I personally didn't find eBay stores cost effective when you add in all of the fees. I went through a hosting company that hosts my store, and website, and ties directly into eBay to push sales to my site. I also built my store and site from the hosting company.
What I do is post a couple of items on eBay and set up my 'gallery' through my hosting company (shows everything listed on eBay in a marquee - with a clicklink to my webstore). On average I pay $.04 to $.10 per listing with NO FINAL VALUE fees.
If I listed all of my items on eBay, it would run me about $150 to $200 per month. With my hosting site, I only pay $30 and that includes my store fees, extra encryption (so no one steals my photos), and it is completely AUTOMATED. Once you set it up, it will send out you 'winning bidder/buyer notification, shipping information, etc...Hope this helps. If you want more info on the site, let me know!
Trishableau: I wouldn't use my own name only because I'm always worried for safety reasons. If you have the inventory or plenty to list, I still wouldn't go for a store until you see how your sales go. Then if you start getting good ratings on eBay (I started my store with a rating of 25 at 100%), etc...tie in a webstore to your seller id like I did.
Please dont think that just because you open a store you will start making tons of money. I've been doing this for about a year now and am just starting to show profits. You also need to do LOTS and LOTS of RESEARCH!!! If you have eBay accounts, I suggest getting a subscription to Marketplace Research. It costs about $10 a month, but you can pull reports on what has been and hasn't been sold, the listing and selling prices as well as how many bids and how the bids jumped. 8)
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