Dunnage is the material packed around or beneath goods to protect them during shipping and storage. It fills empty space so items cannot shift, absorbs shock and vibration, and keeps products off the floor of a container or truck. Common examples are air pillows, foam, corner boards, kraft paper, and wood blocking.
What is the difference between dunnage and packaging?
Packaging is the box, carton, or container that holds and labels the product. Dunnage is the protective material inside that packaging (or inside a shipping container) that braces the product and fills void space. Packaging contains and identifies; dunnage protects and immobilizes.
Andrew Erickson is the founder of Inventory Hero. He has spent years working with Amazon FBA sellers on demand forecasting, restock planning, and the cash flow side of running a private-label brand. Inventory Hero exists because every spreadsheet-based inventory system he tried eventually broke — usually right before Q4.
Air pillows, bubble wrap, foam (sheet, molded, or peanuts), corrugated inserts and corner boards, kraft paper, and for heavy freight, wood blocking and steel or plastic strapping. Lighter items use air or paper fill; heavy or fragile items need rigid foam, corner protection, or bracing.
Is dunnage reusable?
Some is, some is not. Plastic and wood dunnage used in freight and containers is often reusable. The void fill inside parcels (air pillows, paper, foam peanuts) is usually single-use and recyclable. For Amazon FBA inbound shipments, sellers typically use single-use void fill that meets Amazon's prep and packaging requirements.
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Dunnage is the inexpensive, often disposable material packed around goods to protect them during shipping and storage. The short version: it fills empty space so products cannot shift, it absorbs shock and vibration, and it keeps items off the floor of a truck or container. Air pillows, foam, corner boards, and kraft paper are all dunnage. Below is what counts as dunnage, the common types, how it differs from packaging, and why it matters more than most Amazon FBA sellers think.
Dunnage does three jobs at once: it fills void space so products do not slide around, it cushions against shock and vibration, and it separates and braces items so they do not crush or rub against each other. In a parcel that means air pillows or paper around the product. In a freight container it means blocking, bracing, and sometimes raised platforms that keep cargo off the floor and away from moisture.
The term comes from freight and maritime shipping, but the idea is the same whether you are loading a 40-foot container or boxing a single SKU for an Amazon fulfillment center.
These two terms get used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
Dunnage
The protective, often disposable material packed inside or around a shipment to brace the product, fill void space, and absorb shock. Dunnage protects and immobilizes; it does not contain or label the product.
Packaging is the box, carton, polybag, or container that holds the product and carries its labeling. Dunnage is what goes inside that packaging to protect the contents. A shipped unit usually has both: the carton (packaging) and the air pillows or foam inside it (dunnage).
Match the material to the risk and the weight. The common options, roughly from lightest-duty to heaviest:
Type
Best for
Notes
Air pillows
Light void fill in parcels
Cheap, fast to pack, very light, recyclable
Kraft paper
General void fill
Inexpensive, recyclable, good for filling odd gaps
Bubble wrap
Surface protection on fragile items
Wraps the product directly before void fill
Foam (sheet, molded, peanuts)
Fragile, oddly shaped, or heavy items
Molded foam is the strongest cushioning
Corrugated inserts and corner boards
Edges and corners, stacking strength
Protects the most damage-prone points
Wood blocking and strapping
Heavy freight and containers
Braces and immobilizes pallet loads
For most Amazon sellers shipping standard-size goods, the working set is bubble wrap on the product, then air pillows or paper to fill the box. Heavy or fragile SKUs move up to molded foam and corner protection.
Here is where this stops being a definition and starts being money. When you send inventory into Amazon FBA, the unit travels through your carrier to a fulfillment center, gets stowed, and later gets picked and shipped to a customer. Damage anywhere in that chain is your problem, and Amazon's packaging and prep requirements put the burden on the seller to pack units so they arrive intact.1 Loose fill like foam peanuts is a common reason a prep center or fulfillment center flags a shipment, so check the material against Amazon's rules before you commit to it.
Under-protected units lead to three predictable costs:
Damaged-in-transit inventory that arrives unsellable, so you paid the unit cost and the inbound freight for nothing. If your carrier caused the damage, that claim is against the carrier or your shipping insurance, not Amazon.
Unfulfillable units that sit accruing storage fees until you act, then cost a per-unit removal or disposal fee on top of the lost product. Amazon does not remove them for you; you have to file the order.
Reimbursement claims for units lost or damaged while in Amazon's custody, which Amazon reimburses on its own formula (roughly the estimated sale price minus fees), so the recovery often lands below your landed cost.
Good dunnage is cheap insurance against all three. A few cents of air pillow or foam per unit is far less than the landed cost of a unit that arrives crushed, plus the inbound freight you already paid to ship it in. And damaged inventory that gets removed or disposed is effectively a stockout: you paid for those units and they are simply gone, so your available stock is lower than your records say. This is the same calculus that makes self-fulfillment work or not work in our FBA vs FBM comparison: when you pack your own orders, dunnage and packaging are a real line in your cost of fulfillment, not an afterthought.
Work backward from the failure you are trying to prevent:
Will it shift? Fill the void so the product cannot move. Air pillows or paper for light items.
Will it break? Cushion the shock. Bubble wrap plus foam for fragile items.
Will it get crushed? Add structure. Corner boards and corrugated inserts for stacking strength.
Is it heavy? Brace it. Molded foam, double-wall cartons, and for freight, wood blocking and strapping.
Then weigh the protection against the cost and the packed weight. The goal is the cheapest, lightest dunnage that reliably gets the unit there intact, because every damaged unit costs you the product, the freight, and the time to chase a claim.
The deeper point for an FBA business: damage prevention is one piece of protecting the inventory you have already paid for. The other pieces are not running out of it and not letting it sit too long. That is the planning side, and it is where Inventory Hero helps, by telling you how much to reorder and when across FBA, AWD, and your own warehouse.