Noob needs your opinion, pls

I am sorry for asking this and being such a newbie, but I have to start somewhere and I could use your help, if you dont mind.
I am using Dreamweaver MX to create a site for my new work and unfortunately I have done VERY little web developement (although I have used Basic VB, and SQL). I dont know which lang to use, or more accurately what would work best for what I need. I am currently designing a HTML site but unsure of its functionality. Here is what I will ultimately need : Ecommerce site that customers can use to make payments with. I do want a site that will not look as old as our current site < www.dunstone.com >. I have created a site off of the Halo template atm. Otherwise, I think I can do everything else (other than I would love to find out how to set up a scrolling news bar). I can figure out all of the other challenges (I hope). I thank you in advance for any advice you might offer.

You could use OSCommerce for a shopping cart.
It's a free open source solution and supports a pretty large number of payment gateways.
Everyone that I've heard of that's used it has loved it.

Thank you for the idea for using OSCommerce, I shall look into it. I did get the scroll bar to work, fairly easy actually (and free).