Ebay is perhaps the most well known example of people operating businesses from home and marketing them on the internet. Ebay is primarily an auction website but it has other buying formats that are suited to home workers. Entrepreneurs who produce their own products have found Ebay to be an excellent outlet for their wares.

A good example would be the case of Marion Walsh. Marion is a qualified school teacher but stopped going out to work once she had a family that she preferred to raise herself at home. Marion was also a very capable graphic designer and started a business where she combined her teaching and desktop publishing skills with the intent to make money online.

Marion found a very profitable niche creating teaching resources. She would make lesson notes, games, classroom displays and worksheets for children and students. Each product was made in her favourite desktop publishing package and then exported as PDFs for easy distribution. Marion's business was highly successful because teachers and parents found her products inspirational and time saving. Marion also benefited from being able to send out her creations as digital attachments to emails thus saving on printing and postage costs and enabling her to retail at the most competitive prices.

Robbie Needham also began with Ebay to start his business working from home. Robbie was a car mechanic, but due to a back injury, he was forced to shut down his service garage. Robbie chose to pursue a particular passion of his: photography and collecting old photographs.

Robbie began making specialist albums of his work and collections and putting them on compact discs. He specialized in town and city studies and had collections of landmarks and faces pertaining to a location through the ages in one album for sale. The compact discs were so popular on Ebay that it enabled Robbie to travel to different cities around Europe to take and collect photographs.

Cameron Tilley found himself working from home purely by chance. He worked in the city for a firm of business consultants. Cameron had a spare time passion for 3D art and spent hours on his creations using a specific software application. He belonged to online forums where other enthusiasts gathered to share their work and ideas. Some of the forums have market places in which users were able to sell objects they'd created in 3D. To Cameron's surprise there was significant demand for his creations and they sold at very good prices. He was soon able to quit work in the city and set up his own website which is a very successful resource centre for 3D artists.

If you are not able to create products that you can market on the internet, there are still numerous opportunities to make money working from home with the internet. Tricia Frampton was a hairdresser who was able to give up working in the salon to make money blogging. Tricia does not sell anything herself on her websites. What she has been able to do is develop an expertise in commenting on hairstyles of the celebrity world. Her opinions have proven to be an extremely valuable asset as her website attracts millions of hits every month. Her income is derived from advertising that she hosts on her blogs. Tricia does not only work from home. She can carry her work wherever she goes and enjoys a significant residual income even when she is not working at all.

If you're thinking about becoming a work at home mom but aren't sure if it's the right thing to do, then read on and find out why moms who work at home might actually have it much better than their office-chained peers:

1. Big savings on gas and commuting expenses: Working professionals can spend hundreds of dollars every month just to get to work, especially when they live far away from their offices. And if you think that owning a car will make things better, think again. Traffic is often notoriously heavy in big cities, and those who bring their cars to work end up spending more on gas and parking fees. When you work at home, however, you won't have to worry about spending money to get to work -- all you need to do is walk over to where your PC is, a room or two away.

2. You can spend breaks with the young 'uns: Instead of the desultory cigarette or coffee breaks that you would take at work, you can just saunter over to the living room and spend 15 or 20 precious minutes with your kids as your break. It's the sort of quality time that you wouldn't be able to give your children if you were tied to a cubicle or office desk. It's a privilege that not all working parents enjoy, and it's bound to enliven you after hours of working in front of a PC.

3. Saving on daycare Now you don't have to drop off your kids at a day care center and spend the day worrying about how they're doing, if they're being taken care of, if other children are being nice to them. Now, you can always have them within earshot, and you can check on them if they're okay. If you can't be distracted from work a lot, you can hire a baby sitter from time to time, but at least you won't have to be anxious about how your kids are doing anymore. And if little Johnny hurts himself or starts crying, at least you'll be there to make him feel better.

4. You get to explore your strengths, career-wise, and do what you love the best It's always important to be doing what you love the best, and being a work at home mom gives you a chance to find out more about your strengths and what you're passionate about. Some mothers find out that they love to make money blogging, while others find themselves enjoying the small business they just put up. Whatever you choose to work on, just be sure that you're doing what you love, and that you like what you do.

Although working at home isn't the perfect solution for everyone, some moms thrive when they work away from the office, or when they've mustered enough courage to go out there and start their own businesses. Sure, such a move can be very challenging or risky, but if you have a good idea of where you want to go and how you can accomplish your goals, working at home won't just be a matter of convenience for you, but also a matter of success.

Of course, working at home isn't all roses, as you will soon find out.  Here are some of the more common challenges that work at home moms have to overcome if they're going to succeed in their ventures:

1.    The urge to check on the kids frequently:
When working at home, it's easy for moms to start fussing over their kids' every move, even if there's a lot of work to do.  You'll have to curb the pressing urge to check on your children every so often, since that can put a real crimp on your productivity and can cause you to get unnecessarily derailed from your tasks.

Try to get some help from a baby sitter or from a relative who's only too happy to lend a hand, so that you don't have to fret about how your children are doing while you're caught up in a task.  Don't get too absorbed with work, though!  Remember to spend some time with your kids by taking 15-20 minute breaks when your tasks start wearing you out.

2.   Distractions:
In an office where everyone is expected to be on their toes and professionalism is demanded of everyone, there's hardly any room to slack off or loaf around.  At home, however, doing just that is easy, especially since you don't have a boss anymore and won't need to answer to anyone but yourself.  But this is precisely why you should watch out for distractions that can get in the way of your work, since it's easier to give in to them when you're working at home and no one's checking on you.  Remember:  if you let yourself get reeled in by distractions, your work will suffer, and unfortunately, so will your income.

3.  Extra paperwork:
If your company has been paying your insurance fees for you so far, you're going to have to do all the paying yourself this time around.  Working at home will require you to be extra careful with your expenses, especially since you won't always get any outside help in managing your paperwork.  Don't forget to keep up with important payments, especially if your former office used to handle them for you.

4.  Loneliness:
While there may have been times when working at your former office did nothing but frustrate you, you must also have met people whom you ended up getting along well with, and whom you managed to interact with in very friendly terms.  When you start working at home, however, you're left with nobody but yourself, the kids, and the occasional baby sitter.   Loneliness is one of the more challenging things to overcome when you begin working at home, especially if you thrive in professional situations where you get to mingle with other individuals from varying backgrounds.

Before you can become a work at home mom, you have to consider that such a move will work for you only if you've considered all its pros and cons.  It's great to be your own boss while you make money blogging or while you manage your new business, but there are also quite a good number of drawbacks that you should prepare yourself for.  Once you have a fairly good idea of what's ahead and how you can deal with them, you'll find that being a work at home mom is an endeavor that's enjoyable and profitable at the same time.