them on the Internet. Is there an easy way to do this? Answer: It doesn't have to be hard or expensive for a small business to go into e-commerce, especially since some big Internet players provide services aimed at this market. Here are some of your options: Set up your own Web site; Sell on an auction site like eBay.com; and Set up a shop with Yahoo! or Amazon.com Setting up your own site gives you ultimate control over how your online store will look, but it also forces you to deal with the details of Web publishing.

You have to find a Web hosting service and design your site, or hire someone to do it. Ideally, the hosting service should be able to provide a secure site, which allows customers to pay by credit card, for about $100 a month.

But just because you have your own Web site doesn't mean you will get customers. After all, they have to find you first, and it can take months to get listed on the popular search engines.

"The big challenge is to generate traffic and have people know about it,'' said Ilan Klein, with the Web design firm Vizooal Inc. in New York.

The best way to make yourself more accessible to potential customers is to use the big marketplaces set up by eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon.com, Klein said. These sites have millions of visitors each day. They are also searchable, so people looking for something specific, like Victorian rocking chairs, can find them easily.

If you're feeling cautious about e-commerce, eBay may be the place to start.

Just by going to the site, clicking your mouse and typing in a description of what you are selling, you can offer an item for auction. EBay charges about $2 per item and a small percentage of the price if it is sold.

EBay also allows you to place scanned images of merchandise on your site. Even a sub-$100 scanner will create images good enough for the Web, where you don't need high resolution. Many photofinishers now also provide scanning services.

EBay is immensely popular but has some drawbacks. One is that the auctions take time to complete -- typically a week. This may deter buyers who want a rocking chair right away. Also, auctions expire after a maximum of ten days, so you need to relist your wares every time the auction expires if you still have inventory available.

Perhaps most important is the fact that eBay won't help you process credit card payments. Many transactions on eBay are by money order or cheque.

"If you are really thinking about making a living on the Web, then I think that the ability to receive credit cards is a must,'' Klein said.

Amazon.com is the biggest retailer on the Web, but it also lets smaller sellers in under its roof. It allows you to set up a "zShop'' that works much like an eBay listing, except prices are fixed, not determined by auction. As on eBay, items are listed one by one, and expire after a certain time. For a $10 setup fee and $9.99 per month, you can list 500 items. Amazon.com also charges a fee for items sold.

Amazon.com will also help you set up a merchant account for credit cards, which means you can take payments online, but it charges a fee of 4.75 percent of these transactions.

Yahoo! provides a fixed-price alternative. There, you can set up a store with 50 items for sale for $100 a month with no extra fees. The items won't expire, and you can take credit cards.

Of course, the options above can be combined. To get more traffic to a Yahoo! store, you can list a few items on eBay, and include a link to your store. You might not sell much in the auction, but you can guide traffic to your store.

The challenges of e-commerce don't end with getting the orders, though. You have to handle customer contacts, shipping and possible returns. Moreover, big and bulky merchandise -- including rocking chairs -- might not be the best wares to start an e-business with.

"I would definitely do things that are easily shipped,'' said Klein.