1. A method of selling items with the assistance of associates, the method comprising: providing a Web site system that includes a browsable catalog of items and provides services for allowing customers to electronically purchase the items; providing an associate enrollment system which allows users to electronically apply to operate as associates that select and recommend items from the catalog and refer customers to the Web site system in exchange for compensation; in response to a submission to the enrollment system by a user, assigning an associate identifier to the user and recording the associate identifier within a computer memory; electronically providing to the user instructions for generating hypertextual documents with item-specific links that, when selected by a customer, cause the user's associate identifier and an identifier of a recommended item to be transmitted to the Web site system in a request message; receiving a request message which contains an associate identifier and an item identifier and extracting the associate and item identifiers from the message, the request message generated by a computer of a customer in response to selection by the customer of an item-specific link provided by an associate in conjunction with a recommendation of the item; transmitting to the customer's computer a Web page which corresponds to the item identifier extracted from the request message; transacting a sale of the item and/or other items of the catalog with the customer through the Web site system; using the associate identifier extracted from the request message to identify the associate; and determining and recording within a computer memory compensation for the associate for the sale.