Establishing a Reliable Marketplace Platform for Cosplay Products in the Philippine Community
CosMarket is a mobile e-commerce application prototype designed to revolutionize the cosplay community by offering a seamless, secure platform for buying, selling, and renting cosplay outfits and accessories.
Abstract
CosMarket is a mobile e-commerce application prototype designed to address the specific transaction challenges faced by the cosplay community in the Philippines. By providing dedicated buying, selling, and renting flows, CosMarket offers a tailored workspace that reduces transaction hurdles. Usability testing conducted with 10 cosplayers demonstrated high user acceptance, with 80% of participants praising its clean layout and intuitive navigation while confirming that its features de-escalate common marketplace issues like scams and lowballing.
Problem Statement & Background
The Challenge
How might we establish a reliable marketplace platform that guarantees secure transactions for buying, selling, and renting cosplay products within the Philippine community?
Cosplayers in the Philippines find it very difficult to buy or sell cosplay-related items on generic platforms like Facebook Marketplace.
The community faces three main transaction challenges: scams (unverified listings and accounts), 'joymining' (buyers reserving items but failing to pay or respond), and 'lowballing' (unreasonable bargaining that devalues high-quality props and costumes).
CosMarket was developed to establish a dedicated, secure platform specifically tailored for cosplay enthusiasts, resolving community pain points through structured checkout systems, seller reviews, and specialized catalog listings.
User Personas
To construct representative video editors, 10 college students with prior editing experience were interviewed. Three distinct personas were created to represent different user profiles:
Aiko Tanaka
Age: 19 | BA Multimedia Arts | ManilaA college student juggling studies and a part-time online business. She attends anime conventions and wants a simpler, safer way to buy and sell cosplay outfits. Frustrated by size-specific issues, scams, and the lack of a specialized local cosplay trading platform.
Design Strategy
The design process followed the standard five-stage Design Thinking methodology: Empathize (interviews), Define (persona & journey mapping), Ideate (information architecture), Prototype (low & high-fidelity designs), and Test (usability evaluations).
Information Architecture was structured systematically from Homepage down to Browse, Product, Account, and Checkout modules to ensure clean, structured user navigation.
The visual design features Work Sans as the primary typography. It employs a rich color palette: #00867B (Primary Teal) representing trust and focus, accented by active tones: #5744FF (Accent Blue), #FF8126 (Accent Orange), and #EE1D52 (Accent Red) to establish hierarchy.
Typography & Colors
Methodology
- Conducted a moderated usability study remotely via Google Meet to evaluate the design's effectiveness.
- Recruited 10 active cosplayers as testers to evaluate visual design, navigation layout, and e-commerce functionalities.
- Sessions lasted 20–30 minutes, guiding participants through key user flows: browsing the homepage, checking item reviews, messaging sellers, and placing/purchasing orders.
Results & Discussion
Usability testing validated CosMarket's navigation layout and visual hierarchy, proving that a specialized cosplay app resolves standard marketplace frustrations.
| Metric | CosMarket (Prototype) | Evaluation Result |
|---|---|---|
| Task Completion | 100% Success | 0% Confusion |
| Layout & Navigation Approval | 80% Agreed | Shopee / Pinterest flow style |
| Feature Request | Cart Feedback | Action Messages suggested |
Usability testing showed that the direct integration of seller reviews, chat options, and specialized filters de-escalates common Facebook Marketplace transactions friction.
80% of participants praised the layout and expressed a desire for the continued development and eventual deployment of this application.
Identified opportunities for refinement: enhancing success-state animations and providing clear cart notifications during item additions.
Conclusion & Next Steps
CosMarket successfully resolves major trading barriers for the local Philippine cosplay community by providing a dedicated e-commerce alternative.
Key learnings highlighted the importance of specialized filters (series, character, size) and clean hierarchies to build user trust in digital transactions.
Next steps include widening usability testing with a larger sample size and incorporating social features to nurture community-driven trust.
Skills & Frameworks
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