I would say for a small store stick with the basics, PHP 5.2.4+ and MySQL 5+ some individual plugins may require higher versions of PHP or MySQL. I don’t think you would necessarily need a VPS depending on traffic. My general rule start small, if you grow, great, most host (and all good host) make it easy to upgrade your plan.
One thing I will say is if you are processing credit cards you’ll need a SSL certificate and a dedicated IP address. This sometimes can be trickier on a shared host but not impossible.
EDIT: Regarding hardware, I would say it agian depends on the site and how many views you are getting. My advice is to start small and then upgrade if needed. I have had some clients want to go big at first, such as a VPS then if they don’t get th traffic they expected switch host.
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