A guard for protecting the sides of a pallet on which goods can be stacked or a merchandise grouping placed on a support surface, the guard comprising a plurality of modular guard sections, each section being couplable to an adjacent section to surround at least a portion of the perimeter of a pallet or merchandise grouping, each modular guard section having a substantially wedge or triangular shape in cross section to increase the stability of the guard section, and the guard sections each having a complementary portion of a joint for coupling the sections together.