New national directory

I was thinking of starting a national directory for a specific type of business which would list all towns and suburbs in a particular country, then several sub categories under that. Users can then use a pull down menu for state, town etc, or just use a search box for the town.

I was trying to adapt OScommerce for this and was having a little success, but I thought I would throw out the questions to those more knowledgeable than me.

1. Should I continue to try and use oscommerce, and if so, does anyone know the contribs to use?
2. Should I use a CMS and if so, which would be best, and what would I need for this? (I may be looking to outsource the work here if anyone is interested.)
3. Should I buy an "off the shelf" local directory software package and if so, has anyone used one that is good?

with all of these questions, I will need the package to enable good SEO.

Appreciate your help.

 

Try eSyndicat directory or Subrion Web directory. Both suites to your needs and SEO friendly.

eSyndicat has free version.

www.esyndicat.com/
http://www.subrion.com/product/directory.html

 

sorry, what I may have forgotten to mention, instead of categories, we would have states and then sub-cats would be regions and the sub-categories under that would be the towns.