Are you looking for a specific size, colour and shape of cake stand for your wedding cake? Wedding cake stands have proved to be one of eBay's "boom" areas, expanding enormously over the past year, but finding the right stand can still be patchy.

A lot of home or garage-based industries now produce metal cake stands and, often, the roughness of the welding and painted finishes shows the maker knows a lot more about metalwork than cake decorating. It can be very difficult to see these imperfections from small pictures on eBay listings, so be very careful... sellers will often not agree to refund you for stands which you feel are too rough for displaying at the wedding.

The best stands to look for are silver (chrome) or gold plated (lacquered) stands made by known brands such as PME, Venn etc. Sellers of used stands don't always know these brand names, but they are a good indicator you're buying a good quality item. Metal tiered cake stands (eg "S" shape stands) should not be rigid... they should have a natural spring so that they settle into position when the cakes are placed on it. Home-made stands often look straight on eBay but when you place the cakes on them they bend out of shape. Professional stands actually look "odd" and slightly out of shape when empty... the weight of the cake springs/bends them into the proper shape.

CAKE BASES

The other top selling style of cake stand is what the catering industry refer to as "bases"... often seen on eBay as stands / plinths / bases / plateaus.

Apart from the silver plated ones made in the Far East, the only style normally found is square / round plain-sided base in silver / gold metallic finish. These are made from high density polymer resin so are lightweight but also very strong and can hold cakes of over 100lb safely. They almost always come in the same dimensions . . . 18" diameter/square base with 14" top edge. A lot of buyers panic because the bottom tier of their wedding cake may be sitting on a 15" or 16" cake board, so they immediately assume they must find a cake base of the same dimensions. The truth is you will have a very long (and almost certainly fruitless) search.

Napier© cake stands, the top UK make of cake bases, are used by wedding cake companies, caterers, hotels etc throughout the UK but are only produced in this one size.

If your cake is sitting on a larger cake board don't worry!!! A 16" cake board will sit perfectly on the 14" base, with a small 1" overhang all around... this is both completely safe and also looks good, as it is proportion and balanced.

The larger 18" silver plated bases (often described as "plateaus") found on eBay normally sell for anything between £65 and £150... a lot to pay for the one day! They are often very ornate so don't suit modern wedding cakes. From personal experience I can also say that the silver plating is not great, so they tarnish very easily which makes reselling on eBay not nearly as straightforward as you may think. Virtually all sell for less than half the original purchase price.

On the other hand the Napier© stands, made in plastic as they are, are food-approved, have been around for years and are trusted on throughout the catering and hospitality industries. Prices for brand new ones usually start around £25 for silver and £30 for gold. At these prices, its hardly worth considering buying second-hand.

Napier© stands come in their own strong cardboard boxes. As a guide . . . reasonable P&P costs would be anything up to £8-£9 with most sellers using carriers to deliver. Urgent shipping by Royal Mail Special Delivery is sometimes available, normally around £10-£15. 

Be extremely careful of buying second hand plastic cake bases as they almost always have scratches which you cannot see on eBay listing pictures. We sell hundreds (literally) brand new Napier© stands every year through eBay and have lost count of the number of customers who have told us they initially bought a used one on eBay (for almost the same price as a brand new one) only to find it scratched and not something they would want to use to set of their expensive wedding cake.

It's not an expensive item so, whenever possible, always buy NEW.