New fee structure: is an eBay Store still worth it?

As many of you already know, eBay raised (or should I say sky rocketed) the fees related to eBay Stores. The official reason behind it was the need to ensure eBay would remain an AUCTION site and not your average storefront. The fee update was clearly a – quite efficient – way to discourage sellers from setting up hundreds of store items at a low listing price: a few cents per item, about ten times less than a classic auction.

Those among you who check out the discussion boards on eBay have probably come across threads with subjects as "I closed my Store. Did you?" According to the many replies inside these posts, it appears that many Store owners have decided to give up indeed, and a large majority of those who did probably did so because of the new fee structure.

So this raises a question: in regard of the new, higher fee structure, is an eBay Store still worth your hard-earned money?

When should this auction end?

I know there’s been A LOT of talk about this subject, even entire eBooks filled with rhetorical answers to this simple question. And yes, IT IS a simple question, and anyone with a little common sense will find the right answer. It’s right there, buried in our own lives!