Dunnage meaning and origin
The word predates ecommerce by a few centuries. On sailing ships, dunnage meant the loose wood, mats, and brushwood laid under and between cargo in a ship's hold, keeping barrels and bales off the wet deck and stopping the load from shifting in heavy seas. The job has not changed. Only the materials have.
Today dunnage covers everything from a handful of kraft paper in a poly-lined mailer to steel racks welded into a rail car. In a warehouse, the practical definition is simple: dunnage is anything you add to a shipment that is not the product, the invoice, or the box itself, and that exists to keep the product intact.
Dunnage vs void fill vs packing material
These three terms get used interchangeably and they should not be. The difference matters when you are specifying packaging, because it changes what you buy.
- Packing material is the widest bucket. It includes the carton, tape, labels, inserts, and everything protective.
- Dunnage is the protective subset: material whose job is to secure, cushion, separate, or brace the goods.
- Void fill is one function of dunnage: taking up empty space so the contents cannot travel inside the box.
Put plainly, all void fill is dunnage, but not all dunnage is void fill. Loose paper stuffed around a mug is void fill. A die-cut foam cradle that suspends a candle jar away from every wall is dunnage doing a job that loose paper cannot do at all. Air pillows immobilize; they do very little to absorb a four-foot drop.
Types of dunnage
Most fulfillment operations keep three or four types on the pack bench, not one. Here is how the common options compare.
| Type | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Air pillows | Filling void space around sturdy, non-fragile items | Almost no impact absorption; can deflate at altitude or in cold trailers |
| Bubble wrap | Wrapping individual items, cushioning light shock, anti-scratch | Bulky to store; plastic film needs drop-off recycling, not curbside |
| Kraft paper | Void fill and wrapping for apparel, books, tools, and most CPG | Heavier than air; compresses over a long transit and can leave slack |
| Foam (sheet, plank, or die-cut) | Fragile glass, electronics, cosmetics, anything shock-sensitive | Highest material cost; polystyrene is hard to recycle |
| Corrugated inserts and partitions | Multi-unit packs, bottles, jars, subscription boxes, presentation | Needs tooling or a die line per SKU; less flexible if sizes change |
| Molded pulp | Structured cushioning with a curbside-recyclable story | Tooling cost and lead time; works best at volume |
| Wood blocking and bracing | Freight: machinery, heavy or irregular loads, container shipments | Labor to install; may need heat-treated wood for international moves |
| Dunnage airbags and load bars | Filling the gaps between pallets in a trailer or container | Single-use in many cases; must be placed against solid load faces |
How to choose dunnage by fragility and shipping mode
Two questions decide almost every dunnage spec: how much abuse can the product survive, and how many times will it be handled before it lands on a doorstep.
- Parcel: the highest-handling mode. A single box can be sorted, chuted, conveyed, and thrown a dozen times. Assume drops and compression from stacking. Use cushioning that rebounds, not just filler, and keep a cushioned gap between the product and every wall, at the depth your carrier's packaging guidelines call for.
- LTL and pallet freight: the pallet is the unit, not the carton. Loads get moved by forklift, cross-docked, and re-stacked at terminals. Focus on stretch wrap, corner boards, slip sheets, and airbags that stop the stack from leaning. See how LTL shipping works for how many hands touch a freight shipment.
- Ocean container: long transit, humidity, and constant vibration. Wood blocking and bracing, desiccants, and moisture barriers matter more than soft cushioning. Solid wood packaging crossing borders typically has to meet ISPM 15 treatment rules, so confirm the requirement for your lane before you build.
Fragility layers on top of that. A drop test, even an informal one from counter height onto a hard floor, tells you more than a spreadsheet. Pack five units, ship them to yourself across the country, and open them on camera. Damage patterns show up fast.
The cost trade-off: under-protecting vs over-packing
Under-protecting is the expensive mistake people notice. A damaged delivery costs you the product, the outbound shipping, the replacement shipment, the support time, and often the customer. Add the returns handling and one breakage can wipe out the margin on several clean orders.
Over-packing is the expensive mistake people miss, because it hides in the shipping invoice. Parcel carriers bill on dimensional weight: length times width times height divided by the carrier's dimensional divisor, and you pay the greater of dim weight or actual weight. Stuffing a small product into a big box with a bale of paper can double the billable weight without making the product any safer. Divisors and surcharges change, so check the current published rules for your carrier and service before you model it.
The way out of the trade-off is box selection, not dunnage selection. A right-sized carton needs less filler to immobilize the same product, so protection goes up while billable weight goes down. Our guide to shipping box sizes walks through building a box lineup that actually matches your SKUs.
Sustainable dunnage options
Customers open the box and judge the packaging before they judge the product. If sustainability is part of your brand, the dunnage is the most visible place to prove it.
- Kraft paper and honeycomb wrap replace bubble wrap for most non-fragile items and go straight into curbside recycling.
- Molded pulp trays give structured cushioning made from recycled fiber, with a premium unboxing feel.
- Corrugated inserts use the same material stream as the box, so the customer recycles one thing instead of three.
- Starch-based loose fill dissolves in water, though it stores poorly in humid warehouses.
- Reusable dunnage such as returnable foam trays and plastic totes works well in B2B and retail programs where the same lane runs constantly.
One caution: swapping materials without re-testing is how brands trade a plastic problem for a damage problem. Change the dunnage, then ship test units and confirm the damage rate held before you roll it out across every SKU.
How a 3PL handles dunnage
In a fulfillment warehouse, dunnage is a written spec, not a judgment call made by whoever is on the pack bench that shift. Each SKU gets a box size, a dunnage type, a quantity, and any inserts or branded touches, so the hundredth order is packed exactly like the first. RitePrep has run its own Austin, Texas warehouse since 2020 with 99.9% pick accuracy, and packing standards are a large part of why that number holds. If you sell fragile goods, want custom packaging and inserts, or just want someone to stop guessing at box sizes, that work sits inside pick and pack fulfillment rather than being a separate project you manage yourself.