What is a B2B vertical portal?

A portal is an access point to the Wonderful World of Web without which the world today would again be living in the dark ages.

A portal serves its users with primary features and services, a b2b vertical portal is targeting one industry and has maximum information and penetration of that industry, it acts as a bas for traders, buyers, suppliers and other associates of the industry to access the information about the industry and each other. It becomes a medium to generate branding, inquiries and sales online.

A vertical portal is a trade specific portal which instead of concentrating on 100s of products from variety of trade concentrates only on single trade and its products.

A vertical portal generates very trade specific visitors and there with only very genuine inquiries.

What are the key Benefits of being a member with B2B portal?

B2B portal are absolute necessity of the industry, its not just a fancy idea, the advantages of a b2b portal are numerous depending on the features of the portal but the main advantage of any portal is that it can have immediate impact on the branding and reach of any company involved with it as its member.

• Increase in Sales:

New Sales from unexpected resources comes through a portal because it has collection of 1000 of WebPages and loads of information and any trade visitor would browsing the portal would try to build relations with some or the other members on the portal and inturn increase the sales.

• Increase in Branding:

When existing clients or new clients try to search for your company or product and they can't find you but your competitor is present online with website then it leaves very deep impression on the customers, today the trend is if you are missed online then you are missing your business in real world.

There are more traders who prefer to search, surf and source products and companies through Wonderful World of Web then in printed directory or magazines all across the globe, and from necessity it has become a habit of entrepreneurs to search online for every small thing they want - from honey moon package to importing machinery every thing is being searched online.

It leaves a huge dent on the branding exercise of any company when its prospective customer is trying to find them online and they get no information or now website of that company.

Once online the company's brand reaches the niche market across the country and globe and creates more brand awareness.

• Cost Savings:

Online advertising saves a huge amount for any company who can use the targeted online advertising at the right places and right way. It is a proven fact that B2B portals usually generates unexpected inquiries and results from across the globe with very little investment. WWW is spread across the globe and country and any company trying to advertise across the globe or across the country would end up investing 1000s of time more money then their online campaign.

Other major benefits include:

Low customer acquisition cost Effective portal branding on the Internet will help to attract customers from new sources. The cost of acquiring customers through online channels is always cheaper than other traditional methods.

Community participation Company buyers and sellers can create communities surrounding the B2B portal's discussion board. This helps getting valuable feedbacks on time, building new partnerships using the networking ability of a community, and disseminating important information to members easily.

Group Aakar is leading B2B vertical portal of battery industry that provides lead acid battery suppliers, Lead Battery, lead acid battery manufactures, Lead Battery Smelting Plant and Services for Lead Battery Recycling process. World’s first B2B portal on Battery industry for battery manufactures, suppliers, Exporters and more at Batteryind.com.

Who wins the market? Lead-Acid or Lithium-ion?

Lead acid (LA) battery is slowing running out of the energy storage race compared with nickel-metal hydrides and lithium-ions that entered the market with all the energy to win. Nickel-metal hydride (NmH) batteries are used in the current generation of hybrid cars and lithium-ion (LI) batteries are used in mobile devices. Many visualize LI to be the future of electric cars.

Even with all this, what the automakers intend is to create proper energy storage for startups and a light weight vehicle. For this, automakers need a lightweight battery that won’t interfere with a car’s all-electric range or design and at the same time is light in weight. Lead can be blamed to be one of the heaviest elements known to science with all its environmental hazards.

Ultra capacitors blended with the LA batteries have become the answer to this. They are called PbCs. Though ultra capacitors give low energy density and cannot measure up to the LAs in storing the power per kilogram, they excel in charge time and lifespan. Ultra capacitors can handle far more charge cycles than LI or LA batteries and they recharge quickly. This technology is brought in by Pennsylvania-based Axion Power International funded by Quercus Trust. Axion’s PbC batteries weigh half as much as traditional lead-acid batteries, while offering just slightly less storage capacity.

Axion’s PbC looks like a normal LA. What Axion has done is that it has replaced a stack of lead electrodes with a stack of activated carbon electrodes. “Axion replaces the lead-based negative electrodes found in conventional lead-acid batteries with carbon assemblies. The only [noticeable] difference is the feel”, says CEO Thomas Granville.

Like the conversion companies that have sprouted up to turn hybrids into plug-ins with battery packs, Axion says it can retrofit conventional trucks and SUVs to have an all-electric range of 40 miles-plus for less than $10,000.

Granville says, “Obama keeps talking about having a million hybrids on the road by 2012”, “Even with federal incentives to jumpstart the transition, switching 100 percent of the fleet over to clean, new vehicles would take decades”. PbC batteries offer a way to clean up vehicle emissions without trading out the entire national fleet. Axion favours a three-year, 50 percent tax credit for retrofits.

This year, Axion plans to ship-out a new mobile energy storage system for grid buffering, starting with a delayed New York State Energy Research and Development Authority project in upstate New York. Next to lithium of course, PbCs are still heavy.

When Axion pitched its technology to members of Freedom CAR earlier, the automakers wanted batteries at a maximum $87 per kilowatt-hour where Axion’s technology costed $240-$260 per kilowatt-hour (Lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride batteries can cost upwards of $300 per kilowatt-hour). The deal thus, did not work out. Toyota seized the opportunity and proceeded with more expensive technology. This helped Toyota to capture a significant share in the hybrid battery market.

The battery industry is sure to take some time to learn the new technology but automakers can play a vital role in providing this technology at the door step of the end-user. Nevertheless, with ever better technology, one would need to shell out something more from one’s pocket at least in the initial stages.

Group Aakar is Leading company provides lead acid battery suppliers, Lead Battery, lead acid battery manufactures, Lead Battery Smelting Plant and Services for Lead Battery Recycling process. World’s first B2B portal on Battery industry for battery suppliers, manufactures ,Exporters and more at Batteryind.com.

Lead Acid Battery Industry has seen huge evolution in the last couple of years.

Worldwide primary and secondary battery demand is projected to rise at a nearly 7 percent annual pace through 2010 to $73.6 billion. China will record the largest gains of any national market, stimulated by healthy economic growth, ongoing industrialization efforts and rising per capita income. Annual demand in the country will climb by more than $7 billion from 2005 to 2010, and China will surpass the U.S. to become the largest battery market in the world. Sales increases are also expected to be strong in India, Indonesia, South Korea, Poland, South Africa, Brazil and Russia for similar reasons.

The total Indian storage battery market is approximately estimated at US$ 600 Million with the automotive battery segment contributing more than 65 percent of the overall market value.

In terms of volumes, the overall consumption of automotive batteries could be around 7.3 million units with the OE segment comprising around 1.5 to 1.6 million units per annum.

The Indian Lead Acid battery industry is poised to more than double within four years given the current rate of growth of over 25 per cent per annum.This being the case, the aftermarket is definitely striking with its sheer size and is lucrative due to better price and credit realization. Lately India has seen a surge in the sales of the passenger car segment which increased the overall sales of batteries.

The Life of Lead Acid Battery is generally 2 – 3 years and the boom in auto sales since last 5 years has pushed the sales of aftermarket battery market, the demand is so huge that there is always short supply in quality aftermarket battery.

The LEAD ACID BATTERY market in Indian Subcontinent is highly fragmented industry with very few manufacturers in Quality in BRAND segment and several battery manufacturers in tier 2 and tier 3 categories which have regional and national presence.

Most of these lead acid battery manufacturers have vast presence in Semi Urban and rural areas and cater to replacement battery market of Old Automobiles, Tractors, farm equipments, heavy commercial vehicles etc.India, now, accounts for about 14 major automotive battery manufacturers, and all of them are growing rapidly in India, and also looking at making India their home for exports. This would further enhance the overall market base. But what is significant is that the industrial batteries consumption is going up with the economy booming.

This will create opportunities for supply of industrial batteries in the telecom towers, railway usage and in the power sector. With the country short of power in several pockets, usage of inverters too, has gone up significantly, and this is not going to come down soon. Battery Importers have also been contributing a lot to the short supply of batteries.