Greetings,

After several weeks of effort I took my SVG files down to FedEx/Kinko's to have my masterpieces reproduced.

At one location the female couldn't bring up the image. "It keeps going to the Internet".

At another location one side is cropped, then another side, another image the right side is cropped off. The images are fine on my computer. When I came home and checked the thumb drive on my computer to see if there was a problem the images came up fine again.

Apparently FedEx's buisiness plan is to hire minimum wage emplyees operating $100,000 worth of equipment.

After trial and error (at my expense) the "best" image is flat in color and uninspiring. The image I'm trying to replicate, i.e., is an 8"x 10" letter S. Its that simple. Or is it?

As an example of what I'm trying to achieve would be the retail packing of an item at the store. The colors pop. There is subtle texture. The finish is glossy-reflects light. And I know it can't be that difficult (expensive) to replicate because you throw the packaging away!

So I guess the question I'm trying to ask is, are there limitations to .SVG, better printing shops with knowledgable staff or higher quality printers/paper? All of the above?

Thank you for your time and input

There is a limitation what inkscape can do with printable material: that is the colour mode.
You mentioned glossy -several printers can adjust the ink they use, and use a glossy material only on parts of the image, or can use definitive inks for brighter colours/more efficient printing, ink for metallic look.
This can be done with pantone's pms colour mode, which, requires at least that the image is in cymk format I guess.
Inkscape only supports rgb mode. Also, pms mode wouldn't help you, if your monitor is not calibrated well to reproduce the colours of your monitor in printing.
Svg itself doesn't really limits the possibilities, and, it is the printer who should have the knowledge how to print your image that you cropped right.

What Lazur URH said. Plus, there is an Inkscape extension which will produce CMYK colors. Info in this topic: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5943.

I'm not familiar with FedEx's or UPS's or Kinko's capabilities. I know I've had color photocopies made at Kinkos, years ago. I suppose they could do some level of professional printing, but I'm not sure if they can do everything that a business which does only printing (and not shipping, and not whatever else Kinkos does) can do.