Seven months after a new system for recording imported merchandise was introduced, HM Customs is re-evaluating the standard it adopted.

Retailers - especially those with more limited resources - complain that the new classification system makes the process of completing Customs declarations cumbersome and time-consuming because it requires detailed descriptions of every item.

Since the adoption of the new system, the classification guide has swelled from 70 pages to 350 pages. Whereas clothes previously fell into a couple of general categories, importers are now required to answer questions like "Is the merchandise knitted or crocheted?" (or not) and indicate if it is for men or women, boys or girls.

And although Customs is primarily concerned with collecting duty, the new system is more an exercise in collecting statistics. The harmonised code, as it is commonly known, is used worldwide and allows the Government to collect trade statistics for its own purposes and global organisations. It doesn't change the amount of duty collected.

Now, through the Trade Consultative Committee, shop owners have suggested that Customs collapse the codes into more general categories.

Clothing retailers have expressed the most concern about the system, and Assistant Collector of Customs Larry Conn said Government was looking at how to simplify the process for them.

Ronnie Maughan, the general manager of Tess Limited, which owns The English Sports Shop group of stores, said his company manages with the new system, although he admitted that the paperwork required more time to be completed.

"But smaller importers are having a hell of a time," he added, in part because exporters don't have any obligation to provide the codes required by Customs.

"We want information they don't ordinarily supply," he said, adding that his company is lucky if it even gets an invoice from US exporters.

Although he and other retailers recognises the value of the statistics, he questioned whether the system could be made simpler for retailers.

Customs has even hired two permanent classification officers to help retailers with the forms. But many still find the detail overbearing.

One small retailer on Church Street who preferred to remain anonymous said she bought a software package to produce the forms and she said classification officers at Customs give her the necessary codes.

But she still spends two nights a week preparing declarations for her shipments, which include clothing and non-clothing merchandise.

Like Mr. Maughan, her distributor does not provide her with codes.

Pierre Dutoya, Hornburg Calypso's general manager, said the problem was partly due to the fact that suppliers often failed to understand that Bermuda is a foreign country and shipments are subject to export regulations. Calypso imports about half of its merchandise from the US, but Mr. Dutoya said filing the forms was easier once merchandise was imported a second time.

Mr. Conn would not give a timetable for changes or even confirm that modifications would be implemented.

As retailers wait, Joy Simons, one of the two classification officers and a clear proponent of the new system ("it's clearer," she said), explained that the clothing category was already simplified and could not be collapsed if Customs was going to stick with the harmonised system. She added that customs made the classification of fish and vegetables easier in February when those categories were condensed.

The harmonised system was introduced with the expectation that an online filing system for declarations would be implemented. The latter, which is expected to save clerks the effort of entering Customs forms into the computer system, has yet to appear.