Lessons learned: if a retailer chain wishes to succeed, especially in period of holiday sales, they must watch FASHION TRENDS. Now we can see something opposite: Wal-Mart suffers for its own fashion mistakes.

Wal-Mart, the largest US retailer, on Thursday issued a sombre forecast for sales in December, blaming mis-steps in its efforts to introduce more fashionable and expensive clothing and home furnishings into its low-cost discount stores.

The retailer said it expected sales at stores open at least a year to grow by no more than 1 per cent, after comparable sales fell by 0.1 per cent in November – the first drop since 1996.

The company cited continued problems with its home and clothing categories, where its core customers have not responded well to its drive to introduce goods such as the Metro 7 women's clothing range across its entire store network.

Eduardo Castro-Wright, chief executive of Wal-Mart's US stores division, said: "The home and apparel business is challenging and this will continue throughout the fourth quarter." He noted that basic items in both categories continued to sell well.

The company said it did not expect to see improvements in both categories until spring.

The drive to persuade more prosperous customers to buy more than food and basics at the stores has been the focus of an overhaul of the retailer's marketing strategy over the past year – sometimes at the expense of its traditional low-price message.

Mr Castro-Wright said the retailer's pre-Christmas marketing would focus on "communicating price leadership" and that it would deliver further price cuts in the run-up to the holidays.

Wal-Mart's poor performance in November contrasted with Target, its more upmarket rival, which reported a 5.9 per cent increase in comparable store sales, and predicted growth of 3.5-5.5 per cent for December.

Overall, leading US retailers reported a subdued November. Retail Metrics said its monthly index of same store sales growth rose 2.2 per cent, and that more than half the retailers reporting missed their forecast numbers.

Several clothing retailers cited the impact of unseasonably warm November weather on sales of winter clothing, and this was also cited as a negative factor by Ann Taylor, the women's clothing retailer, and Kohls, the low cost department store.

The big three traditional department store chains, however, again delivered above-average performances. Federated said November same-store sales rose 8.5 per cent at its Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores, and raised its estimate for December sales. Saks and Nordstrom saw sales growth of 7.2 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively.

Gap, the largest US speciality clothing retailer, saw its sales woes continue at its Gap and Old Navy stores. The group's overall same store sales were down 8 per cent, and total net sales slipped 2 per cent to $1.4bn.