NAICS 452 · IRS SOI 2023 · Census CBP

General Merchandise Stores - Industry Benchmarks

179 SBA loans on record, $70M in volume, for NAICS 452.

Compiled by PlainBizBench Editorial, Industry Data Editorial Team

4.7%
Net margin: N/A
Workers employed: N/A
Avg payroll / employee: $70M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Data updated July 2026

The verdict · NAICS 452

General Merchandise Stores runs a 4.7% pre-tax net margin - below the national median - across 60K establishments employing N/A workers.

4.7%
Pre-tax net margin (IRS SOI): N/A
Workers employed (Census CBP): N/A
Avg payroll / employee: $70M
SBA lending, FY20–26

Benchmarking Insights for General Merchandise Stores

General Merchandise Stores sits inside Retail Trade at a 4.7% net margin (below the national median), $705.5B in aggregate receipts across 9,537 returns, averaging $74.0B per establishment.

59,516 establishments employ N/A workers. California leads employment, followed by New York and Minnesota.

Profit Margin

4.7%

Net income ÷ total receipts (IRS SOI)

Total Receipts

$705.5B

Annual revenue (IRS SOI)

Net Income

$33.2B

Pre-tax net income

Employment

N/A

Total employees (Census CBP)

Avg Payroll / Employee

N/A

Annual compensation

Establishments

59,516

Business locations

Release-over-release change

What changed from Census CBP 2022 to 2023

establishment count increased by 810. This comparison uses two published national Census County Business Patterns releases; suppressed fields are omitted rather than estimated.

Where each dollar of General Merchandise Stores revenue goes

Receipts decomposition, IRS Statistics of Income 2023 aggregate for General Merchandise Stores

General Merchandise Stores margin vs national reference points

General Merchandise Stores net margin 15.7%

Cross-industry median (5%)

p25/median/p75 = 3%/5%/8%

Business Structure Breakdown

How businesses in this industry are legally structured (IRS SOI)

C Corporation

9,537 returns 100%

Margin: 4.7% · Receipts: $705.5B

Financial Detail

Total Tax Returns Filed: 9,537
Avg Receipts per Business: $74.0B

Sub-Industries

Industry	Profit Margin	Employment	Avg Payroll/Emp
Department Stores NAICS 4522	N/A	N/A	N/A
General Merchandise Stores, including Warehouse Clubs and Supercenters NAICS 4523	N/A	N/A	N/A

Top States by Employment

State	Employment	Establishments	Annual Payroll	Avg Payroll/Emp
California	245,741	3,536	N/A	N/A
New York	109,271	2,978	N/A	N/A
Minnesota	59,273	835	N/A	N/A
Maryland	42,008	786	N/A	N/A
Massachusetts	39,954	740	$1.2B	$30,318/yr
Rhode Island	6,274	168	N/A	N/A
District of Columbia	2,181	40	N/A	N/A

Showing top 10 of 51 states

SBA Lending Activity

SBA FY2020–2026

SBA Loans Approved

179

Total Loan Volume

$70M

Avg Loan Size

$393K

Jobs Supported

982

Program Breakdown

7(a) 168 (94%)

504 11 (6%)

Top SBA Lender

The Huntington National Bank

24 loans in this industry

New Business Share

36.9% of borrowers were new/startup businesses

Annual Lending Trend (6 yrs)

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

View SBA lending rankings →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average revenue for General Merchandise Stores?

$705.5B in total annual receipts across all General Merchandise Stores businesses. Average per business: $74.0B.

How profitable is General Merchandise Stores?

4.7% net profit margin, below the national median.

How many businesses are in General Merchandise Stores?

59,516 business establishments.

What is the average payroll per employee in General Merchandise Stores?

Average payroll data for General Merchandise Stores is not available in the current Census CBP dataset.

Which states have the most General Merchandise Stores employment?

California leads with 245,741 workers. New York (109,271) and Minnesota (59,273) round out the top three.

How much SBA lending does General Merchandise Stores receive?

General Merchandise Stores businesses received 179 SBA loans totaling $70 million between FY2020 and FY2026. The average loan size was $393K. These loans supported 982 jobs at origination. Most lending (94%) 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.

Closest reported net margins

Same NAICS detail level, ordered by the smallest difference in reported IRS pre-tax margin.

Warehousing and Storage 4.7%
Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing 4.8%
Food Manufacturing 4.6%

Benchmarking General Merchandise Stores

Net margin: 4.7% vs sector. Browse Retail Trade
59,516 establishments, N/A workers. Payroll benchmarks
179 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 452 · 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 Accessed 2026-07-06

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.