How do you know if you should open a store?

[nwrains]

I have over 100 listings continuously and sell on average $500 a month.Not a whole lot,  but was thinking about if I should open an ebay store to take advantage of the seller hub reports and promotion that are only available to stores.

I do all listings as auction now with offers allowed, would be nice to price and go.
I have never used up my free listings with in a month and cant find a minimum requirement for a store. Any assistance or suggestions would be appreciated. 

[wooden_flower]

There is no minimum required to open a store, but there is some math you can use to see if it is a good way to spend money.

You can use all of seller hub without having a store, except for the marketing tools.  The marketing  tools are a store benefit.  If this is the only feature you are interested in, consider a starter store for $8 per month. This would be a good way to see if the tools are worth the money.

To pay for a basic store only from the final value fee savings, you need to be selling around $3,000 per month. If you are selling $500, you would save less than $5 in fees.

Using all auctions, a basic store doesn't get you any additional free insertions - your get 250 auctions.  If you switch to buy it now, then the additional listings might be of use if you start listing more.  To pay for a basic store at $28 you need to use at least 80 more than your free listings.

You do get $25 per quarter to spend on eBay branded shipping supplies with a basic store.  The supplies are not a great value, but it still has some worth.