Hi smitheringale,
<blockquote>I had assumed that all e-commerce sites were contained in the magento place, and that I would need Magento membership for an ecommerce site.</blockquote>
JoomlArt maintains two clubs for Joomla CMS and Magento Ecommerce platform separately
If you site runs on Joomla and you are familiar with this, you can consider this template as well as other popular Joomla skins with VirtueMart built in for your shop like JA Zeolite ii, JA Zeolite, Labra…
<blockquote>Out of interest, what is the difference between e-commerce solution provided by mesolite ii and one of the magento stores?</blockquote>
Depending on your specific demand, you might need a Joomla template with Virtuemart if yours is a multi function & larger content sites whereas a Magento template shall be more compatible if you want to specialize on selling products only
Or put it simple, you are much more familiar with Jomla than Magneto 😀