I can never get enough of the stories one reads from time to time in the press about niche ecommerce sites that are started on a dime and then thrive.

Paulette Thomas wrote about such a site in the Tuesday (February 1) WALL STREET JOURNAL (alas few of you will be able to read the story because of course wsj.com is a subscription-only site!!!!!).

Here is the story: Jennifer Fallon of Atlanta was about to be married. She was searching for wedding favors. She soon realized that there was no specific site dedicated to such items. Jennifer decided to start her own store online and did so with a Yahoo online store. Almost immediately she hit $10,000 a month in sales. Now she is independent as kateaspen.com and she is projecting sales of $2.3 million for 2005. Not bad for basically a one-person shop.

Thomas' story has the following headline: "Chance to Test Markets At Little Cost on Web." The Internet is still one of the greatest business frontiers in history. It is open to anyone with a good idea and a few dollars. While kateaspen.com will never be as large as eBAY, it is interesting to note that eBAY started on a whim similar to Jennifer Fallon's -- that was to try to find other buyers and sellers of Pez dispensers.