Scott, in terms of a store, I thought long and hard about it then decided to do it. I opted for the basic at $19.95/mo for a year. The results after about two months have been better than I'd hoped. eBay really has its s**t together as far as what it offers sellers who opt for the store; the value is there, believe it or not.
The seller analytic tools on eBay are really quite advanced and useful, so much so that there is really no excuse for a seller not understanding their margins (except, of course, stupidity). I was able to confirm my gut read that the all-in cost of eBay retailing is within a few points of the commission for most AHs. The big variance has been rate of return on the sales. My inventory, like my collection, tends to be large amounts of modestly priced items. When I consigned these sorts of things it drove me absolutely nuts to see these items lumped into massive lots and sold to dealers at a pittance who'd break them up and retail them. What I'd make on sales of graded higher end cards would be chewed up in losses on the large lots that were being blown out. Basically, I've turned what were losing consignments into profitable retail sales.
The other issue is time management for non-pro sellers. This is a part time business for me, a downtime supplement to practicing law, ideally profitably. Without the store I found it to be a real time suck to do more than a handful of listings each week. The listing and fulfillment tools offered to stores are such a vast improvement over the freebies that I have been able to generate a work flow of 5-10 listings per work day with about the same time and effort. Re-listings go very fast with the listing utilities that allow mass edits. I can drop as many re-lists as I want virtually instantly. There are also sales functions that allow discounting of items with great flexibility.
Shipping was another PITA that is greatly improved with the store. The ability to fulfill multiple orders with a few clicks is there with a postage utility. It cuts my fulfillment time down to virtually nothing. Another perk of the store is a quarterly coupon for $25 in free packing materials from eBay. That allows me to purchase 100 padded mailers and have them delivered for free, each quarter. Really simplifies the packing process because I am working with uniform, self-sealing materials instead of scrounging packaging. It goes much quicker than it used to. I do the actual work of packing the orders as a break from lawyering; moving around and doing something physical rather than intellectual is a nice afternoon break each day, so the time spent on the project has been pleasant.
There is always the question of returns--we all face jackhole customers. My view has been that I will take a return for as long as eBay says I have to but I won't offer free shipping returns. If you are selling modestly priced items, very few people will opt to return them. I've had one disgruntled customer so far and he opted not to return the card--I think he was just trying to get a discount.
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