I first learned Perl by hacking at improving a do-it-yourself store called Perlshop, which was originally written in Perl4. :-) My website only has PhP for cgi, otherwise I would have a demo running.

Now I'm not recommending that you use this...it uses all flat files dbs, has limited admin features, and you pretty much need to know the code inside and out to change anything. BUT..... if you want to use it as a demo to show your boss the ugly side of do-it-all-yourself, feel free to download Perlshop-z

Personally, I would use it if I had small store, but it would be a bear to keep up with shipping cost changes, printing invoices, mail labels, possible new state taxes on internet sales, etc