DHL customs duty add-on charges

I didn't read the fine print, lol.

Regardless, I'm happy with my purchase but I shouldn't need to go to FAQs to know my final cost. Nevertheless, it's worthwhile insurance in case you don't get what you paid for.

My point initially was to evidence there's usually an additional cost

I'm not speaking from personal experience, as I haven't done it, but I've read other posts that they request their watch be shipped via parcel post and they don't pay those charges

I described some of this above. The 'Tax Duty Receiver' is DHL's fixed administrative fee. Kind of a strange term; almost seems intentionally misleading.

From the US customs website, the 'Merchandise Processing Fee' is supposed to be ~0.3% of the declared value for formal entries, subject to a minimum of $29.66 (as of Oct 2022). For informal entries, the fee should be <$10. I would think that a watch with a declared value of <$2500 would be considered an informal entry, but it looks like most people (at least those who use DHL) get hit with the minimum fee for a formal entry.

It looks like you took a little hit because your case was valued at $1800.

Australia Post or Auspost as they’re also known,now has a very good tracking system, I even get notifications telling me that it’s coming today, another giving me a time window of when to expect it and another apologising if it’s running late.
It wasn’t always so, their tracking used to be useless.

Mind you it might just depend on the local service providers actually bothering to log the item as it passes through their hands.
The other problem is that international postal services may not have decent tracking protocols in place so Auspost can only work with what tracking is provided to them by the international postal carriers.

Most of the tracking here is done automatically by the automated parcel and mail sorting and dispatch centres.
The package size, weight, and the address scan are all automatically done by the sorting and dispatch system in a huge building with the items travelling at @ 3m per second (@10’ per second for those of you not using the superior metric system )
Small regular mail systems travel even faster.
I’ve installed quite a bit of this high speed automated handling and sorting equipment for Auspost and other freight carriers and well over 95% goes through the system 1st time without any trouble, most of the rest goes through the 2nd time, but a small percentage is either poorly packaged and/or addressed by the sender and this can cause problems. The item is put aside and dealt with manually later, sometimes this can build up and it might take a while for them to get through the backlog.
There is no reason why private courier companies could not provide good tracking too, it all depends on if they can be arsed putting the procedures in place and programming the system to implement it. It will be already built in to the handling system.

Then there is another problem cased by mishandling of the items by operators manually loading the goods into the automated system.

So my advice is to clearly address your items and pack them well, as foolproof as you can do it. If using a box, wrap the whole package in clear tape or plastic so as to give it a chance of the label not getting torn or wet as well as protecting the contents from moisture.
I once saw a operator wipeout the fire system ring main with a forklift everything copped a good spray that day.
Another time some idiot sent paint in a 4 litre can loosely shoved in a box…… the result was the lid came off and managed to paint every bloody thing, conveyers, parcels the whole lot! You’d be surprised how far 4 litres of paint can go at 3 meters per second!

The padded parcel satchels ( the ones lined with bubble wrap, not the paper ones lined with cotton waste or shredded paper, those will soak up water) sold by the post office are an excellent way to send things if properly packed, again
I recommend covering the address label in clear tape. Of course this advice is only really good to the sender, as a receiver your at the mercy of the sender.
The need to wrap you parcels in tape or plastic is important. Whilst the likelihood of a rouge forklift collecting the fire services as it speeds past being driven by an idiot is thankfully quite small, though it happens more often than you’d think.
The other reason for wrapping it is so that it gets some protection if it gets left sitting on the recipients doorstep in shitty weather.

DHL increased their prices from 1 January. in my country They also force to pay insurance when you send a watch even it's not a very high price watch and you do not want insurance.

Funny how service between the major carriers (to different members) varies so much. DHL couldn't be slower. In one instance they left a new watch I purchased from the UK, in the snow bank at the top of my driveway. By sheer luck I spotted it at 0430 the next day, on my way to work. I thought it was litter (unusual for my neighborhood), so I stopped to pick it up and discovered it was in fact, my package.

A few weeks ago I received a returned watch (from Switzerland), following repairs. The repair bill was about $500. It was held in Customs until I, and Omega answered several questions about the value. It didn't seem to matter that the watch was already owned by me. They released it after a couple of days, but I received a bill from Fedex for about $23. When I called to pay the invoice, the Fedex lady told me Fedex did not get any part of that. It was all a Customs fee.

I was just happy to get my watch back, restored.

Did you fill out a watch worksheet?

In my case, DHL showed the worksheet that was filled-out by the seller and asked if it was correct. The seller had put down a 50/50 split between the movement and case. I didn't think that was accurate, so I filled out my own -- putting down realistic estimates for the case and bracelet, assigning the rest to the movement. I wonder if filling out your own worksheet triggers the single clearance fee (SCF).