The rice shops are a stale scenario, or at least they were into the end of last year--I haven't seen them since. You are required to purchase a specific size new box and a 1# bag of rice, then package it and take it to a shipper to send it to a specific address. I have been in the shipping place when a shopper was sending the requisite box to the specific address. If I can recognize it having done about a dozen of these shops in 2006 and could still recognize the box and address in late 2007, do you think the shipper hasn't seen the pattern?
The other problem with the shop is that they spoke of it as being a $22.50 shop but it was a $10 fee and even when the price of shipping was less and the price of rice was half what it is now the $11.50 barely covered the expense, much less cover the additional trip to get supplies.