This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
This follows post #30 rather than contradicting it.
Reading back through the consistent declarations threads from last year, the same three questions come up every time and only one of them has ever been answered properly. That seems like a documentation gap rather than a knowledge gap.
Worth separating two things that post #28 runs together.
Import restrictions by jurisdiction: what is legal to import for personal use varies enormously by country. Some jurisdictions are quite permissive; others are not. Checking your own country's rules before ordering is prudent.
Document outcomes rather than forecasting them. A forecast in this category reads as reassurance and is not one.
That is where I would start, not where I would stop.
Taking consistent declarations seriously for a moment rather than deflecting: the honest position is that the community has observations and no controlled comparison, and those two things support very different sentences.
Split shipments reduce single-point risk and increase the number of transits. Which trade is right depends on what you are protecting against.
Reporting the observation and leaving the explanation open deliberately.
Small correction to my own earlier position on consistent declarations. I had the units the wrong way round, which changes the conclusion by an order of magnitude and therefore changes it entirely.
Customs outcomes are not predictable at the level of an individual parcel. What is predictable is that consistent, accurate declarations correlate with fewer interventions, and that the same route behaves differently in different months.
The rule of thumb is fine; the edge cases are where it earns its keep.
A note on how consistent declarations gets discussed rather than on consistent declarations itself: the confident posts get the replies and the careful ones get ignored, and the careful ones have been right more often.
Post #41 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
I read the earlier replies on consistent declarations twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.
On post #41 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Anyone deciding whether a delay is a problem should ask what would change if they waited another week. Usually the answer is nothing.
Import restrictions by jurisdiction: what is legal to import for personal use varies enormously by country. Some jurisdictions are quite permissive; others are not. Checking your own country's rules before ordering is prudent.
Nothing above should be read as advice about what anyone else should do.
Worth separating two things that post #46 runs together.
If you are new and reading this thread for the answer to consistent declarations: the answer is conditional, the conditions are in the third reply, and the rest of the thread is worth skipping.
This follows post #46 rather than contradicting it.
Document outcomes rather than forecasting them. A forecast in this category reads as reassurance and is not one.
Border outcomes are not predictable at the level of an individual parcel. What is predictable is that consistent, accurate declarations correlate with fewer interventions.
That much is documented. The rest is how I have interpreted it.
Since consistent declarations keeps coming up, it should probably be a maintained page rather than a recurring thread. I am happy to draft it if someone with more direct experience will review it.
Post #48 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Consistent declarations is a good example of a question where the honest answer is boring and the interesting answers are unsupported. I would go with boring.
Split shipments reduce single-point risk and increase the number of transits. Which trade is right depends on what you are protecting against.
Take it as a starting point and not as a specification.
One caution on consistent declarations: everything above assumes the underlying documentation is what it claims to be. That assumption is doing real work and is rarely stated.
I have been on both sides of the consistent declarations argument in this category within eighteen months, which should tell you how strong the evidence for either side is.
Peak periods and public holidays affect this more than any other factor and are entirely predictable in advance.
Worth saying I have only my own numbers here, and n is small.
The version of consistent declarations that I was taught turned out to be a teaching simplification. Useful, and not true in the way I had assumed it was.
Reading this consistent declarations thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not.
On post #54 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Import restrictions by jurisdiction: what is legal to import for personal use varies enormously by country. Some jurisdictions are quite permissive; others are not. Checking your own country's rules before ordering is prudent.
Recording ordinary deliveries is what makes the record useful. A file of only the bad ones cannot tell you the rate.
Noting that I have skin in this question and have tried to discount for it.
The practical version of consistent declarations is three sentences long. The rigorous version is three pages and reaches the same conclusion with the conditions attached.