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by Debra Aho Williamson

(IDG) -- If you haven't gotten married, you probably haven't experienced the thrill of creating a gift registry: roaming the aisles of your favorite department store, picking out all the expensive china and silver that you'd never buy for yourself, but that you'd absolutely love to receive from a few hundred of your closest friends and family.

A few companies have tried to replicate that experience online, most notably Della & James. And the business is expanding, with a host of companies confident they can make it just as easy and fun to register online for gifts for all manner of occasions – from birthdays to Christmas to baby showers. This holiday season will test their mettle.

"People find the holidays really stressful," says Jaleh Bisharat, VP of marketing for Amazon.com , which launched a gift registry on its site in October. A registry, she says, "is the single most efficient way for shoppers to buy for their loved ones."

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Online gift giving is expected to grow to a $17 billion market by 2004, up from $1.2 billion last year, according to Forrester Research. This holiday season, 8.6 million people are expected to shop online, spending $4 billion between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, Forrester projects.

Registries clearly want a piece of that pie. A gift registry, proponents say, could accelerate purchases by making it easier for people to find and buy the exact gift someone wants. A registry could also go a long way toward solving the problem of returning merchandise online; give someone what they want and they probably won't return it. At least 5 percent of merchandise purchased online is returned, according to researcher Gomez Advisors.

Some online retailers, such as Amazon and eToys, have set up their own registries. Yahoo will unveil a registry tied to Yahoo Shopping next month.

In addition, nearly a dozen startups – many of which have sound-alike names like WishClick.com, WishConnect.com and eWish.com – have recently launched gift registry portals, where consumers can peruse merchandise at a variety of online stores, create registries, and then e-mail them to family and friends. Several companies also license software so retailers can set up their own registries.

Some retailers believe participating in a registry will be a necessity. "Registries will become a fairly generic requirement for most retailers in the future," says Debbie Gillotti, senior VP and general manager of Starbucks X, the Internet unit of Starbucks. Starbucks hasn't jumped into the registry fray yet, but it's closely watching the space.

One thing seems clear: It will take a huge shift in behavior for consumers to register for gifts for occasions other than weddings, let alone do it online. An even bigger challenge: getting people to actually buy the gifts online.

However, if offline purchasing is any indication, the market may be ripe for these services. Offline, the wedding-gift market is generally estimated at $17 billion to $18 billion per year; about half of those purchases are made through registries. In contrast, the overall offline gift market is about $130 billion.

But for any company that gets involved in the online registry business this holiday season, it's a gamble that has yet to prove itself in the one area that matters most: increased sales.

"We all want to set up wish lists as e-retailers," says Peter Cobb, VP of marketing for eBags, an online luggage retailer in Greenwood Village, Colo., that is working with registry company WishClick. "We want to simplify things and make it so someone can come to eBags, set up a wish list and forward it on to whomever they like," he says. "[But] this Christmas will be more about the early adopters. There's no question about that."