If you want to escape from your day job or simply want to earn some extra cash without having to leave the comfort of your home then setting up a home based business on the Internet might be the answer for you.

There are several options for setting up a home based Internet business. When you are just getting started it is probably wisest to choose just one option and work on it until you are making money from it. Once you are in profit, expand your field of activities by adding more products or by finding a different way to promote your business that will complement what you are already doing.

People make money on the Internet by selling their own products and services, or by selling other peoples through affiliate marketing programs or via drop-shippers.

Despite the attractions of affiliate marketing, selling physical goods on the Internet is actually one of the easiest ways to turn a profit if you have the right kind of product.

Some people make their own products and sell them on online auctions - products such as clothes, fashion goods, jewelry and accessories, hand crafted cards, woodcraft items, toys, games, handy inventions and so on. So, if you enjoy making things or already have a product of your own to sell, then setting up an Internet business will be one of the quickest and easiest ways for you to find an outlet for your products.

If you do not have a product of your own to sell, don't despair. If you live in a place that has special or regional products unavailable elsewhere then you could offer those on the Internet. In this case, you would buy either from local shops or from the manufacturers and resell the goods online.

When you have something to sell, the quickest way to get it online is to offer it on an auction site such as EBay. This is also a useful way to test the market. If the item sells quickly and if you can make a good profit then you will want to repeat the process and also set up a website of your own to sell from.

Setting up a website is not expensive nowadays. Web hosting costs less than $10 a month, and a domain name costs around $10 a year. It is worth learning some HTML so that you can set up a basic site of your own, but if you don't want to do that then you can find someone to set up a basic website for you by searching on a website such as elance.com.

Finally, set up an account with an online transaction service such as PayPal, AlertPay or MoneyBookers so that you will be able to add "Buy Now" buttons to your site.

The next step will be to start marketing your goods. The good news here is that on the Internet this can be done either free of charge or on a shoestring budget.

You can promote your website by setting up a blog and posting articles about your products and related topics on it. Write articles and post them to online article directories. A fast way to bring traffic to your website is to spend some money on Google's Adwords program and set up some pay per click ads.

When orders start to come in you will of course have to fulfill them promptly. You may find yourself getting very busy as you will need to contact your customers to update them on their order status, pack and post the orders, and either make or purchase new stocks of items and packaging materials.

In short, you will have set up a successful home based business on the Internet. Good luck!