Abstract
In recent years, the “problem of vulnerable shoppers” has become more serious, especially in rural areas of Japan. Accordingly, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has prepared the “Shopping Accessibility Aid Manual” and introduced advanced initiatives such as mobile grocery stores and food delivery services. However, there are no appropriate statistical models that can evaluate the demand for shopping support services and their social benefits. Consequently, it may be difficult for local governments to evaluate the need for shopping support services from the perspectives of both demand and social benefits. This study focused on mobile grocery stores as one of the shopping support services and aimed to quantitatively clarify (1) the determinants of the frequency of mobile grocery store shopping and (2) the impact of mobile grocery store shopping on social interaction in order to address these issues.