As an invitation seller myself, I like many sellers understand how saturated the online invitation market is, there are literally hundreds of sellers all fighting for your business, and that’s just on eBay.  With so many different companies and individuals selling invites it may seem quite hard to find what you’re after when there is so much choice around.  If you search “invitations” on eBay you will probably be bombarded with around 11,000 results, with so many results how do you differentiate the good from the bad?  Every or most sellers will be quick to make claims about being the best on eBay, this guide will tell you what to watch out for.   

Thin, cheap paper.

Paper is measured by its weight, not its thickness, this is known as gsm, (grams per square meter) The gsm dictates the weight of the paper, the higher the gsm the heavier the paper.  For example a newspaper would have a gsm of around 70 whereas a postcard would be around 300gsm or higher.  Most people will understandably want a higher gsm as the aesthetic quality is higher so it’s important when looking at people’s listings to look at the gsm.  If you want your invite to be sturdy then you should watch out for anything which is below 230gsm.  If there isn’t an indication of gsm then it may be worth asking the seller.

Printing externally 

Many people will print their invites externally using an online photo printer.  If you buy from somebody that prints externally I can pretty much guarantee that the paper that they will use will be an industry standard “fujicolor Crystal Archive paper” this paper is around 180gsm which is quite flimsy and not very suitable for invitations.  Although the quality may be higher you will also have the downfall of having watermarks on the reverse of the invite which can ruin a nice design.  If you are needing your invites quickly then this isn’t going to be a good option as turnaround times are quite slow.

Amateur Design     

Some designs will be very basic and quite amateurish.  I don’t need to tell you what designs are amateurish because I’m sure you will be able to tell.  If you want your invites to stand out above the rest and have some individuality then you should look for a seller which has made the design from scratch.  Some people will just simply copy pictures and graphics from the internet which when printed can be of really low quality.  Most sellers will use Auctiva to host their images so it’s defiantly worth viewing the invite enlarged.  When viewing pictures on eBay note that eBay compresses its images which can result in pixelated areas.          

Envelopes which are too big

Most people will print on 6x4” photo paper, many sellers offer envelopes as an added option or will have them included.  As a seller I have to get my envelopes especially made as all other sizes like C6 are way too big and will make the invite look silly!  Just watch out what size you are buy as many selling won’t specify.

I hope this guide has been useful, feel free to look at my products
jumpfox-invites