Employment
99,773
Total employees (Census CBP)
Wholesale Trade ·NAICS 423710
NAICS 423710 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP
Hardware Merchant Wholesalers - Industry Benchmarks
$77,949/yr average annual pay, with 246 SBA loans on record for NAICS 423710.
- 4.1%
- Wholesale Trade sector margin
- 100K
- Workers employed
- $77,949/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $221M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Data updated July 2026
The verdict · NAICS 423710
California leads Hardware Merchant Wholesalers activity nationally. IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at this NAICS level, but the broader Wholesale Trade sector runs a 4.1% net margin.
- 4.1%
- Wholesale Trade sector margin (IRS SOI)
- 100K
- Workers employed (Census CBP)
- $77,949/yr
- Avg payroll / employee
- $221M
- SBA lending, FY20–26
Benchmarking Insights for Hardware Merchant Wholesalers
Hardware Merchant Wholesalers sits inside Wholesale Trade, a sector that runs a 4.1% net margin overall.
5,967 establishments employ 99,773 workers (16.7/location) at $77,949/yr average annual pay. California leads employment, followed by Texas and Ohio.
Avg Payroll / Employee
$77,949/yr
Annual compensation
Establishments
5,967
Business locations
Release-over-release change
What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023
Employment increased by 4,142; establishment count increased by 63. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.
Workforce scale
Financial Detail
- Annual Payroll (Total)
- $7.8B
- Avg Employees per Establishment
- 16.7
Top States by Employment
| State | Employment |
|---|---|
| California | 12,115 |
| Texas | 8,380 |
| Ohio | 5,782 |
| Illinois | 5,692 |
| North Carolina | 4,426 |
| Florida | 4,088 |
| Michigan | 3,597 |
| Wisconsin | 3,354 |
| Indiana | 3,344 |
| New Jersey | 2,229 |
Showing top 10 of 50 states
SBA Lending Activity
SBA FY2020–2026SBA Loans Approved
246
Total Loan Volume
$221M
Avg Loan Size
$900K
Jobs Supported
1,904
Program Breakdown
7(a) 183 (74%)
504 63 (26%)
Top SBA Lender
The Huntington National Bank
12 loans in this industry
New Business Share
18.3% of borrowers were new/startup businesses
Annual Lending Trend (7 yrs)
2020 29
2021 41
2022 44
2023 37
2024 47
2025 43
2026 5
Frequently Asked Questions
How profitable is Hardware Merchant Wholesalers?
IRS SOI doesn't publish margin data at the NAICS 423710 level. California leads this industry nationally. The broader Wholesale Trade sector runs a 4.1% net margin (IRS SOI 2023).
How many businesses are in Hardware Merchant Wholesalers?
5,967 business establishments. Together they employ 99,773 workers.
What is the average payroll per employee in Hardware Merchant Wholesalers?
$77,949/yr average annual pay per employee. Businesses average 16.7 employees per establishment.
Which states have the most Hardware Merchant Wholesalers employment?
California leads with 12,115 workers. Texas (8,380) and Ohio (5,782) round out the top three.
How much SBA lending does Hardware Merchant Wholesalers receive?
Hardware Merchant Wholesalers businesses received 246 SBA loans totaling $221 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $900K. These loans supported 1,904 jobs at origination. Most lending (74%) came through the SBA 7(a) program.
Comparable industry benchmarks
These links are calculated from the current national dataset. They are comparison paths, not recommendations or evidence that businesses operate alike.
How this ranks: Its Census employment total exceeds 73% of that same 801-industry cohort. Calculated by ranking this industry's reported value against every other industry at the same NAICS digit-level, not the whole dataset: comparing a 6-digit detail industry to a 2-digit sector would mix incompatible scales.
Closest workforce scale
Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported Census employment.
- Ship Building and Repairing 99,786
- Automobile Manufacturing 99,754
- Diagnostic Imaging Centers 99,727
Benchmarking Hardware Merchant Wholesalers
- No margin data, check the parent industry. Browse Wholesale Trade
- 5,967 establishments, 99,773 workers. Payroll benchmarks
- 246 SBA loans on record. SBA lending rankings
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.
Sources: IRS Statistics of Income (SOI) Business Tax Statistics · Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023
NAICS 423710 · Data year: 2023
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which released its 2023 County Business Patterns dataset in June 2025, PlainBizBench benchmarks 2,002 U.S. industries against Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income data. See our methodology for the full compilation process.
Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB Industry employment scale, payroll, and firm-size benchmarks · 2023
Every figure on PlainBizBench is rendered directly from federal source data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page aggregates profit-margin, payroll, entity-type, and SBA-lending benchmarks for this industry, live from the dataset. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.
Disclaimer: Public IRS/Census data, not financial or tax advice. See our full disclaimer.