I am currently in the us military, about to get out in a couple months.

I am starting my own business and want to run my own e commerce website.

currently i have my domain along with a hosting account with host-gator.

my question is this, i am pretty new to web development, is it easy to setup and manage a shopping cart/website? what is the best, i am currently messing around with joomla/virtuecart.

is there a step by step guide or reference for everything i need to do in order to run an ecommerce website? sorta like a checklist i guess.

and if anyone has any suggestions on items such as hosting company or merchant processor it would be greatly appreciated.

thanks, please include links if applicable to all information and advice given!