With the benefit of hindsight, I think allowing sellers to offer Canada Post with extended handling time was the wrong move.
They can't block those sales entirely because people can still switch to generic "economy shipping" type options, but they can find ways to reward sellers who switched to calculated rates using an eBay partner carrier. Things like dramatically boosting the Best Match placement for sellers using UPS and Fedex, offering buyers coupons specifically for listings that use those, or offering sellers who opt in a discounted final value fee.
Your average buyer is not deep into eBay. They likely assume that everybody on eBay is likely to use Canada Post and that their item will be delayed. eBay needs to be in a position where they can heavily market that they are "Open for business", but actually mean it. Taking orders with a 20 day handling time is not open for business. I suspect most buyers are either buying locally (which is a good thing for their community, just not for us), or buying on Amazon, because the average person (outside of rural areas) knows that Amazon doesn't usually use Canada Post.
Ultimately, I think this entire thing exposed a major weakness with eBay. eBay either needs their own version of Stallion/Chit Chats, or they need to directly integrate those services. They need some form of eBay drop spot at some sort of popular chain, the same way that Amazon's has partnerships through their carriers with Staples, Circle K, etc. Granted, Amazon's drop spots are for returns, but it's the same concept.
It's very obvious that the reliance on Canada Post and the lack of integration with alternate carriers represents a huge threat to eBay long-term. While eBay does have large business-to-business partnerships with sellers who have their own internal access to shipping at scale (Adidas for example), I would guess that a large population of eBay sellers vary across the board in size. Even if something like Stallion is available as an independent platform that is accessible to eBay sellers, the reality is that without it being integrated directly into eBay's label system, and without drop offs being very accessible, the only people who will use alternate carriers will be extremely motivated high-volume sellers.
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