In the past year, Burgeson, 55, has haggled for and won more than 20 items on-line, including computer disk drives and a color scanner for her newsletter business and CD-ROM games for her granddaughters. She paid 20 percent to 50 percent below retail for the products, most of them from major computer makers. She checks her favorite sites weekly for bargains, hourly when she's in a bidding war and every few minutes before the auction closes.

More and more people are turning to round-the-clock auction sites as they search for bargains on the Internet. The number of such sites has jumped from just a handful two years ago to more than 125, said John Jackley, founder of USAWeb Internet Advertising, which catalogs auction sites on the Internet.

Bidders can buy everything from Beanie Babies to Bordeaux wines. The most popular items are computers, followed by collectibles and travel. ``Most of the people on the Internet already are into computers, so it's a natural fit,'' Jackley said.

The auction trend takes catalog purchases a step further, pitting buyers against each other in an arena where they may end up paying quite different prices for the same item.

``New Form of Retailing''

``We're on the vanguard of a new form of retailing,'' said Jerry Kaplan, founder of Onsale Inc., the first auction site to go public. ``It combines the bargains of Price Club, the entertainment of QVC, mixed with the skill of the stock market and the fun of Las Vegas.''

So far, Kaplan's site is bucking the money-losing trend that plagues most Web sites. ``This is one of the few that's profitable,'' said Montgomery Securities analyst Steve Horen, who rates the company a ``buy.''

HSN Inc., parent of Home Shopping Network, debuts its First Auction site today, and another public company, Micro Warehouse Inc., plans to start one later this year.

Since it opened for business in May 1995, Onsale has auctioned about $50 million worth of merchandise. The company reported first-quarter sales of $12.3 million, and two weeks ago it expanded its auctions to five days a week from three.

Onsale, based in Mountain View, California, features both refurbished and overstocked items, which it buys from resellers and manufacturers like Compaq Computer Corp., Apple Computer Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. The site sells about 6,000 items a day, mainly computers and home electronics, and has registered more than 230,000 bidders.

Visitors to the Onsale site are greeted with a list of product categories ranging from software to notebook computers to stereo equipment, including a series of ``hot deals,'' the latest items with starting bids well below market prices.

To select an item, bidders click on its icon. Then they see a product description and a list of high bidders. To participate, they enter their bid and billing information on a form. Bidders also can choose to be contacted by e-mail if their bid is topped. Auctions last for one to two days.

One recent auction started bidding on four desktop computers with Intel's most popular chip, the 200-megahertz MMX, at $400 apiece. When the auction closed, the buyers paid between $1,450 and $1,500 for each machine. Such a computer, which also featured a CD-ROM drive, modem and sound card, typically retails for about $2,000 in stores.

Most sites feature this traditional auction format. Others, like TravelBids, use what is called a reverse auction. On that site, travelers post desired trips, and travel agents bid against each other for the business.

Flea Markets

Many sites take advantage of the freewheeling, anonymous features of the net. Haggle Online and u-Auction-it are like flea markets, where anyone can buy or sell anything for any amount of money. Most deal in computer equipment.

Software engineer Doug Salot started Haggle as a hobby. He makes a couple of hundred dollars a month from advertising, enough to keep the site running, and he plans to start charging sellers soon.

Visitors to Haggle also find a ``fraudwatch'' link, offering advice on steering clear of scams. Salot added it last spring after some unscrupulous sellers failed to deliver goods to a dozen bidders after they sent money orders. ``I expected fraud, but not to the extent it occurred,'' Salot said. The money orders eventually were returned to the bidders after they tracked down the sellers and threatened them.

Salot's advice to bidders: Don't reveal credit card numbers on unfamiliar sites; buy collect-on-delivery; beware of e-mail addresses that don't require paid subscriptions; and visit the manufacturers' Web site to check for comparable products before bidding. ``Buy things that you know what to expect, that you can buy without touching or feeling,'' he said.

And what about traditional auction houses like Christies International Plc and Sotheby's Inc.? It doesn't look like they'll be offering Jackie O's dresses or Monet's landscapes on- line anytime soon.

Both houses post auction schedules and descriptions of items on their Internet sites, although they don't feature interactive bidding. ``It's an intriguing concept, having an international audience bidding from all over the globe,'' said Michelle Mullineaux, spokeswoman for Christies, the world's largest auction house. ``But we want people to be in the room. The exciting part is being in the room.'' Auction sites on the Web:

USAWeb -- www.usaweb.com Onsale Inc. -- www.onsale.com Haggle Online -- www.haggle.com TravelBids -- www.travelbids.com u- Auction-it -- www.uauction.com BidFind -- www.bidfind.com Christies -- www.christies.com Sotheby's -- www.sothebys.com --Lisa M. Bowman in the Palo Alto newsroom (415) 326-3613/smw