For many who have been involved in the Swedish e-commerce industry for a while, Dan Nilsson is a well-known name. He was one of the pioneers who not only ran his own successful e-commerce business through Roliga Prylar, but also created Ehandel.se to bring the industry together. After selling Roliga Prylar and handing over Ehandel.se to LRF Media, however, he consciously stepped back.
It was probably a good thing to just disappear for a while. Of course, it was a little sad sometimes when no one knew who you were, but also nice. I guess I went into early retirement there, had children and let go of the pressure to constantly build something new and bigger," says Dan Nilsson when we meet him for a tour of the new warehouse.
Over the years, he has been involved as an investor and board member in companies such as Northern Spirit, Quickbutik and Contentor. But now the e-commerce itch returned. The result is Bangerpack.se, an online store specializing in "sealed" collectible products, boosters and boxes within Pokémon, Formula 1, football and Marvel.
From Formula 1 dreams to his own warehouse
That it became trading cards was, according to Dan himself, not the result of a gigantic market survey, but rather a personal fascination that escalated. He watched Youtube videos where people opened expensive trading cards, especially within Formula 1.
I dreamed every Sunday when they raced about buying those F1 cards, but I thought they were so damn expensive. A box costs like 10,000 Swedish krona. Then I thought I'd become a reseller instead. Then I can buy them cheaper and get two packs for the price of one, and sit and open them myself. I deserved that now that I've worked hard!
Said and done. He secured suppliers and bought a substantial amount of trading cards.
But when I was going to open them, I became stingy. So now I still haven't opened a single Formula 1 card. Instead, I woke up and realized that I had started an online store that sells trading cards," says Dan with a laugh.
Behind the joking facade, however, lies a sharp e-commerce logic. Dan had identified a market with high liquidity and enormous demand.
It's like the stock market but with trading cards. It's constantly moving. It's a pretty narrow range where you don't have 10,000 products of which 80 percent never sell. In addition, there are products within the niche that are not well served in Sweden today. That's exactly how I started Roliga Prylar too – with products that no one believed there was a mass market for.
Why dropshipping is out of the question
Unlike many new e-commerce entrepreneurs today who rely on dropshipping or third-party logistics (3PL), Dan has chosen to have his own warehouse where he handpicks and packs the orders himself.
In the trading card world, the condition of the product – all the way down to the plastic wrap – is extremely important.
Dropshipping doesn't work here. Many customers who buy trading cards don't even want to open the package, they want to save it unopened for twenty years. If the plastic (shrink wrap) on the outer packaging is damaged, the product loses a lot of value. Then you have to be able to write that in the product description. If you don't have the goods in your own warehouse, you lose that control," explains Dan.
Another industry-specific problem is the risk of packages being weighed.
People weigh packages. The best packages weigh a little more because cards with heavier printing methods, or sports cards containing pieces of match jerseys, weigh more. As a retailer, you have to have full control. In the start-up phase, you have to feel and touch the products and learn the niche.
Banned by Google immediately – saved by handwritten emails
Despite his solid background in e-commerce, Dan tasted today's harsh digital reality immediately upon launching Bangerpack.
I was banned in Google Merchant Center immediately. It's not as easy to start e-commerce today with all the AI, scams and spam that platforms are trying to filter out. Google said that trust factor and history are very important. As a newcomer, you have no history.
To build up the necessary trust (and get his Google account back), Dan went back to basics: extreme customer care.
I emailed all customers personally with handwritten emails and asked them to review me on Trustpilot so that I have to get ratings. I wrote to them: "You are customer number one, can you help me?". People were very surprised that someone actually emails. E-commerce in Sweden has become very industrial where no one answers and emails take a week, so the personal touch worked. Yesterday, after three weeks of work, I was unbanned!
"Everything is controlled with Claude"
When asked about the tech stack Bangerpack is based on, the answer is short but topical. The store is on Quickbutik, but the real engine of the company is spelled artificial intelligence.
I use Quickbutik, and that's it. But the entire business is controlled with the AI service Claude. When purchasing and researching, I get ten times more done today than before. My entire catalog and all content is managed via Claude, I hardly work in my own email anymore.
Dan has even built his own systems using AI to manage the complex purchasing logic and pricing required in a market that moves like a stock exchange.
It used to be a lot of work. If you got an incorrect invoice from a forwarder for 800 Swedish krona, you had to sit with it yourself. Now the invoice goes directly into the AI, which creates an anomaly report, and all purchase orders are tracked automatically in the background. If I could travel back in time to the Roliga Prylar era with today's tools, I would have had to work a lot less.
Must open a physical store
The initial plan for Bangerpack was to run everything smoothly from home without employees. But the e-commerce veteran has run into trouble in the form of suppliers' strict requirements. Many large distributors of trading cards refuse to sign agreements with pure online retailers.
You can't get many reseller agreements without a physical store. Suppliers want the base with the real players and the community, not just people who buy on speculation and hide the cards in the basement. If people meet and play, demand doesn't disappear. That's why manufacturers reward physical stores.
This means that Bangerpack is now forced into physical retail.
At the beginning of next year, I will open a classic store in Helsingborg, with tables where people can play together. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said that I would never have a physical store. I prefer to sit and make purchases. So now we'll see how that equation works out," he says with a smile.
In addition to the physical store, the future plan is to start printing completely own, customized trading cards ("packs") that can be used as gifts or giveaways – a clever nod to his previous career in the printing industry.
And the name Bangerpack? It was inspired by Dan's favorite profile on TikTok, Rare Holos, who often exclaims "That was a real banger!" when he opens a really good Pokémon pack.
There is no doubt that Dan Nilsson is back in e-commerce, exactly as passionate, fearless and strategic as before – even if he himself does everything to downplay his ambitions.
I'm not building a company to be sold this time. I just want a fun job. Much of my entrepreneurial drive is driven by naivety – I believe I can do things much better than everyone else. And my edge is that I never give up, and I love to compete and win," concludes Dan Nilsson.
