hypebox — disrupting the informal economy
Introduction
There exists a strong push to remove guesswork from the informal C2C market. With our patented computer vision and machine learning solution, we can now detect counterfeit designer products with 99% accuracy. Our main target demographics are the online HYPEBEAST and SNEAKERHEAD communities that overwhelmingly engage in informal trades of high-priced merchandise.
The Team
Background
The Problem
Informal marketplaces are the foundation for buying and selling hype products. However, they come with many issues. On their own, a vigilant user may choose to meet in secure locations, such as police precincts or public spaces. They may also vet photos carefully or research a seller’s online profile in order to ensure product quality. However, as shown by the numerous incidents we’ve encountered during our preliminary research, that may not be enough. We feel that we can do more to ensure people are getting the products they pay for.
User Research
Before our initial user research we defined our target participants as buyers and sellers of designer clothing in C2C markets and the general hypebeast population. Other stakeholders could potentially include the managers of C2C marketplace platforms. Our design research goal was to collect information about the overall process and issues with the transaction process. To get the information we engaged in fly-on-the-wall observations and reached out to friends and acquaintances that are active in these markets for interviews.
Initially we chose to focus on fly-on-the-wall observation since it had the lowest barrier to entry for us. Since hypebeasts are primarily an internet-based community, we easily found and observed groups online where hypebeasts openly share stories about their own experiences participating in C2C markets. Since these communities are relatively small and spread out across large geographic areas, we hypothesized that this method would allow us to see trends among market participants that we would otherwise not be able to find if we were to interview just a small group of local market participants.
Interviews were a good way to learn about people’s specific experiences trading in an informal market as well as get a firsthand account of some of the problems they would like resolved. Our interviews were conducted with three participants with differing ways of interacting with the hypebeast community:
- An Facebook marketplace engineer
- A University of Washington student and self-proclaimed sneakerhead
- A Washington State University student and hypebeast
Key Findings and Tasks
After conducting interviews and performing fly-on-the-wall research, we found that two major problems in informal C2C markets are verifying the legitimacy of products and knowing that pricing of these items is fair according to the current state of the market. The difficulty with authentication of products is that it is tough to verify if a shoe or clothing item is real through an image online. Additionally, the fragmentation of the C2C economy obscures the true market valuation of any given item and makes it challenging to compare prices between sellers on different platforms.
These findings can be distilled down into two main tasks that buyers and sellers perform in an informal marketplace. The first task is getting to know, or letting it be known, that you are trading legitimate merchandise. Second is verifying that the price of the item you are either buying or selling is fair, given the current state of the market. We moved forward with our designs with these two tasks in mind.
Prototypes and User Testing
The Beginning: Paper Prototype
As you can see in the below figures, we started out with a very basic paper prototype of our proposed design. Our main goal was to improve the manner in which buying and selling of designer items is conducted today. We decided upon an initial design of a vending machine where potential sellers could place items, which would then be authenticated by scanners in the machine. If the item was deemed real, sellers could set a price for the item and leave it in the machine. Then, any potential buyer could simply purchase the item, using roughly the same interaction they would to purchase a product from a regular vending machine. After creating an initial design, we engaged in heavy user testing and by incorporating user feedback, we finally defined the hypebox.
After conducting our heuristic evaluations, we realized that it would be necessary for us to have a corresponding mobile app for users to find/use the hypebox. Other important feedback included adding a clear set of instructions for new users and refining the selling process to provide more information, like a receipt and a well defined confirmation message. After revising our design, we began conducting user tests.
We enlisted three carefully picked participants to test our design, recruited through friends or friends-of-friends. All our tests were done using our basic paper prototype interface cards as well as a visual representation of the box itself. The cards were placed on a table (the participant was asked to imagine finding the box in an urban environment) and the participant interacted with the interface with little to no guidance. Our interviewees include:
- A 20-year-old male at UW and self-proclaimed sneakerhead
- A 24-year-old masters student in the UW HCDE
- An undergraduate UW student in the arts major who is a fan of high-end clothing
After compiling and analyzing the feedback from our user tests, we made significant changes to our prototype. We designed a mobile app to provide users information about where our machines will be located. Below we highlight some screens that received the most feedback.
The first is the main screen, which evolved through multiple runs. The feedback we got was that to a new user, the hypebox would be confusing if the main screen just says “buy” and “sell”. We decided to implement a slideshow instead that walks through how the hypebox works.
Another was the scanning process when selling items. We wanted to emphasize that our machine is smart and can tell between real and fake products, so we put in reinforcing feedback during the scanning process to indicate it.
Final Product Prototype
Our final product prototype consisted of three primary components: a physical prototype, the design of the interface on the hypebox panel, and the design of the accompanying app.
The hypebox panel was designed to be a small screen attached to each unit which facilitates interaction with the box.
The design of our app was centered around ease-of-use: we wanted to minimize the friction that each customer experienced as they were buying or selling an item at one of our boxes.
Our design ended up as three simple interfaces (designed in the style of Google/Apple maps) where the user can find nearby boxes and log in to each box for easy authentication.
Project Retrospect
Through our extensive research, we found that hypebeasts are a passionate and knowledgeable community. Many dedicate hours each day appreciating and tracking designer sales. They often chase clout and base their respect on “street cred”. There are often diverse opinions as to which shoes are hype or not. Additionally, due to the passion and high prices, some members of the community may resort to crime in order to attain their shoes. As a result, we have identified some limitations and constraints:
- Building Hype. Through our interviews, we know that without hype, our product will not take off. To build hype, we may need to partner with prominent figures and companies in the community. We also plan to build hype through achieving a large social media following and marketing campaigns.
- Quality of Products. Because these boxes are informal marketplaces, anyone can come in and deposit a not-so-hype product. We will tackle this through the use of artificial intelligence; we will scan current marketplaces and only allow products that our algorithm identifies as “hype” enough. Additionally, we will leverage localized user data and calculate for a specific location how likely are the users to buy the products listed.
- Safety. We expect that there will be attempts to rob these hypeboxes. To counteract this, we will put these boxes in highly-frequented public places.
In the future, we can see our box expanding slowly once the first few obtain a good following. We may need to change some features such as the payment options or account verification based on how easy it is to use in the real world. If the hypebox takes off, it could disrupt the entire informal buying and selling community. It will be a pioneer in the industry, revolutionizing the safety aspect of buying and selling while still maintaining hype through rarity and sporadic product listings. Users in this community have a distaste for non-hype corporations coming in and capitalizing on the market, but through hypebox, we could find our niche by allowing users to pick what to buy and sell while removing their constraints such as safety, non-authenticity, and unfair pricing. 😎
