I, too prefer the hands-on learning method. Don't overthink the "ecommerce" aspect.
A website is a website; add a bit of code to send the order to a payment gateway to process the money safely, and you're set.
Using Paypal is a simple matter of pasting a bit of code with each product. Paypal support is excellent too.
For example, for the first anniversary card I just insert this code: (which I have saved as a DW Snippet) and change the red colored code to suit each product
<!-- ADD TO CART BUTTON -->
<form name="_xclick" target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">
<input type="hidden" name="add" value="add=1">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="karenmishkin1@gmail.com">
<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value="Artist Edition A1">
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="5.95">
<input type="hidden" name="shipping" value="1.00">
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US">
<input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/x-click-but22_old.gif" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal or major credit cards - it's fast, free and secure!">
<img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
</form>