Let your cosplay see a new day. Buy and sell cosplay!

I want to thank everyone for all of the support of Lumikha Cosplay Resale after almost 6 years. 

So many of you stepped up to support this community cosplay marketplace in times of need, and I am so grateful for the financial support that allowed us to keep going, especially this past year. Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

But I also need to be honest about what the last few years have really looked like.

Year after year, fewer users have actively utilized the platform, scammers and bad actors have increasingly targeted the website, and economic pressures have made it difficult to continue forward. In recent months, I've had to keep Lumikha in invite-only mode to protect the community from waves of scam accounts, impersonation attempts, and phishing messages.

A developer I hired to develop a new website failed for months to build what was promised, costing me months of time and money. In 2024 a coordinated attack to buy and sell hundreds of fake listings set me back over 2k in Stripe dispute fees and stolen refunds. 

After these events I received several anonymous phone calls asking if I was Black and asking for my location. This was a scary time, but as a solo founder I just wanted to resolve it all on my own. 

Despite these events, I spent hundreds of unpaid hours maintaining the website, working on marketing, handing out flyers and business cards at cons, and running in person events, often with the help of my dearest friends who volunteered out of kindness.

But this has not been sustainable. 

I'm still considering what the next chapter looks like, but for now, I'll be taking an indefinite break from Lumikha in order to rest, recuperate, and figure out what's next for my own goals as a cosplayer and business owner.

In the meantime:

No new transactions will be allowed after October 15. (This is to allow all final sales time to process.)

Users using Stripe should initiate any payouts before November 1.

The Lumikha website will officially close on November 1.

After October 15, the platform will remain online for messaging and coordination only. Please note that any off-platform arrangements are strictly at your own risk, as Lumikha will no longer be managing payment security or dispute resolution.

What started as a dream to bring a little slice of Japan, a resale shop just like Lashinban or K-BOOKS, blossomed into almost 6k users in 6 years. We processed over 60k USD in cosplay in Lumikha's lifetime. We hosted 6 cosplay markets in DC, MD, and VA. I was featured on several podcasts, created & ran a cosplay contest with Lumikha as a sponsor, collaborated with the Maryland Department of Energy on a costume swap & upcycling workshop, helped run the Cosplay Tutorial Challenge in 2022 which resulted in a ton of new cosplay tutorials, teamed up with Cosmosii, a custom costume website, and even made it to the quarterfinals of the Pitch Dingman competition.

Through it all, I met so many of you, who always told me wonderful stories of where you wore your secondhand cosplays, or how you were glad that a beloved costume finally found a new home.

So many people told me Lumikha is where they bought their first cosplays, and I'm honored I could be a small part of helping make cosplay memories happen. 

From the bottom of my heart, I truly believe that by relying on one another, sharing, borrowing, buying and selling secondhand cosplays, we can still improve this ecosystem, with or without Lumikha. 

But thank you for believing in me, and Lumikha, anyway. 

With deepest gratitude,

Leah (Founder, Lumikha Cosplay Resale)