Anyone have a successful or unsuccessful e-commerce product based business? My wife is threatening to burn up capital to learn, so I would like to shorten the learning curve (or fail fast). I'm in professional services so have very little knowledge on the subject.

There's a good size thread on this forum about the ups and downs of selling online. IMO it boils down to whether or not you have your own marketing presence. Shopify is probably the best platform out there if you don't need the built in marketplace of an eBay which is pretty expensive compared to Shopify.

One small caveat on Shopify. If you're selling something controversial they probably can't be trusted. Recent Rogan episode with a retired Green Beret that caught a huge mess that ended up with him being shut down by Shopify. He taught survival skills like canning and hunting and significant first aid under the pretext of how to survive in the event of a break down in the system, ie lengthy loss of electricity. Some hack at the FBI decided he was a domestic terrorist and publicly labeled him as such which lead to Shopify shutting him down and even as the FBI has retracted their statement Shopify has refused to let him return. He talked about how good the platform is and how frustrating the whole situation has been.

If you're selling normal stuff like clothing you'll be fine on Shopify but like most big tech they're extremely pro-government so just be aware.

Thank you, Loyal. I appreciate the advice and will search for that thread.