Final answer:
To buy steel-toed boots, you should contact a retailer, which is a business that sells products directly to consumers. Other options like manufacturer or distributor generally deal with bulk sales and are less common for individual purchases.
Step-by-step explanation:
If you are looking to purchase steel-toed boots, you would typically contact a retailer. Retailers are businesses that sell goods to the public in relatively small quantities for use or consumption rather than for resale. Therefore, when in need of a personal pair of steel-toed boots, a retailer would be the most direct and accessible source. Examples of retailers include shoe stores, department stores, and specialized work gear shops. On the other hand, manufacturers produce the boots, distributors supply them in bulk typically to retailers, and suppliers can mean any entity in the supply chain, though it often refers to either distributors or manufacturers.
If you wanted to make a bulk purchase of steel-toed boots for a company or organization, you might reach out directly to a distributor or manufacturer, but this is less common for individual consumers.