I recently discovered this accidently. When on the main menu of the ranch, you can go directly to the item shop by pressing L1 or R1.

Yep. I was irritated when I first found out in MR2 that they had cut that little deal. They should feature it in MR3, in my opinion (and anyone who has MF3 and would say that they don't have it, just remember that it wouldn't be too hard to program that in for the North American release).