Noobie needs help

[Orion]

I am setting up a site for a friend who owns her own business. At first what she wanted was very simple, but after looking at sites from similar businesses, she has decided she would like to have a shopping cart, secure service, and take charge cards (I had proposed using paypal only, since I can do that). My trouble is the terminology, I don't know what to look for when I am researching web hosts. How do I find a web host which can help me set up such a site for as low a price as possible (her store is very small). Yahoo has a Merchants Solutions program, but I can only set up paypal on it (at least that is my impression). What should I be looking for, and does anyone have any host recommendations? Do I need to purchase special software to set up a secure shopping site that takes charge cards?

[Speedydomain]

Most hosts will have scripting language support such as php or asp.
Since you're looking at low price, it would be cheaper to integrate the site yourself or have a pro do it for you.

If you decide to do your own integration:
You'd need hosting with scripting support
You'd need shopping cart script. Most script will have many payment option including regular credit card processing service.
For secure site, you'd need to buy a security certificate.

Most hosts do not offer all the above in one package for very cheap.
You have to decide on cost versus ease of integration.

[Orion]

I appreciate your reply, I looked at some hosts and found just what I'm looking for. Yahoo has a reasonably priced program and I think I'll use that, from there I can add a shopping cart and a payment option (her shop takes credit cards so we won't need to set up a separate account for them), and Yahoo Small Merchant Solutions will include the security certificate. Thank you for your advice, it helped a lot.

[toxicx]

Every cpanel hosted website has a shopping cart with it.