting content is a fun way to be informative and interactive and allows us to communicate new launches and fun happenings at Hatchbag.

Starting the day

Every morning I check my tasks and see what updates are required on the website and what should be posted on social media. At the moment, one of the tasks the marketing team is working on is changing the product pages that the customer lands on when searching for their vehicle. When you view the website, you can now see pictures, educational information and resolutions to any questions you may have when purchasing a Hatchbag liner. I have been using my design skills to create banners for every car model page, so whoever browses our website, can have a visual on the liner in that specific car. Prioritising tasks is a really good way for me to plan out the rest of my day and also allows for informative content and exciting content to be published together.

Social media

Hatchbag having a social media presence is essential. We want to keep up interactions with our customers and also let you know what is new at Hatchbag. We are active on Facebook and Instagram at the moment, and we love to see pictures of your Hatchbag boot liners out and about. Looking at, commenting on and posting to the social media pages is something which I do regularly, as we want customers to feel social media is a place to ask anything about the Hatchbag boot liner. Social media is also a space where I can be creative and post fun stories about national holidays or what has been going on at Hatchbag. We want our social media pages to feel welcoming and fun, so you can interact with us and enjoy our posts. Look out for all the cute photos of dogs in the boot liners. We love to share pics of your pooches!

Working with other departments of Hatchbag

Marketing, design and customer service all interact with each other in order to make the customer’s time with Hatchbag as seamless as possible. We have a lovely team that wants to make everything easy for the customer, so they can enjoy their Hatchbag boot liner. I work with each department equally and enjoy learning new information from the highly experienced staff. I work with customer service by replying to queries and interacting with comments and posts about the Hatchbag boot liner. Working with customer service is also a great way for me to expand my product knowledge and learn more about what we do behind the scenes at Hatchbag.

When working with design, I like to assist on any scans or fittings I can, so I can get great content of our designers at work. I also take videos of liners being fitted in cars and scans taking place. Scans are very interesting to watch as it allows me to see where the production of a specific liner really starts.

Shooting content

This is my favourite task as it allows me to feel creative and add a little personal flair to the Hatchbag social media pages. I have always had such an interest in photography and videography and I am of the generation that loves social media! I like to incorporate what is trending online in the social media pages, so you can see trending videography and fun posts.

I go all around the factory to shoot content as I want everyone to be able to see the inner working of Hatchbag. I love gathering content in the sewing room as you can see the talent of our machinists and how they piece together, step by step, the Hatchbag boot liner. Shooting content with the design team is a big part of my role and I really enjoy doing this as well. It is also great to spend time with Sarah and Gabriel, our designers, who are so talented and knowledgeable.

My role overall

Overall, my work schedule looks different every day, and that is what I love about working at Hatchbag. I can shoot content, interact with customers and show my creative side in social media posts. I also love to add to the website and use my design skills to create images that are useful to the customer. I am so happy to be working at Hatchbag and I am excited to show everyone further how great our product really is!

Welcome to Autumn

The autumnal months are here in full force, with the shift in the weather being most notable in the UK. Autumn is representative of change, transformation and preparation. As the autumnal leaves transition into vibrant and striking colours, it makes us feel excitement for new beginnings. It is important to embrace the season, and celebrate all its festivities. Here at Hatchbag, we are seizing the autumnal season, celebrating Halloween and bonfire night, two occasions that are staff favourites. Autumn is also a great time to immerse yourself in the evolving natural landscapes and explore scenic areas that host a good place to hike.

Why our boot liner is perfect for Autumn

Our boot liners are the perfect companion for your autumn adventures, as we believe the cleanliness of your car is important to keep that ease and relaxation supplied by the new season. Whether it’s muddy walking boots or a smelly dog, our Hatchbag boot liner has you covered. The liner is made out of reinforced PVC, which makes it tear-proof, allowing for heavy hiking equipment to be transported without worrying about your boot becoming exposed. We pride ourselves on the quality standard of our product, and believe your boot should have the constant protection that you desire. In addition to the liner, you can also purchase an odour control mat, perfect for preventing those pet odours from lingering in your car.

Our boot liner, aesthetically, also can allow you to embrace the autumnal spirit, and match the oranges, reds and browns that are so prominent in nature. We offer our boot liners in a variety of colours, including those autumnal shades, allowing your car to have a seasonal feel. We showcase our range of colours on our Instagram and Facebook, so feel free to have a browse and see if our autumnal colours would compliment your car.

The most notable shift we see when we get to the later months of the year is the drop in temperatures and rise in rainfall. It is so important to explore the outdoors this season, but we understand that your car can suffer during these months. Without the sunshine drying your pets off, your car gets the brunt of your muddy return. We make our boot liners catering to customer wants and needs.

When cleaning your liner, it remains in the boot, making your job easier and quicker. The boot liner isn’t machine washable, however, cleaning your liner with simple cleaning products in the boot itself saves time and water. You can get rid of all that mud and grime quickly and efficiently. We want the journeys to your autumnal adventures to be easy. At Hatchbag, we take away the worry of your messy boot and guarantee full protection for your car’s interior.

The Great Outdoors

Enjoying the great outdoors is essential for these months as nature is beautiful and ever-changing at this time. After a brisk walk, a forest trail or mountainous hike, the Hatchbag boot liner is the perfect accessory to maintain your clean car. Whether it’s dirt covered walking boots or a muddy dog, our boot liner protects your car from the inevitable dirt in these colder and wetter months.

At Hatchbag, we are all lovers of the great outdoors and exploring nature. The crisp air filled walks and the stunning views allows us to feel relaxed, at ease and a sense of inner peace. It is so important to take breaks from the virtual world and enjoy nature, with the autumnal season being the perfect host for striking natural sights. Hiking not only allows you to connect with nature, but is a social activity that can be enjoyed with friends and family. Being outside in the fresh air is important for us, as it makes us feel better and happier. We would love to recommend some of our favourite walking routes and National Trust properties in the UK, so you can plan your adventures outdoor this season.

Embracing this season is so important and we would love to hear all about your adventures. Send us photographs of your autumnal adventures on our Facebook and Instagram, we would love to see what you get up to!

Hatchbag Approved Hikes and Locations

With autumn being such a great time of year to explore and appreciate nature, the Hatchbag team would like to share some fantastic areas for hikes, and also some National Trust properties that can be a warm and cosy shelter for the unpredictable weather. The UK’s natural landscape is unique, picturesque and vast. Exploring this and appreciating your time in nature is a nice way to change up your usual routine. Here are some of our favourite hikes/ walks and National Trust properties

Dovestone Reservoir, Saddleworth, Greater Manchester

Potter around the reservoir of hike up to see stunning scenery, Dovestone accommodates to all. Located in the beautiful hills of Saddleworth, Dovestone is a great place to take your dog and take in the beautiful landscape it is surrounded by.

Lyme Park, Stockport

Lyme Park is a beautiful location to walk around and immerse yourself in history, with tours of the house and gardens running through Autumn. The 1400 acres of parkland that surrounds the house is full of wildlife and beautiful views, perfect for observing the change in season.

Bolderwood, Lyndhurst, Hampshire

Located in the New Forest National Park, Bolderwood is a great place to not only walk, but see some interesting wildlife. You can watch Fallow deer in their natural habitat from the viewing platform and appreciate the biodiversity that Bolderwood has to offer.

Sherwood Pines, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

Sherwood Pines has a Gruffalo trail and Robin Hood Hideout play area, perfect for keeping your kids entertained in the great outdoors. With mountain bike courses and stunning views, this location caters to all.

Hardcastle Crags, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

This beautiful wooded valley is great for observing the natural landscape. It boasts waterfalls, streams and 15 miles of footpaths, perfect for an autumnal adventure. At the centre of the woodland, Gibson mill is located, a unique mill where you will find the Weaving Shed Café.

The journey of a Hatchbag boot liner.

Today we want to show you what happens between clicking “Place Order” and the parcel arriving on your doorstep.

Here at the Hatchbag Company, everything is made in-house. So from the moment an order arrives in our online shop our team takes over.

As our boot liners are tailored to fit your car model exactly, we sometimes will ask you very specific questions during the ordering process on our website. We check that your order has all the information we need, and we will contact you in case there are any unanswered questions. Our Customer Service team will help you if you need any more help with the configuration or are unsure about the specifics of your car model.

Once we have all the information we need, production begins. Your selected colour material will be cut by a state-of-the-art cutting machine and then hand-marked by the cutter. This is a unique identifier for your personal order.

How many pieces make up a bootliner?

It differs from car to car, model to model. But here is an example of what a bootliner looks like when the cutter is done with it.

It is then handed to our high-frequency welders, who weld the first batch of hook and loop fastener strips onto your boot liner.

Yes, you can weld fabric, too!

Once the smaller hook and loop fastener tabs are safely welded onto the PVC, the individual loose parts of the cut-out material move into our sewing room. Our team of highly skilled sewing machinists will then sew all the prep work like darts and long strips of hook and loop fasteners into the boot liner. Darts make sure the boot liner will fit into all the recesses in your car and will hug the edges tightly. The long strips of hook and loop fastener are your attachment points for extras like Bootliner Extension or Bumper Flap. No robots involved!

Once the prep work is complete, straps for the headrests and our logo are inserted.

From here the boot liner moves on to the next team.

All the various pieces that make up the boot liner are assembled into the main product, your boot liner is finally talking its final form. Every piece is sewn into place and all is secured with a black border around all of the outside. This is called TAPING and gives the edges of the liner and all our extras like bumper flaps and tailgate cover a nice, clean finish.

Your liner is finished, so now it gets teamed up with the correct tabs and strips of hook and loop fasteners so you can attach your boot liner securely to your car.

Every car is individual, so our logistics team will personalise your fitting kit before your order gets packed for shipping. Some cars need more fasteners than others, some don’t need any at all, so we take care in putting together the correct tabs and strips for your fitting requirements.

All that’s left to do now is ship your order out. Our courier collects daily and has a Next Day mandate within the UK, so your order is normally with you the day after it has left our sewing room.

If you are in Europe and USA, we aim to deliver your order within 6 to 8 days after it was placed.

We hope you enjoyed this little look behind the scenes and discovered something interesting in the making of a tailored car boot liner.

The Hatchbag Team

If you’re not sure which colour to choose for your new Hatchbag boot liner, this guide will help you decide. The pictures below will not only show you what our boot liners look like when they have been fitted, but also how the colour could suit your vehicle and personal preferences.

Due to the large volume of vehicles we provide for, the pictures shown are only generic ones. This means the pictures will not match your vehicle exactly but should give you a good indicator on how the boot liner could look in your vehicle.

Most popular colours: Black & Grey

Unsurprisingly, most of our customers tend to choose black or grey for their liner. Black is what you would expect it to be, often complementing the existing darker colours of the boot. The grey can best be described as a battleship grey. An added advantage of the grey is that it shows the least marks over time.

Most vibrant colours: Red, Orange & Pink

If you’re looking for something more colourful then look no further. If you are the kind of person that likes to stand out with brighter colours, take a look at our red, orange and pink liners. They will certainly jazz up your cars’ interior decor and make your boot stand out from the crowd.

Great alternative colours: Blue & Brown

Our final two colours may not be the most popular or vibrant, but they do have a charm of their own and may suit your car perfectly. The blue is a royal blue, whereas the brown can be described as a milk chocolate brown. Brown is also very popular with customers ordering for cars with beige interiors.

Hopefully this guide has given you an idea of what the Hatchbag boot liner will look like in each colour. Now it’s time to go ahead and customise the perfect boot liner solution for your needs.

You've got a new lease car, but, you need to protect your boot when transporting your dog, pram, fishing gear, DIY tools, bikes etc. Here is where Hatchbag steps in with our array of boot liners in seven colours. Plus our boot liner extras such as, bumper flap, rear seat flap, tailgate cover and a choice of three mats; rubber mat, hatchbed mat and odour mat.

All of our boot covers act as a second skin to your car boot and will prevent your lease car boot’s interior getting covered in dog hair, scratched or damaged. And you may be thinking this all sounds great, but, if I use self-adhesive tabs to attach the boot liner to the car then will this damage the interior?

The answer is no. If your car boot is made from carpet and is self-adhesive tab friendly then you will not have to attach any self-adhesive tabs to your car. You may want to consider our frequent use fitting kit, which consists of thirty-two double-sided adhesive tabs. These tabs act as a sandwich between the liner and the boot carpet, so that when you remove the liner the carpet does not fluff up.

Cleaning your lease car boot

If your car boot is made from plastic, you will need to attach self-adhesive tabs to the boot. Before you do that, we recommend the following cleaning procedure:

• - Take two lint free cloths and Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover.
• - Soak one cloth in Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover and clean down the sides.
• - Take the second cloth and dry the sides to the point the cloth is dragging across the surface.
• - Test a piece of self-adhesive to see if it adheres to the plastic. If yes, continue attaching the remainder tabs. If not, please repeat the above steps.

When you come to remove the boot liner and self-adhesive tabs from the boot, we recommend the following procedure:

• - Take Autoglym Intensive Tar remover and a cloth
• - Soak the cloth in Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover and clean down the plastics to remove any residue
• - Then take any valeting product and valet the sides of your boot

If you return the car after your lease is up then the car boot will be in the same condition as the day you got the vehicle.

The festive season is upon us and as we countdown to Christmas, millions of families across the country are putting up their Christmas tree and decorations; making sure everyone is getting into the Christmas spirit.

And here at Hatchbag, we understand just how much your car boot has to endure, as it piles up with the Christmas tree, Christmas decorations and not forgetting the all important Christmas shopping as well. And this is where our boot liners come in; not only are they perfect for keeping dog hairs at bay, but, also in protecting your car boot from straying pine needles, or, from getting scratched by loose Christmas decorations and all that Christmas shopping.

So, before you head out on your family Christmas adventure, be sure to pack your Hatchbag boot liner – then you will have more time doing Christmassy activities rather than spending hours cleaning out the boot.

Plus, we would love to see your Christmas tree/decoration snaps so, be sure to send them to us on our Facebook page or on Twitter @HatchbagCompany or tag us on Instagram using #thehatchbagcompany. And we will repost, retweet or regram them all.

So, you currently own a small vehicle whether it be a Seat Mii, a Volkswagen Up, a Skoda Citigo, a Mini Hatchback Mk 1, Mk 2 or Mk 3, or even a Smart ForTwo and you are thinking well my car boot is rather small is there any need for a boot liner, as how much damage is really going occur?

To all the dog owners out there, you do not need us to tell you just how much dog hair can get all over the car boot, even into those areas that are so hard to reach and therefore, no matter what size the car boot, a Hatchbag boot liner is perfect for keeping those hairs at bay.

But, for all those who do not have a dog then you may be asking yourself well why do I need a car boot liner? Well, for owners of a Seat Mii, or a Volkswagen Up or a Skoda Citigo, you will have realised that it does not take long for those metal sides of the boot to get scratched or become damaged, even by just putting your weekly shopping in the back of the car. Therefore, our boot liner will ensure that your car boot is protected at all times.

And, for all you budding gardeners or even those who just like to potter around the garden, who are fed-up of cleaning the mud from plants which have moved position during the car journey, or, bags of soil which have split and distributed mud everywhere in the car boot; which evidently is a time consuming experience. So, here is where our Hatchbag boot liner steps in, as with one quick wipe down with a wet cloth all those mud spillages will disappear and your car boot will be left in pristine condition. Furthermore, with our rear split version, you can even extend the coverage on the drop-down seats, preventing any damage to the actual car interior.

So, no matter how small your car boot, Hatchbag boot liners can help not only prevent damage from occurring to your vehicle but also saving you time from spending ages cleaning the boot, so that you can spend more time on doing the things you love like gardening.

For more information on our boot liners, please click here!

The liner and optional extras completely cover my boot and do not have any openings in them, what can I do if I require openings?

In your car boot, there are ‘D’ rings behind the backseats or luggage points to which you need to gain access to, or maybe, your boot contains a side light, a loudspeaker or a 12 Volt battery socket and any other accessories that you would like to use. There may be times when you aren’t taking your four-legged friend with you and would like to use the load cover cassette.

So, here is where you ask yourself the questions: I have found a boot liner for my car, but, it does not come with these openings, why is that the case and what can I do about it?

Why do we not offer openings in the boot liner for all vehicle models?

The reason why we do not offer openings in all our boot liners is that the majority of our customers want their boot liner to be completely covered and protected with no holes in it. In addition, on a year by year basis the positioning of the side light can change, even if it is the same vehicle. This change may only be something as minute as a 2mm difference, but, this difference is enough that the boot liner will not be a perfect fit.

So, what can I do?

As we try to keep the openings in our liners to a minimum then you can carefully modify the liner yourself. However, NEVER cut the bindings or ANY sewn seam.

How can I cut an opening in the boot liner

1. Firstly, follow the fitting instructions and complete the installation of your boot liner.

2. Mark the cloth 

• Identify the shape you wish to cut
• Using a wax pencil carefully trace the contour of the shape
• Remove the boot liner / cover

3. Cut the cloth

• With a sharp blade carefully cut the hole
• It is better to round off corners so that you do not create under/over-cuts

Re-fit the boot liner

My car boot door has door handles but the tailgate cover covers these, what can I do?

Please follow steps 2-4 above

Tip: You can use Autoglym Intensive Tar remover to wipe off the wax markings.

I have a loudspeaker / air vents in my boot, but, the boot liner covers them, what can I do?

• 1. Firstly, follow the fitting instructions and complete the installation of your boot liner.

• 2. Mark the cloth

• Identify the shape you wish to cut
• Using a wax pencil carefully trace the contour of the shape
• Remove the boot liner / cover

• 3. Cut the cloth

• With a sharp blade carefully cut the hole
• It is better to round off corners so that you do not create under/over-cut
• Maybe you would prefer to cut multiple small holes into the liner for the speaker rather than one large cut-out-

• 4. Re-fit the boot liner