Prione claims to enable over 350 SMBs every week in to the e-commerce space

BANGALORE, INDIA: Prione Business Services, which is a joint venture between Catamaran Ventures and Amazon, has enabled 34,000 small and medium businesses (SMBs) across India to access online marketplaces and effectively adopt digital technologies to sell their products. Since its inception in 2014, Prione has been empowering SMBs with training services and in-depth logistic and advertising solutions, getting SMBs one step closer to the projected 100 billion dollar industry by 2020.

Prione’s vision is to empower SMBs in India take advantage of the fast growing digital economy by transitioning from the unorganized offline world to the new age organized digital market, by offering services which bridge the gap between these worlds.

Prione offers a range of services across training, digital catalogue building, logistics and advertising solution advisory services which help SMBs get started.

Despite the fact that only 10% of SMBs in India have been empowered to use the full potential of the internet, Prione’s SMB base has grown more than 500% in the last 2 years and product selection has grown by 400%.

Prione has also built a significant geographical footprint with presence in 45+ cities, through its own teams and a growing partner network. This has enabled Prione to bring a diverse mix of sellers as well as products – from SMBs selling namkeen in Indore to Madhubani paintings from Bihar, Prione has enabled them all.

“Most SMBs especially from Tier 2 and 3 cities have the deep desire to sell online and expand their addressable market. And, we aspire to become the trusted partner at every point of a businesses’ lifecycle in online selling,” said Sandeep Varaganti, Sales Leader of Prione.

“I was selling online for a while on multiple platforms, but never really noticed a considerable growth. Fortunately, I was introduced to better methods and existing products like inventory storage service by the Prione team. The sales growth surpassed my expectation 6 times and it kept growing. I now drive 95% of my online sales through Prione’s support“, said  Fahad, Samaira Online Enterprises, Chennai.

Prione  also offers the opportunity for entrepreneurs across select cities to set up offices which offer the same services as Prione to SMBs local to the region. Prione trains these entrepreneurs through knowledge transfer of best practices, helps them in setting up seller acquisition teams and provides ongoing assistance to offer enablement services in their cities.

Prione also helps the partners build studio infrastructure to support sellers, using the knowledge they acquired in setting up and operating studios in 30+ cities for over 2 years. In 2016, Prione expanded the network to 15+ cities with the number of partners growing by 150%. The network has already enabled over 2,000 sellers so far - a 300% growth within a year of launching the partner program.