Wal-Mart is joining Target in bid to woo millennial parents

Two of the nation's largest mass retailers are duking it out for the attention of millennial parents.

Under CEO Brian Cornell, Target Corp. has identified young moms as its core target audience and has elevated baby and kids products to be one of its "signature categories" that will get the most investment along with areas such as style and wellness. Some of that extra focus has already begun to show up on store shelves in the form of new organic and natural pre-natal and baby products.

But Wal-Mart is aggressively courting that demographic, too. It announced today that it has added hundreds of new baby products to its lineup in the last years from about 20 national brands including Baby Bjorn, Ella's, and Plum Organics. In a conference call with reporters, Wal-Mart executives would not say how big of an increase this is to its previous assortment and whether more space has been added in its stores for baby products. But they said it was a "fairly significant increase."

In addition, Wal-Mart said it has upgraded its baby registry, allowing parents to create and manage it from the retailer's mobile app. It also highlighted a new car seat it worked with Evenflo to develop that aims to help parents not to forget their child in the car. The infant car seat, which will offered exclusively at Wal-Mart for about a year, sets of a series of tones if the car is turned off and the chest clip around the baby is still buckled.

So why are both retailers so enamored by young families? Well, the spend a lot of money for one. And, of course, if they can get them hooked now, retailers hope they will remain customers for life.