Prione drives economy of small sellers in Maharashtra, empowers them with digital payments
Pune, February 28 – A JV between Catamaran Ventures and Amazon, Prione Business Services Ltd was founded on June 5, 2014 to enable Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) to access the e-commerce platform. In the past 5+ years, Prione has onboarded more than 100,000 SMBs and their vision is to enable 1 million SMBs in the fast-growing digital economy. Backed by a team of 600+ employees across 150+ cities, they fulfil this vision by offering a variety of services like cataloguing, warehousing, online advertising, etc., tailored to help SMBs run their online businesses profitably, said Sandeep Varaganti, MD and CEO, Prione at a media interaction in Pune. Prione has on boarded 5,551 SMBs in Maharashtra, out of which 1,331 SMBs are in Pune he said .
Sandeep Varaganti spoke about the Karigar initiative which has received tremendous success. Karigar is one of the largest stores to feature a wide range of authentic crafts from Indian artisans, and gives prominence to India’s rich heritage by enabling weavers and artisans to showcase ‘Made in India’ products to customers . Through the Karigar initiative, Prione has enabled master weavers, co-operatives, artisans and APEX bodies (including National Award-winning weavers) to sell online. As part of Karigar, 300+ crafts have been enabled and over 2,300 sellers have been enabled to sell online. With Over 80 clusters have been enabled 8 lakh artisans have been supported. 22 Government emporiums have been onboarded .
Some top craft forms that do well for the Karigar program include Ikat from Pochampally, Telangana , Sambalpuri Sarees from Orissa, Jamdani, Tussar&Tant Sarees from West Bengal, Leather products from Uttar Pradesh and Blue pottery & Hand Block printed apparel from Rajasthan.
Through technology driven initiatives like Digital Payments, Prione helps SMBs get onboarded on Amazon Pay for seamless online payments. They initiated Amazon Pay in Maharashtra beginning in Mumbai in June’19, and expanded operations in 12 cities in less than 6 months across Maharashtra. Today Amazon Pay is live in Pune, Nagpur, Nasik, Aurangabad, Amravati, Sholapur, Kolhapur, Satara, Baramati, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar and has 480,280 merchants. In Pune alone, they have already onboarded more than 170,000 merchants. Prione has acquired 50+ retail stores (Restaurants, tea points) etc. at railway stations in Mumbai and Pune, acquired 12+ merchant outlets at various metro stations in Mumbai, acquired 25+ merchants in various malls (like Raghuleela Mall, Maxis Mall, Heera Panna Mall, Metro One, Little World, City Center Mall Goregaon, etc.) in Mumbai. They have also acquired 60+ College canteens (e.g.IIT Mumbai Canteen, SP Jain Canteen, Ferguson College Canteen, etc.).In addition to this, Prione has created 400 jobs in sales and services as part of Amazon Pay in Pune
