Sure, PHP can do a great job on this. I would guess it's probably the #1 software used to code new storefronts right now. But it's not like you're going to take an internet tutorial this week and create/edit software next week.
"Easy to learn" means 3 months instead of 5 months. One of the best free tutorials I have seen is on regular expressions -- http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html

Take a look and see what you're up against. This is a very small module of PHP, maybe 1 or 2 percent of what needs to be learned, although it is a very difficult subject (perhaps the most difficult).

I'm sorry to sound discouraging, but I personally would be hesitant to put a "ready made solution" into a storefront unless 1) I thouroughly understood the code or 2) it had excellent customer support. I have tried using PHP programs I copied, and every one of them needed a substantial edit, or even complete rewrite. (This is for solutions -- snippets are a different matter.)

The problem is, security is such a scary thing where money is involved. One bad keystroke and all hell can break loose.

One suggestion is a third party processor like SWReg, which will do a turnkey operation for about 3%. I don't know much about them except a great coder, Jan Goyvaerts, uses them! (I just bought a copy of his editing software this morning, that's why it came to mind.)