Andreas Tussing, Charles: How a fashion brand turned into a tech company
With Charles, the founders Andreas Tussing and Artjem Weissbeck started a conversational commerce startup, that provides shopping assistance via messenger. Initially, they launched Charles as a clothing brand, but have pivoted to build software that turns conversations into conversions. Here is how Charles wants to raise e-commerce to a new, more convenient level.
In this episode of REWRITE TECH, we spoke with entrepreneur Andreas Tussing, co-founder of the company Charles. Together with Artjem Weissbeck, he introduced the approach of conversational shopping into the European market. Their software makes it easier for brands to stay in contact with customers and makes shopping online as seamless as it can get.
Charles — Conversational Commerce made in Germany
It began — like all good stories do — on a vacation in Brazil. Andreas and Artjem were discussing new trends in e-commerce when they came up with the idea to sell products via chat. No company was doing that back then — at least not in Europe. To see whether their idea would work, they started by selling 100 cashmere sweaters to friends using WhatsApp. The response was great — maybe also because they sold the sweaters at a bargain price — but Andreas and Artjem saw the positive feedback as their proof of concept.
That’s how the fashion brand Charles came to live. But shortly after the launch, they reached the limit with their old method and figured they needed to simplify their workflow. In the beginning, they were maintaining tens of chats simultaneously. As they could not find a suitable tool, they decided to develop the software themselves. And that’s how Charles, the software, came to live.
Combining great service with speed
Back in the days, you would go to your local Herrenausstatter (men’s outfitter) and the shop assistant would already know your personal preferences and advise you. That relationship-driven approach got lost somewhere on the way to nowadays fast-paced e-commerce culture. Now, Charles unites the best out of the digital and analogue world.
The software can be integrated into any messenger app. Just like a personal shopping advisor, Charles assists users to find their new favourite clothes and helps with orders. Charles relies on a mix of automated messages and human agents to deliver the best service quality. Shoppers will be able to ask questions, order and reorder products via chat, while also tracking and returning deliveries. All via chat, no complex webshop required.
Europe is lagging behind
In Asia, this idea is nothing new. Existing platforms like Chinese WeChat have been broadening their product scopes to allow companies to use them in new ways. Among other things, to sell goods. In Europe though, this new way of shopping hasn’t caught momentum yet.
Even though people order much more online and use WhatsApp on a frequent basis, there is still a lot of explaining necessary. “WhatsApp is a very private channel. Do let someone from the business world in really means something”, Andreas explains. The ones that have been convinced are on fire, though. They’re happy not to have to find their way through a website anymore.
What the future holds
Future steps to improve customer experience are a more seamless integration of payment in chat. Internet giant Tencent for example already has its own payment service provider, WeChatPay. Another step Artjem and Andreas are taking is to improve Charles’ AI. They don’t want to build just another stilted chatbot that frustrates consumers: “People change the way they speak to the way they think the machine understands them,” Andreas sums up the issue with those rather dumb text generators. So far they’re using Google Dialogflow and are testing different other natural language processing (NLP) tools to integrate into their product.
Do the dirty work
Luckily, Andreas had plenty of experiences to draw from. Before he started Charles in 2019, he worked as an associate partner at McKinsey. His co-founder Artjem is not entirely new to the scene either. He already founded the successful direct-to-consumer brand Kapten and Son.
Asked about one of the biggest learnings over the last years, Andreas responds: “It’s okay not to have the perfect business model in the beginning. But you should have a good idea about it!” He is also convinced, that founders should do every task themselves in the first months. Chatting with customers, for instance, helped them to better understand what the user interface should look like. “But you need to realise that at some point you don’t learn any more and you should hand the task over to someone else.”
Listen to REWRITE TECH with Andreas Tussing from Charles
Do you want to learn more about Andreas and his startup Charles? Listen to the whole conversation with Andreas on all audio streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
