Hello 'chinadoll2013ca',
<<are there any advantages to having a store versus just doing an auction>>
Is this the user ID from which you would be doing your selling? If so, it is probably a little early to worry about a store or not because you would not be able to take advantage of the discounts, like 150 free listings per month. Since there is a charge for a store, this would be money wasted at this early juncture.
There are restrictions on new or occasional sellers, so you might like to extricate yourself from these limitations first, and the only way to do that is by offering consistently good sales and customer service.
Have you seen this link about the restrictions?
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/sellinglimits.html
If you have already had a few successful auctions, you probably have seen this link about paypal's 21-day-hold on funds:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/pay/payment_hold.html
To store or not to store (heh) may depend on what you sell, how often, how many, etc. With a store, you can put all your listings "on vacation" when you go away, you may pay lower final value fees, you can use "Markdown Manager" if you wish to have, say, a post-Christmas sale, and so on.
You have probably seen this link about stores, too, but here it is again anyway:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/stores.html
You'll have to decide for yourself if it is a route you wish to take, but for now if you are merely auctioning off pretty porcelains, I wouldn't think you would be doing enough volume to make it worth it. Ebay fees are high, sure, but not outrageous and you simply put the fee into your auction start price. That way even if you only get one bid, you will still be happy with the amount that eventually goes into your pocket.
Happy selling! 
