Do it all.
Split the inventory into 4 classes of product:
The really exceptional stuff set aside to get the best price possible, now or in your store.
The better stuff, set aside to stock the store with when it opens.
The average stuff keep for Etsy, and the common stuff goes straight to eBay.
Plan on taking two years to open the store. Build a high end website and list the items you want to sell directly to collectors. Make this site a membership site for collectors, and list the incredible stuff for 1 week to just your members.
Things still unsold after the week (or whatever interval) move out to the public part of the site (or a lower level in the membership), and anyone can buy them then. Plan on putting out a newsletter to all your subscribers each week with a preview of the better stuff going into the membership area.
This creates exclusivity for the collector and reseller to get the first shot at the better stuff. When you do open the store, the items will go into the store for a week, then the members area of the site, then the public area.
This should drive traffic to the store from the people who want first shot at what you have, live in the area and do not want to wait for it to hit the website.
Start connecting with people who collect the things you will be selling. Scrape the internet for people who are possible customers and invite them to join the members site. If it cost them nothing, and they can get a first shot at exclusive merchandise, they will probably join. Spend time in those forums like you do this one. When the site is up and running consider a few media buys on sites that cater to your targeted customers about the membership site.
I personally would find people who sell on esty and ebay a just bulk the low end stuff to them on a percentage deal to limit the time you spend handling it. There is an old adage in sales that applies here: "Lose money on every deal and make it up in volume"
If you are going to open a retail establishment, you have a lot of stuff to do and the day to day of these stores is going to be a huge time suck. Find someone you like, and leverage their labor with Etsy and Ebay, make both of you money. Sort this low end out into bags, sell them per bag or pass them along on consignment and be done with it.
When getting a retail location estimate the entire cost of renting, leasing agents may say the property is XX a sq foot, but when I closed my shop, I found out that water & insurance was a "common" expense that is split between all the tenants, it was right there in the contract, I even read it but I did not understand what it meant. The shop I was leasing for $1210 a month cost me $1573 a month in real life. Use a magic jack for a store phone number. It costs $60 a year, and runs off your Internet, and you can fax across it.
Do not open the shop until you have 6 months worth of money in the bank. When you have enough money to take care of all your personal and home expenses, and the money to pay for all the business expenses for 6 months then you are ready to open the store.
This will give you 6 months to make the store profitable without impacting your finances.
You may find, with the membership site, that you get the interaction you crave, and avoid the worst thing about retail:
When you are in retail, you never have time off, especially when everyone else does. A store is like being chained to a post. It's a cruel mistress after the freedom of Internet Marketing.
I closed my store after 3 years and never felt as much relief as the day I did it. During that three years though, I built up a "core" of customers that I still serve today.
