eBay vs Etsy

I've dispensed with the quote-y title for this post, in order to get as much feedback as possible.

The question - Which do you prefer to use as a seller or to buy from as a customer?

The decision should be easy - Etsy all the way. It costs less to list, items stay up for longer and there is no additional cost to have your own store. However, there are a number of great bloggers/etsy store owners around already such as Le Bon Bon Multicoloure and Persephassa. Would you get noticed amongst such great company or should I prepare for a big advertising budget?

There are also the Ebay success stories - Liebemarlene Vintage, Sally-Jane Vintage and Thirteen Eighty-Five, to name a few. Obviously if these people continue to use Ebay it must be doing something right.

Liebemarlene Vintage

Thirteen Eighty-Five

I've always had aspirations of selling clothing, hopefully one day in some sort of boutique. My other problem is if I see something nice or distinctive I'll buy it, even if it is not my size/the colour doesn't suit me or it is just plain unflattering on me. So I quite literally have a whole wardrobe full of clothes that don't fit me that I want to pass onto to others.

This is one of the things that I like about secondhand vintage clothing, the fact that you get a piece, you love it and wear it (as the person who owned it before surely did) and then you pass it along to a new owner who can transform it and do their own thing with it.

The other reason why I want to do something is that while there is such a big eBay/etsy vintage scene in the US, the Australian scene is still pretty small and I think that some people would like to have the opportunity to pay less for shipping (well, I know that I would).

So yeah, that was pretty much a stream of conciousness post. Any comments or help would be great.