The Amish, with old-fashioned furnishings, food and other products to sell, haven't allowed themselves to be lost in the shuffle.

Sites such as www.amish-heartland.com, a site for the Ohio Amish community, include online stores and links to local businesses whose wares are for sale online as well.

The site has existed for over three years.

Webmaster Mitchell Naumoff has worked with the site since July 1999. "In this time, traffic has increased to almost 500 visitors per day on average," Naumoff said.

From the site's main page, visitors can view the online version of Amish Heartland Magazine, see a listing of attractions in Amish country, leave a message on the site's bulletin board, or visit the newest addition to the site--the Amish Shopping Mall, which opened on February 10.

There, visitors can order gift baskets with pie fillings, pasta or jams--and cedar chests, baby blankets and even a golf ball holder.

"We have developed solid relationships with many Amish vendors over the past several years," he said.

"We have signed on eight vendors at this point to supply us with various Amish products, and we are in the process of adding additional vendors."

Arrangements with the Amish vendors are simple, Naumoff said. "We do not charge these vendors a fee to join the mall; we simply purchase the goods from them at a wholesale price and resell the products over our Web site.

We do not acquire the actual merchandise from a vendor until an order for the item is placed."

The shopping mall has only been online for several weeks and no large promotion effort has taken place yet, so Naumoff said he couldn't predict the success of the site.

"We have been pleased with the amount of traffic on the site to this point, and expect it to increase significantly in the upcoming months," he commented.

The site has two purposes, Naumoff continued. "One is to serve as a source for information for anyone interested in Amish beliefs, culture and lifestyle.

We have hired George and Marty Kreps, who have written several books on the Amish, to monitor our message board and respond to any questions that are posted.

These messages, along with fresh monthly content taken from the print publication, serve to encourage visitors to return to the site."

The second purpose, he said, is "to encourage tourism in the area and identify sites and shops that relate to the Amish." The site includes listings of places to camp, local hotels, restaurants and even a horse-drawn carriage company.

A search for "antiques" on an Internet search engine will bring you 947 stores. You can break them down by price range, by category, by geographic location--or, you can spend some time happily browsing through the unbelievable number of offerings. The merchants are largely Internet companies and national chains.

What has Internet shopping done to those intimate antique shops with the ever-lingering smell of potpourri, and the smiling men and women who know the story behind every trinket?

Amish-heartland.com may not smell like potpourri, but it's about as close as you can get to the real thing on the Web.