2. Store listings have a longer duration

If they're a fixed price format: 30 days or Good 'Til Cancelled (Good 'Til Cancelled (GTC) is a store's fixed price listing duration that allows the seller to list an item and have that listing automatically renew every 30 days as long as there is quantity available. This listing will recur each 30-day period until the owner chooses to end this listing and will maintain the same listing number for the entire life of the listing. eBay does not end this listing for the store owner - meaning if you forget to end the listing when everything is sold, you will be charged anyway.)

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3. Store listings appear in multiple spots

* In your own store, naturally

* In regular searches when eBay's main search returns 30 or fewer Auction-style and Fixed Price results.

An example: I recently published an article on the super expensive "Cartier Love bracelet". Typing in that keyword phrase, there are only 16 regular auction items today so at the bottom there are listings for two more bracelets from eBay stores.

* When using a tremendously popular keyword like "ipod" (80,738 listings), we can spot a small box at the bottom of the page mentioning eBay listings

* In "Search Options" that appear on every single search page on eBay, there is an opportunity to include store listings in your search

* Beneath every "Search Options" is a small paragraph listing selected stores that offer the keyword merchandise and "all matching stores"

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4. Search engine promotion

eBay suggests that store owners use basic SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to promote stores in the search engines. Every eBay Store comes with its own personalized website address so the owner can drive buyers directly to her store.

For example, owners can customize their keywords on every store page and eBay uses these pages to create meta tags for the page. If done properly, this might result in some search engine results. This is obviously an advantage over regular auction-style listings which have zero control over the pages on which they appear.

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5. Final Value Fee kickbacks

Store owners can get up to 75% of their Final Value Fees back when they drive traffic to their eBay stores from off-eBay, which is defined as other Web sites, emails to buyers, print advertisements, and so forth."

For details: http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/referral-credit-faq.html

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6. Cross promote other merchandise

eBay stores can "cross promote" other merchandise. Cross-promotions appear when a buyer bids on a store item, a buyer wins the item or a buyer views the store listing. Cross-promotions can appear in listings with any selling format except "Live Auctions" and in any category except "Mature Audiences".

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/cp-overview.html

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7. The eBay Store icon

A. All listings contain an eBay store icon that links buyers back to the owner's eBay Store
B. The eBay store icon also appears next to user IDs for extra visibility

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8. eBay Store Directory

The eBay Store Directory drives buyers back to a store. The eBay Store Directory is a directory that lists all eBay Stores. A store will automatically appear in every Category Directory where appropriate items are listed. Stores are sorted based on item count within each category.

http://stores.ebay.com

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9. Inclusion in eBay Express

And, of course, store offers have been the only merchandise listed on the new eBay Express.