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What is OS? What do you mean by hosting it? I thought that's what I was going to pay for once I got the website done. Database access? Browser access/XML, api? Gosh, maybe I don't want to try this afterall! Surely it HAS GOT to be MORE simple than that! PLEASE tell me it's NOT that hard! I'm not stupid just SLOW!

OS is Operating System - Unix, Windows, Linux, etc.

The fact that you want to do credit card transactions for your store suggests several things:
1) You'll want security - you might check out Verisign.
2) You'll need a shopping cart application (so your customers can pick what they want to buy
3) You'll need a database to hold stock numbers, quantity, descriptions, customer shopping cart content, customer shipping address.
4) youll need a search function to customers can find the stuff they want to put in their cart
5) you'll need order fulfillment - after they buy, someone has to get a notice or a screen that shows what to put in a box and ship it to the customers address, and UPS or whomever, needs to be notifoed to stop by your store and pickup the shipment.

I suggest you go to amazon.com and pretend to select and buy a book - heck buy a book so you go all the way through the whole 9-yards, at each step imagine you're a customer using your web store, but it doesn't have to be as fancy as amazon.com, but the experience should help you clarify what you need to provide.

The book you buy on amazon.com ought to a book that explains building e-commerce websites.

If you can afford some professional help, at least get some sales presentations or proposals made to you by consultants(sales stuff is usually free education) to help explain what you'll need to do.

Then think about it.