1. Yes.
XML is designed to act(in this kind of implementation) as a way of grabbing data from a database and allowing you to search through it and display it easily.
A lot of APIs(an interface for interfacing with a web application such as Google Maps and doing different things with the data) use XML for this reason.
In this case you'd probably need to approach each company that had data and arrange a way for you to grab their data and get it in XML so that you could easily display it. There would probably be a different file for each country in which they operate.

2. Yes, see above.
Also, you could only get data from people willing to share. That is, if there's a site or resource willing to give you access to that data, it's fine. If however the companies in question don't want to make their data available, there's not a lot you can do.
What you get paid for a referral would have to be decided between you and the company or provider of data. You may find that there is a site or company that provides all this data and lets you sign-up to get access and makes the referral rate clear.

3. Generally speaking, comparison sites only operate because they get a fee for driving trade to the company. That's why there are so many insurance and other consumer comparison sites.

4. I've no idea, honestly. I'm rather tired.

If you're not advanced in terms of experience of building sites that incorporate APIs and databases, then yes this will be a huge challenge for you to do.
I've no idea how much a good developer would charge you to do this as I don't have the relevant experience myself.
It is of course entirely possible for you to learn what you need to learn for this project from books, video tutorials etc and tutorials on-line, but if you can afford a good web developer, it will make the process far quicker and you'll be more likely to have the perfect application, free of errors etc.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

Hi Britishcoder:

I think that most Website owners do not realize that by scrimping on what they need to do like hiring an outside programmer to make their ideas work can only hurt their business in the long run. So don't save now and just spend money later on. Mistakes in coding a Web site can be very costly, especially to a new business.
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printer ink

You can work on getting the data by crawling different merchants' websites first, and start direct marketing later once you have some traffics.

1) Your question is a little unclear. XML is simply a markup language (the X stands for extensible). It can therefore hold whatever data someone wants to put in it. There have been some standard XML schemas created (such as RSS) but the majority are free form. It is therefore up to the owner of the site if they put one countries or all countries prices within a single XML feed or not.

Depending on the nature of what you are comparing will dictate how complex things are. If you are looking at comparing static products (like Google Shopping) then you are simply consuming an XML feed from your supplier sites. If you are comparing something personalised like car insurance (eg Confused.com) then its a two way webserver that you need as you must pass them the risk criteria and they have to return both a price and unique identifier


2) Many aggregators (the normal name for comparison sites) work as affiliates and therefore do not get a fee per click but get a fee per sale made. Some of the aggregators work on a percentage of the total sale value, others will have a flat rate. Car insurance generally is £50 per sale. If you have a look at the likes of Quidco.com they will show you what the normal affiliate rates are. Some aggregators also charge a monthly fee for inclusion on their lists.

If you do want to get paid then you need to be under contract with each of the suppliers. That said, not every supplier on an aggregator is necessarily under contract. Back in the "old days" a number of aggregators would list Direct Line insurance despite none of them having permission to do so. They didnt get paid for business sent to DL (in fact they got sued for trademark infringements) but the argument was that it made them appear more "complete" if they could have all the big names on there.

3) As above, if charging on an affiliate basis then look at the likes of Quidco.com to see the going rates in different sectors. Expect to be able to get a little above it once you have strong volumes

4) You dont mention what sort of leasing your talking about. The initial consideration is if you are touching on a regulated industry (as finance often is) then you will need to find out about any implication it will have. If you look at all the insurance aggregators they have all been registered with the FSA to carry out their activity even though they are simply an introducer. You would also need to be aware of any liabilites this creates for you if you are considered to be giving "advice".
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"1. Is XML codes or scripts that collect data and show on a website, are they restricted to a specific country? I mean if I want to open something up in Canada, do i need their local price data? If yes how can i get it? Can you please refer me to some web designer who can create it at affordable cost?..."


Of course, XML will work in any country!

K, You can use XML, HTML, Java Script ,servlets , JSP for client side programming and server side programmings

and also not the least Database like Mysql server, Oracle 11g , plsql to store the data ...

The XML codes is not specific to country or the website , you can get , provided it should not be read only.,..