First off, I agree that if you want to focus on your eBay store, you should have your website point there. It would just make advertising easier, LOL ;o)
I've done a lot of banner ads for my non-bead related online biz, and it DOES help out a lot. I can't say I have ever been so overwhelmed that I just couldn't handle things, but there were weeks that I knew I was really pushing it. Right now, I am broke broke, all my income is going to just keeping us fed and warm, so I can't afford to put up my banners. I have one up at an auction house that caters to my specific "field" (cloth diapers, if you were wondering ;o), but that doesn't really bring in a lot of traffic. I think if you go the banner route, you have to put it at a few places for it to be really effective. Customers will see your banner at one place, and then another...eventually, they will click. Find sites that relate to your biz, like JustBeads, maybe some tutorial sites (I think I saw banners at polymerclaycentral.com....you could snag those people that need accent beads for their polyclay creations). These places would probably be cheaper than the big magazines. BUT $10/mo is a great price for a big magazine's website; I would DEFINITELY do that one.
Am I making any sense? Sometimes it seems I talk myself in circles......
Another thing that I regularly do is send out REAL mail flyers. I go through my records and collect the addresses of the people that have ordered from me in the past (the ones I want to order from me again, anyway). Then I print out a little half-sheet flyer with a sappy sweet "thank you" sentiment, and a small coupon for a future purchase (never more than 10%, which equates to about $2 on the average cloth diaper order;o). I do this about twice a year, and get a really good response each time :o)
There's a couple other things that I've done in the past, don't know if they would be helpful to you or not....I have exchanged stacks of business cards with someone that has a related business, but not directly competition. She puts one of my biz cards in each of her orders (along with her own biz card, of course), and I put one of hers in with my orders. In my case, I found a couple of people to do this with, and it worked really well, and was FREE, hehehe;o) The other thing that I've done, and I know a lot of people do, is a co-op of sorts for a print ad. Get a group of people together that want to advertise in the same publication, and split the cost of the ad ('cause they are REALLY expensive, usually). The ones I've seen were just a listing...like, say you have 3 people join in. The ad would look like this:
Person #1's Biz name & blurb website, contact info Person #2's Biz name & blurb website, contact info Person #3's Biz name & blurb website, contact info
Because it's not a huge flashy pictorial ad, it doesn't draw in TOO MANY people, but does bring some traffic, and it also makes you more well know, and helps establish you as a legit business (not that you aren't, but anything that makes you look *bigger* in a customers eyes is going to bring you more traffic).
And, a sidenote, but somewhat related....the bigger your business *LOOKS*, the better. It makes it easier to stand behind your ordering and refund policies, and your turnaround time. I'm going through a wretched thing right now with a lady that is raking me over the coals because she was unhappy with her order. In early December. And she's just NOW contacting me about it. I've quoted my policy (7 days), but she's throwing it in my face that I'm just a stay-at-home mom that sells things, and that I should be able to be more flexible, but that I must be a terrible PERSON because I am not. She knows if she were to wait a month to contact, say, Babies R Us about something, she'd be S.O.L., but she expects more from me, because she knows I am smaller business.
*WHEW!* LOL Sorry about that rant there at the end, but I hope you can find SOMETHING useful in this post ;o)