Shopping Cart or Content Management System?

Or both? Want customers to be able to access protected content.

[debvh]

I am in a service business and I have outgrown my homegrown website. I would like for customers to be able to browse "products" in various categories, add them to a shopping cart, and check out via paypal. Then, I would like for them to be able to log in to their content, which could include audio/video clips, interactive tutorials, etc. Ideally I would maintain a content library that could be updated centrally.

My budget is limited and while I could learn a little programming if I had to, I would rather do other things. Should I be looking for an e-commerce shopping cart, customized for the customer-log-in-to-content feature, or a CMS, customized for e-commerce? Or is there something out there I am not yet aware of that has all these features already?

Thanks!

PS By the way, my new and improved website will need to be accessible too, if that matters in responding to my main question.

[mack]

A CMS may be just what you need to act as a building block for your site. There also loads of open source CMS's out there.. It is difficult to recommend on because each is perfect for a different situation and requirement.

Many also have plug-ins for shopping carts and ecommerce.

Mack.

[debvh]

Thanks - I managed to find a site where with demos of various open source CMS's which helps in terms of seeing some of the options (I'm not sure when it's OK to post a url, but it's easy to find if you look for "open source cms").

I think what I ideally want is an e-learning system with a shopping cart, that's easy to use and won't cost an arm and a leg. But, most e-learning systems are probably overkill for what I want, and I'm having a hard time understanding all the terminology that is used to describe CMS's to help figure out whether another solution might be better.

I'm going to post this request over on the CMS forum too, but if anyone is aware of a good "CMS for dummies" sort of resource, I would appreciate it.