Void fill is the part of packing nobody photographs, but it decides whether your parcel arrives looking the way you intended. Too little and the contents rattle around. Too much and you are paying for material and bin space your customer will resent. The three options most small businesses weigh up are shredded paper, bubble wrap and inflatable air packaging, and each suits a different job.
Here is a plain comparison, so you can pick the right one for your product rather than defaulting to whatever you used last time.
First, what void fill is actually for
Void fill does two jobs. It stops your product moving inside the box, and it absorbs knocks so the product is not taking the hit directly. Movement is the bigger culprit in most breakages: an item that can slide and strike the box wall will take more damage than one held firmly in place.
The box matters just as much as the filler. If you are using a box that is far too large, no amount of filler will fully fix it. Our guide on choosing the right box size is worth reading before you decide how much void fill you need.
Shredded paper: the presentable option
Shredded paper is the choice when how the parcel looks on opening matters as much as how it travels. We stock ZigZag shredded paper in natural, black and white, so you can match it to your brand colours. A black ZigZag nest in a brown kraft box looks deliberate, which is exactly what you want for gifts, cosmetics, candles and food and drink.
It is best at filling gaps and cushioning light to medium products, and it is paper, so your customer can recycle it. Its limit is that it does not hold a heavy or fragile item rigidly in place on its own. If you are posting something that breaks easily, treat shredded paper as the finishing layer rather than the only protection.
Bubble wrap: the familiar all-rounder
Bubble wrap wraps around an item, which makes it useful for awkward shapes and for products that need a protective layer against the surface. You can find bubble wrap among our other packaging supplies.
The trade-off is presentation and disposal. Plastic bubble wrap does not give the premium unboxing feel that paper does, and your customer has to deal with it afterwards. For a trade or B2B parcel where function is all that counts, that is perfectly reasonable. For a brand that has paid to print its box, it can undercut the impression.
Inflatable air packaging: made for specific products
Air packaging is different from the other two because it is shaped around particular products. Our inflatable air packaging range covers bottles, mugs and other ceramics, plates, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, and it is inflated with a hand pump. Because it is built for the item, it holds the product away from the box walls instead of simply filling space.
That makes it a strong choice for products that are valuable or breakable and have a regular shape, such as bottles and ceramics. It is less suited to a mixed bag of random items, where a flexible filler is easier to work with. If you are packing bottles specifically, our bottle packaging collection also includes corrugated and Flexi-Hex sleeves.
Which should you choose?
- Presentation-led, light to medium products: shredded paper.
- Irregular shapes needing a wrapped layer: bubble wrap.
- Regular, breakable items such as bottles, ceramics and electronics: inflatable air packaging.
You can also combine them. Air packaging around a fragile item with a little shredded paper to fill the remaining gaps gives you protection and a tidy opening.
Where printing fits in, and where it does not
We should be clear about this. Void fill is a stock, unprinted product. What we print is your box, mailer or bag, using full colour water-based digital inkjet, in the pre-defined print areas for that product. Printing happens on the outside and, on boxes, the inside too, but never across the entire surface, and white in your artwork will show as the colour of the material, because we do not print white ink.
That is a good reason to choose your filler to complement the print. A natural or black ZigZag fill sits well against a one or two colour logo on kraft, and it keeps the focus on your branding. You can see the options in our postal cardboard boxes, and our FAQ page covers print areas in more detail.
A simple way to test before you commit
Pack one real order the way you plan to ship it, close the box and give it a firm shake. If you can hear or feel the product move, add more filler or choose a better fit. Do this with the real product, not a stand-in, because weight and shape change the result. Since we offer blank samples of our base products for a couple of pence, you can test the box itself before you order any printing.
Pick the filler that matches the product and the impression you want to leave, and you will protect your parcels without overspending on material.
