DEPARTMENT STORES Baby-sitting services are lures to get moms to shop

The stores are struggling to compete with convenient discounters.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Rita Sapp looked relieved as she dropped her 3-year-old son off at a play center in a Rich's department store.
Andrew Sapp was grinning, too, eyeing the toys inside the center where the department store baby-sits children while parents shop.
"I can't shop normally with him, but he has a blast in there," his mother said.
The idea of baby-sitting services is catching on as traditional department stores cater to mothers, once among their most loyal customers but increasingly drawn to more convenient discounters like Wal-Mart and Target.
Rich's-Macy's tested the Playaway baby-sitting center a year ago in an Atlanta suburb. Now the centers have been expanded to five stores in the Atlanta area with more planned.
"Lives have changed for women," said Ellen Fruchtman, spokeswoman for Rich's-Macy's, part of Federated Department Stores Inc., the nation's largest department store chain. "We believe women still do really like to shop, but they want it to be easier."
Targeting moms
Moms are hot targets for department stores, which have been losing market shares to discount retailers for more than a decade.
For the past few years, department stores tried to compete with retailers with lower prices and conveniences such as shopping carts or central check-outs. Now some department stores are backing off that approach in favor of more services for adult women, their core shoppers.
Nordstrom stores provide a nursing lounge for mothers of small children, a quiet room off the women's restroom with clean changing tables, diaper vending machines, and a sofa or two. Nordstrom also is expanding its play area in the children's clothes area, adding salt-water fish tanks and activities for children while their parents shop.