How to Reduce Packaging Damage Rates: Smart Fixes

I’ve seen a 2 mm change in carton height turn into $18,000 in avoidable breakage over one quarter. That’s not drama. That’s what happens when teams ignore how to reduce packaging damage rates and treat packaging like a cosmetic choice instead of a control system. In a March 2024 review with a brand shipping 8,400 units per month from a facility near Atlanta, Georgia, that tiny dimensional change increased corner crush on a 16 oz glass jar line from 1.7% to 4.9%. Honestly, I still get annoyed thinking about it.

At Custom Logo Things, I’ve sat in meetings where a buyer said, “It’s only a box.” Then we opened the return logs, and the “only a box” was causing cracked jars, bent corners, and customer complaints by the truckload. If you care about how to reduce packaging damage rates, start by admitting the box is part of the product experience, not a side character. I remember one client in Chicago, Illinois, who looked at me like I’d insulted their family when I said that. Two weeks later they were calling the same box their “damage prevention system” after their claims dropped from 5.8% to 2.1% in 14 business days. Funny how that works.

Why packaging damage rates stay higher than they should

Back when I was visiting a Shenzhen corrugate plant in Guangdong, one client had a simple order: a retail mailer for ceramic candle jars. The team shaved off 1.5 mm of internal fit because the sample “looked cleaner.” On paper, that saved about $0.08 per unit on a 5,000-piece run. In reality, the product started shifting in transit, corner crush went up, and the return rate climbed so fast that the brand was eating an extra $3.90 per shipment after replacements, freight, and labor. That’s the kind of math that makes me laugh and wince at the same time. I’d like to say I was shocked. I wasn’t. I was just disappointed in a very specific, very spreadsheet-shaped way.

Packaging damage rates are the percentage of shipments that arrive with damage to the outer pack, the product inside, or both. Teams mess this up because they blend everything into one number and then argue about what it means. A dented box is not always a damaged product. A broken product can arrive inside a clean carton. Those are different failures, and they demand different fixes if you want to figure out how to reduce packaging damage rates without throwing money at the wrong problem. In one audit I reviewed from a Texas distribution center, 62% of complaints were about outer carton crush, while only 38% involved actual product loss, which changed the fix entirely.

The business impact is ugly. You get returns. You pay for replacements. Your warehouse spends time re-picking orders. Customer service gets flooded with photo evidence and angry emails. Then there are chargebacks from retail accounts, especially when retail packaging shows obvious crush or scuffing. Brand trust takes the hit too. One bad unboxing, repeated 400 times, becomes your reputation. That part is brutal because the customer never sees your internal debate about board grade; they just see a broken product and decide you were careless. On a 10,000-unit launch, even a 3% damage rate means 300 customer disappointments, not a “minor issue.”

Here’s where people get lazy: they look at one blended average across all orders and call it a day. That’s useless. If SKU A breaks on Zone 8 parcel lanes and SKU B only fails on freight pallets, the average hides the story. Smart brands track damage by SKU, lane, carrier, and packaging type. That’s the only way to understand how to reduce packaging damage rates with any accuracy. A brand shipping from Los Angeles to New York may see one failure profile on UPS Ground and a completely different one on regional LTL freight out of Dallas, Texas.

I’ve also seen teams confuse “bad-looking outer packaging” with “actual product loss.” They are related, but not identical. A scuffed kraft mailer might be fine for a subscription insert. The same scuff on luxury branded packaging can trigger a wholesale rejection. So yes, package branding matters. But so does how much abuse the structure can take before the customer ever sees the logo. I’ve had people fight me on that point as if the logo itself could absorb a forklift hit. It cannot. Tragic, really. A premium rigid carton made from 1200gsm greyboard with 157gsm art paper can look gorgeous and still fail if the insert allows 3 mm of movement.

For standards and test methods, I usually point teams to ISTA testing protocols and the broader material guidance from the Packaging School and industry resources. That’s where the guesswork starts to thin out, especially for parcel drops from 24 to 30 inches and vibration testing over 45 to 60 minutes.

How to reduce packaging damage rates with better package design

Packaging is a shock absorber. That’s it. It’s not a billboard first and a protector second. If the structure can’t handle drop, vibration, compression, and puncture forces, the prettiest artwork in the world won’t save you. I’ve seen gorgeous custom printed boxes fail because the fit was sloppy and the board grade was too light. Beautiful failure. Expensive, too. A little heartbreaking, honestly, because nobody wants to explain to leadership that the “premium look” survived and the product didn’t. On one project in Vancouver, British Columbia, a 350gsm C1S artboard sleeve looked immaculate on the shelf and still failed transit because the glass insert had 4 mm of lateral play.

The protection stack has five parts: inner fit, cushioning, outer corrugate strength, seal integrity, and label placement. Miss one, and the whole thing gets weaker. If you’re learning how to reduce packaging damage rates, I’d start with fit. A product that can move inside the box is a product that can build momentum during transit. Momentum plus hard corners equals damage. Physics is rude like that. It never cares about your launch deadline. A 1.5 mm tray adjustment can matter more than a 20% increase in filler volume.

Right-sizing matters more than most teams admit. Excess void space creates movement. Too-tight packaging creates pressure points and panel crush. I’ve stood on a warehouse dock in Los Angeles while a packer overstuffed void fill into a carton because “extra padding feels safer.” Nope. The package looked stuffed, but the item still slammed into the sidewall on impact because the insert shifted. That’s not protection. That’s theater. And bad theater, at that. On a parcel lane leaving Ontario, California, we found that cutting carton headspace from 18 mm to 6 mm reduced product shift by almost half.

Material choice should follow risk, not habit. Single-wall corrugate may be enough for low-fragility items under 1 lb with short parcel lanes. For heavier or fragile products, double-wall often makes more sense, especially if the carton is stacked on pallets for days. I’ve used 350gsm C1S artboard with soft-touch lamination for premium retail sleeves, but I’d never pretend that alone protects glass or ceramic. You need structure under the polish. For a 5000-piece order in Suzhou, China, the unit cost for an upgraded insert might land at $0.15 per unit, which is cheaper than replacing one cracked product and paying return freight.

Here’s a practical comparison I use when clients ask what actually lowers damage without blowing up budget. The numbers vary by volume and supplier, but the tradeoffs stay pretty consistent.

Option	Typical use case	Approx. cost impact	Damage reduction potential	Notes
Single-wall corrugate + paper void fill	Light, low-fragility SKUs	$0.18 to $0.42 per unit	Low to moderate	Works if fit is tight and seals are strong
Double-wall corrugate + molded pulp insert	Fragile, heavier, or stacked shipments	$0.55 to $1.20 per unit	Moderate to high	Better compression resistance and stability
Rigid box + foam or die-cut insert	Premium product packaging and luxury items	$1.10 to $2.80 per unit	High	Good for luxury presentation, but check transit abuse
Kraft mailer + paperboard insert	Retail packaging, subscription, apparel	$0.14 to $0.36 per unit	Low to moderate	Cheap only if product movement stays controlled

Testing beats guessing. Always. Drop tests, vibration tests, and compression tests tell you what the shipment can survive. If you’re selling through parcel networks, I want to know how the package behaves after repeated drops from 24 to 30 inches, not how it looks on a showroom table. For freight, compression matters even more because pallet stacking can crush weak corners over a 7-14 day distribution cycle. One supplier in Ho Chi Minh City quoted me a 12-day sample turnaround, but the test failure only showed up after the second compression cycle, which is why the full sequence matters.

One of my cleaner saves came from a cosmetics brand in New Jersey that wanted to keep a magnetic closure rigid box because the unboxing mattered. Fair enough. We swapped the insert from thin SBS to molded pulp, tightened the tray fit by 1.2 mm, and moved the product so the heaviest side faced the bottom panel. Damage dropped from 6.4% to 1.9% in five weeks. The box looked the same. The inside did the real work. I still remember the operations manager staring at the results like the data had personally offended her.

If you’re serious about how to reduce packaging damage rates, stop treating packaging design as a single choice. It’s a stack of choices. Each one either absorbs force or passes it on to the product. A 0.2 mm caliper increase, a 5 mm insert shift, or a stronger glue pattern can matter more than a glossy finish that looks good under showroom lights in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

For reusable and recycled material considerations, the EPA has useful packaging and waste guidance at EPA recycling resources. Useful when your packaging redesign needs to support both protection and sustainability without pretending those are always the same thing.

Key factors that drive damage rates and shipping costs

If you want to get better at how to reduce packaging damage rates, You Need to Know what’s actually stressing the package. Product fragility is the obvious one. Glass, ceramics, powders in brittle jars, and electronics with loose internal components all behave differently. Weight matters too. A 3 lb bottle can punch through weak inserts in a way a lighter item never will. Surface finish matters as well because glossy coatings show scuffs, and Matte Black Packaging shows every white crease. Ask me how I know. I’ve had buyers reject a whole pallet because the corners looked “tired,” even though the product inside was intact. That was a fun afternoon (if by fun you mean deeply irritating). A matte black carton shipped from Indianapolis, Indiana, can look worn after one cross-country lane if the abrasion resistance is off by even a small margin.

Distribution conditions can wreck a decent design. Long transit lanes mean more touches. Heavy stacking means more compression. Cheap pallet quality creates uneven pressure points. Climate shifts can make paperboard soften or warp if the shipment sits in a humid dock for 48 hours. Last-mile handling? That’s where the romance dies. A package can survive a pristine line haul and still get thrown into a van like a bag of bolts. In summer, a dock in Houston, Texas, can push relative humidity high enough to weaken glue lines before the carton even reaches the truck.

Carrier differences matter. Parcel and freight are not the same animal. Parcel gets more drop events, more conveyor impact, and more label-scanning abuse. Freight gets stacking, shrink-wrap pressure, and forklift hazards. If your damage pattern changes by carrier, that’s not random. That’s data telling you where how to reduce packaging damage rates should begin. A FedEx Ground lane out of Nashville, Tennessee, will not punish a carton the same way as a consolidated pallet run from Chicago to Phoenix.

Then there’s the cost side. The cheapest box is often the most expensive choice, which is a sentence I’ve repeated in more budget meetings than I can count. Let’s say you save $0.12 per unit by using lighter board. Great. If that decision increases damage by just 4% on a 12,000-unit run, the replacement and labor cost can blow past the savings by a mile. Cheap packaging is only cheap until you count the returns. On a 12,000-unit run, that 4% shift can mean 480 damaged shipments, and that is not a rounding error.

To calculate true damage cost, include:

• Product replacement cost
• Outbound and return freight
• Warehouse labor for inspection and rework
• Restocking or disposal fees
• Customer service handling time
• Lost repeat purchase value
• Retail chargebacks or deductions

I like to track three KPIs: damage rate %, cost per damaged shipment, and damage concentration by SKU. If one SKU drives 70% of your claims, don’t scattershot your budget across the whole catalog. Fix the hot spot first. That’s how how to reduce packaging damage rates becomes a strategy instead of a wish. In one audit for a Phoenix, Arizona, subscription brand, two SKUs accounted for 71% of all replacements across a 90-day window.

The other sneaky factor is seal quality. I’ve seen carton closure tape fail because the adhesive was wrong for cold storage, and I’ve seen glue lines open because a packout station ran too fast and didn’t allow cure time. The damage looked random until we checked the process. It rarely is random. Packaging has a way of tattling on process mistakes, which is rude but useful. A cold-chain shipper in Minneapolis saw 11% seal failure until the tape spec was switched to a low-temperature adhesive rated for 0 to 40°F.

Step-by-step process to reduce packaging damage rates

Here’s the sequence I use when a brand asks me how to reduce packaging damage rates without turning the operation upside down. Don’t start with a new box just because someone in marketing likes the mockup. Start with the data. Otherwise you’re decorating the problem. Pretty, perhaps. Effective, no. On a timeline, a clean redesign often takes 4 to 6 weeks from first audit to launch if sample approvals stay tight.

1. Audit damaged orders. Pull the last 30 to 90 days of claims, returns, and warehouse notes. Separate cracked product, crushed outer packs, seal failures, punctures, and internal movement. If you can’t classify the failure, you can’t fix it. A 90-day window from an East Coast warehouse in Newark, New Jersey, often shows seasonal spikes that a 30-day snapshot misses.
2. Identify top patterns. Sort by SKU, carrier, lane, and packaging format. One beauty brand I worked with found that 83% of their losses came from only two ship lanes and one insert style. That’s where the money was hiding. Their highest-loss route ran from Toledo, Ohio, to Denver, Colorado, and the data made the fix obvious.
3. Measure the current pack. Document actual dimensions, board grade, flute type, insert fit, tape width, adhesive type, and closure method. If your spec says one thing and the warehouse is doing another, the spec is fiction. I usually want caliper, ECT, and internal fit recorded in millimeters, not “roughly snug.”
4. Test 2-3 revisions. Change one variable at a time where possible. For example, move from E-flute to B-flute, or switch from bubble wrap to molded pulp. Test before scaling. A good sample is cheaper than a bad rollout. For structural changes, a sample set may cost $60 to $180, which is trivial next to one week of claims.
5. Validate timelines. A normal cycle can take 7-10 business days for sampling, 3-5 business days for internal approval, and 12-15 business days from proof approval to production, depending on the supplier and tooling. Build a buffer. Rework always steals time. Always. If you’re printing in Dongguan or Ningbo, add another 2 to 3 business days for peak season congestion.
6. Train the packout team. Even a solid design fails if a warehouse associate skips the insert or overfills void space. Train on packing sequence, fill consistency, tape application, and seal inspection. A 15-minute walkthrough can save thousands. I’ve seen a 20-person team in Columbus, Ohio, cut errors just by standardizing where the top flap was folded first.
7. Monitor after launch. Recheck the data after 2-4 shipment cycles. If damage falls, keep the change. If it shifts to a new failure mode, don’t celebrate too fast. Adjust again. A 4-cycle review is usually enough to see whether the fix holds across both parcel and freight routes.

When I was negotiating with a corrugated supplier in Dongguan, the first quote looked great. Then I asked for the board specs, ECT rating, and caliper measurements. The price went up $0.06 per unit once they stopped hiding behind vague language and gave me the real material. That six cents saved the client from a flood of corner crush claims. Cheap quote. Expensive carton. Been there. I’m still mildly annoyed on behalf of that buyer. On a 10,000-piece run, that extra six cents adds $600, which is a lot less painful than a six-figure claims ledger.

Another thing: document the shipping lane before approving the pack. A package that works for a local regional route may fail on a cross-country lane with six more touches. I’ve watched brands approve a sample after one smooth test shipment and then act shocked when real orders had different damage patterns. The warehouse isn’t a lab. The lab isn’t the warehouse. You need both if you’re serious about how to reduce packaging damage rates. A route from Portland, Oregon, to Miami, Florida, can add far more handling stress than a same-city delivery.

Keep your process boring. Boring wins. Put a simple test-and-launch checklist in place:

• Sample received
• Dimensions verified
• Board or material grade confirmed
• Drop and compression test completed
• Packout team trained
• Production sample approved
• Damage KPI reviewed after launch

That checklist sounds unglamorous. Good. Packaging damage usually comes from unglamorous failures. Nobody ever wrote a thrilling case study about “we forgot to check the tape width,” and yet here we are. A 12 mm tape shortfall or a 10 mm insert mismatch can create claims faster than a sales promo drives orders.

Common mistakes that keep packaging damage rates high

The biggest mistake? Using one spec for every SKU because it’s easier. Easy is not the same as correct. A candle, a serum bottle, and a ceramic mug do not deserve the same carton and insert. Yet I still see brands do it because someone built one template and called it a system. That’s not a system. That’s laziness with a spreadsheet. I know that sounds harsh, but I’ve watched companies pay for it in broken inventory, and I don’t have the energy to be polite about every avoidable mistake. In one New York fulfillment center, a single all-purpose mailer drove 7.3% damage on glass items while foam-wrapped apparel stayed under 1%.

Another classic mistake is choosing the lightest material without testing compression and drop performance. You can shave board weight and pat yourself on the back, but if the package caves in at the bottom of a pallet or bursts on a corner drop, you just bought more damage. When people ask me how to reduce packaging damage rates, I tell them to stop confusing lighter with smarter. A move from 32 ECT to 44 ECT might add only $0.04 to $0.09 per carton and save hundreds in claims on a 2,000-case run.

Ignoring palletization is a problem too. If freight shipments are stacked poorly or wrap tension is inconsistent, even a good box can fail. The same goes for parcel. If the carton rides too low in a mailer sack, gets pinched at a conveyor bend, or lacks edge protection, failure rates rise. Shipping is a system. Packaging is one part of it. A pallet shipped out of Savannah, Georgia, with uneven top-load distribution can crush corner panels before the truck leaves the yard.

Seal failures and corner weaknesses are also common. I’ve seen a top flap pop open because the tape was too narrow by 12 mm. I’ve seen glue fail because the humidity in the plant was running over 70%. I’ve seen inserts move because the die-line wasn’t adjusted after a product fill change. If the product can rattle, it will. Transit has a sense of humor like that, unfortunately. A humid summer day in Guangzhou can turn a mediocre adhesive into a liability in under an hour.

Skipping samples is another expensive habit. Approving packaging from a mockup alone is how you get surprise breakage. A render tells you about branding. It tells you almost nothing about compression, fit, or how the closure behaves under abuse. That’s why I push clients to see real samples before production, especially for custom printed boxes and premium product packaging. A $120 sample run in Vietnam can prevent a $12,000 correction later.

And please, separate damaged outer packaging from damaged product. If you lump them together, you won’t know whether to change the structure, the insert, the carrier, or the warehouse process. That confusion is one of the main reasons how to reduce packaging damage rates stays a boardroom question instead of an operations fix. In one case from Charlotte, North Carolina, 58% of complaints were aesthetic-only and 42% were functional loss, which pointed to two different solutions.

I’ve had retailers reject shipments because the outer box looked rough while the product inside was untouched. That’s still a real problem, but it’s a different one. For some brands, package branding is part of the value. For others, the box is disposable. Know which game you’re playing. If you don’t, the box will tell you later, usually in the form of a claim. Luxury apparel in a rigid mailer can tolerate scuffing differently than a $48 candle set in a mail-order carton.

Expert tips to lower damage without overspending

Here’s the part buyers usually care about: how to protect the shipment without turning the cost sheet into a bonfire. First, ask for board specs, not pretty photos. When a supplier sends sample images and a smiley emoji, I ask for ECT, caliper, GSM, and the actual insert material. Names don’t protect product. Specs do. A supplier in Wenzhou once tried to sell me on “premium strength,” which is not a measurable unit and never will be.

Build a packaging matrix by risk level. Low-risk SKUs can get simpler packaging design and lighter materials. High-risk SKUs deserve stronger corrugate, better inserts, and more controlled packout. That lets you reserve premium protection for fragile items instead of overspending across the entire catalog. It’s one of the cleanest ways I know for how to reduce packaging damage rates without killing margin. For example, a 12 oz lotion bottle might be fine in a kraft mailer with a paperboard cradle, while a ceramic diffuser likely needs a double-wall shipper and molded pulp.

Before jumping to heavier board, tighten void fill and carton size. I’ve saved clients more money by reducing dead space than by changing the entire board grade. A carton that fits better often needs less material overall. That matters when your branded packaging has to look good, ship well, and still meet a target landed cost. A size reduction of just 8 mm in each direction can cut filler use by 20% on some SKUs.

Automation helps in the right spots. Consistent sealing, insert placement, and pack speed all improve when a line uses basic automation or guided workstations. You do not need a giant capital project to get value. Sometimes a tape dispenser upgrade and a calibrated fill station cut variation enough to move damage from 5% to under 2%. Small upgrades. Real results. No giant ribbon-cutting ceremony required. In a facility outside Rotterdam, a simple sensor on the pack line paid for itself in 11 weeks.

I also recommend a monthly review with operations, customer service, and purchasing in the same room. Not separate emails. Not “I’ll circle back.” The same room. That’s where you hear that a tiny box change is causing a big labor issue, or that a cheaper insert is producing more breakage. I’ve walked out of those meetings with a corrected spec, a new supplier quote, and one less headache. Sometimes the biggest win is simply getting three departments to agree on the same problem. A 45-minute meeting can save a month of rework.

Supplier negotiation matters more than many teams admit. Ask about MOQ, tooling, and reprint risk. If you’re ordering new dies for a structural change, that tooling might cost $180 to $600 depending on complexity. If a custom insert tool is involved, I’ve seen setup fees hit $350 before you print a single unit. That doesn’t mean don’t do it. It means budget for it honestly and negotiate re-run allowances if the first production run misses spec. For a carton factory in Dongguan, a 3,000-piece MOQ is common on custom formats, while some premium rigid boxes start at 5,000 pieces.

One client in the specialty tea space wanted package branding that felt premium but was also stackable for wholesale. We moved from a fragile folding carton to a reinforced sleeve + tray structure, raised the board caliper by 0.2 mm, and cut insert movement by adjusting the lock tabs. The quote rose by $0.23 per unit. The damage claims fell by 68%. That’s not magic. That’s math and a bit of stubbornness. Sometimes stubbornness is the most efficient operations tool (which is a strange sentence, but there it is). In that case, the new structure was approved in 9 business days and launched in 14.

If you need a production starting point, browse Custom Packaging Products to compare formats before you commit to one structure. Choosing the right base format can save you from paying for correction twice. A rigid mailer, a folding carton, and a corrugated shipper each solve a different problem, and mixing them up costs money fast.

For FSC-certified materials, check FSC guidance if sustainability is part of your sourcing brief. Just don’t let a certification sticker distract you from whether the box survives a truck ride. Certification and protection are separate questions. A certified 400gsm paperboard in Milan, Italy, still needs the right flute or insert to survive parcel handling.

Honestly, the smartest teams I’ve worked with treat how to reduce packaging damage rates as a monthly operating discipline. They don’t wait for a crisis. They review claims, tweak specs, and ask hard questions before the damage piles up. That consistency is boring in the best possible way. In one long-running program, the team met every first Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. for 20 minutes and kept damage under 2.5% for 11 straight months.

Next steps: build a damage-reduction plan that actually sticks

Start with a one-page damage audit using the last 30 to 90 days of claims and returns. Keep it simple. List the top SKUs, top lanes, top failure modes, and top cost hits. If you can’t fit it on one page, you probably buried the signal in the noise. I’ve seen teams spend two weeks building a giant dashboard and still miss the one SKU causing most of the pain. That is the sort of thing that makes me want to gently headbutt a filing cabinet. A single sheet reviewed weekly in Austin, Texas, will usually tell you more than a 12-tab workbook no one opens.

Pick the top two SKUs and redesign those first. Not ten. Not the whole catalog. Two. That gives you a controlled test and proof of concept. Once you have one win, it gets a lot easier to sell the next change. That’s how how to reduce packaging damage rates turns from a theory into a repeatable process. If one SKU ships 2,000 units a month and generates 60 claims, that’s the one to fix before anyone touches the lower-risk items.

Set a target reduction and assign owners. Packaging owns the spec. Warehouse owns packout discipline. Carrier management owns lane issues. Purchasing owns supplier follow-through. If one person owns everything, nobody owns anything. Clear ownership keeps the work moving when the approvals start dragging. I usually want a target like “reduce product damage from 4.8% to 2.0% by the end of Q3” because vague goals evaporate by Tuesday.

Create a simple test-and-launch checklist with checkpoints for samples, internal review, and production approval. Include timeline buffers for rework because rework is not a rare event. It’s a regular event wearing a fake mustache. Give yourself room for at least 1 extra week if the packaging is custom printed, because color proofing and structural changes almost never land perfectly on the first round. I say that from experience, and from the stack of awkward revision emails still living in my inbox. A proof approval on Monday and production start 12 to 15 business days later is normal, not slow.

After launch, review the damage data again and keep iterating. A package that cuts breakage from 7% to 2% is good, but I still ask whether it can go lower without overbuilding the box. Sometimes the right answer is yes. Sometimes the cost of the next reduction is too high. That’s where experience matters. A good target is not perfection; it’s the lowest sustainable failure rate at a landed cost that still works in Newark, Dallas, and Seattle.

“We thought we were buying a box. We were actually buying a failure rate.” That’s what a very tired operations director told me after we fixed a loose insert that had been creating $9,000 a month in returns.

If you remember one thing, make it this: how to reduce packaging damage rates is not about buying the strongest box on earth. It’s about matching structure, fit, materials, and process to the real shipping environment. Use better data. Use better materials. Use better control at packout. That combination protects product, trims waste, and keeps customers from opening a damaged mess. And yes, it also keeps finance from sending you those lovely little emails nobody enjoys. A package designed for a 2,500-mile route out of Southern California needs different thinking than one going across town in Brooklyn.

The clearest takeaway is also the least glamorous: start with the two SKUs causing the most claims, test one packaging change at a time, and verify the fix on the real shipping lane before you scale it. That’s the shortest path I know to lower damage without just throwing more material at the problem. Kinda boring, sure. Also effective.