Gross margins for product businesses in the United States run from the low twenties for food to the high fifties for apparel, and net margins across those same categories cluster between one and twelve percent, with two consumer categories underwater. The cleanest public benchmark is the January 2026 margins-by-sector dataset compiled by Aswath Damodaran at NYU Stern from 5,994 US-listed firms. The figures below are from that dataset, with the caveat that these are public companies, not marketplace sellers, and the gap between the two is where marketplace fees live.
Gross margin by category
Gross margin is revenue minus cost of goods sold, divided by revenue. Damodaran’s January 2026 figures for the categories closest to ecommerce verticals:
| Sector (Damodaran, Jan 2026) | Firms | Gross margin | Net margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel | 35 | 56.88% | 3.85% |
| Healthcare products | 204 | 54.00% | 9.61% |
| Household products | 110 | 51.04% | 11.68% |
| Shoe | 11 | 43.88% | 6.27% |
| Recreation | 49 | 39.79% | -4.72% |
| Electronics (consumer and office) | 8 | 38.77% | -9.42% |
| Retail (special lines) | 94 | 35.30% | 5.19% |
| Retail (general) | 23 | 33.18% | 5.61% |
| Furniture and home furnishings | 27 | 30.28% | 1.10% |
| Retail (grocery and food) | 15 | 26.31% | 1.32% |
| Food processing | 78 | 23.23% | 2.82% |
| Total market excluding financials | 4,822 | 34.39% | 8.56% |
Source: Aswath Damodaran, “Margins by Sector (US),” NYU Stern, data as of January 2026. Gross margin in the dataset is gross income over sales; net margin is net income over sales.
What the spread says
Apparel has the fattest gross margin and one of the thinnest net margins. Apparel’s 56.88 percent gross drops to 3.85 percent net. The same dataset shows why: apparel SG&A runs 47.62 percent of sales, the highest of any product category listed. Marketing, stores, returns handling and markdowns eat the margin that the product itself earns. For an apparel seller online, the SG&A line is replaced by advertising, marketplace fees and return rates, and the lesson holds: a 55 percent gross margin is not a comfortable business if 45 points of it go to acquiring and servicing the customer.
Household products convert margin to profit best. Gross 51.04 percent, net 11.68 percent, SG&A 32.03 percent. Consumables with repeat purchase and low return rates keep more of what they earn.
Two categories lost money in aggregate. Recreation (net -4.72 percent on a 39.79 percent gross) and consumer electronics (net -9.42 percent on 38.77 percent gross). Electronics is only eight firms, so treat that one as an anecdote. Recreation is 49 firms and 23.83 percent SG&A, which suggests a category where demand swings and inventory writedowns, not fees, do the damage.
Low gross does not mean low profit. Food processing runs 23.23 percent gross and 2.82 percent net; grocery retail 26.31 percent and 1.32 percent. Those are volume businesses with thin margins by design, and they work because inventory turns fast. A seller entering food or consumables online should expect grocery-like gross margins and plan on velocity, not markup.
Translating public-company margins to a marketplace seller
The public-company gross margin has no marketplace fee in it. A listed apparel brand’s COGS is fabric, factory, freight and duty. A marketplace seller’s economics have an extra layer between gross margin and net: referral commissions, fulfillment fees, storage fees and platform advertising, and the size of that layer depends on category, size tier and ad intensity, with each marketplace’s published fee schedule as the reference. Where a seller books those fees determines which benchmark applies.
If fees are recorded as operating expenses below gross margin, which is the standard presentation, then the seller’s gross margin should be compared to the table above, and the seller’s contribution margin (after marketplace fees and advertising) is the number to compare with net. If fees are netted into revenue because the books record deposits rather than sales, the seller’s “gross margin” is already a contribution margin, and comparing it to 56.88 percent for apparel will make a healthy business look sick.
Software that posts marketplace settlements at gross, with each fee type in its own account and COGS per unit, produces the presentation that makes the comparison valid. ConnectBooks, which syncs Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, TikTok Shop and eBay into QuickBooks or Xero with SKU-level profit reporting, is one example of that approach; the spreadsheet equivalent is the same structure with more typing.
Where ecommerce sits in the retail total
For scale, the US Census Bureau’s Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Report for the second quarter of 2026, released August 18, 2026, estimated ecommerce sales at $340.2 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis, 17.1 percent of total retail sales. The margin data above is not ecommerce-specific; it is category-specific, and the same apparel margin structure applies whether the shirt sells in a store or on a marketplace. What changes online is the cost of getting the customer, which is why the SG&A column is the one to study.
How to use these numbers
Three ways, and one way not to.
First, as a floor for pricing. If your landed cost on a household product implies a 35 percent gross margin and the public-company benchmark is 51 percent, either your sourcing is uncompetitive or you are underpricing. Second, as a check on the ratio between gross and net. If your gross margin matches the category and your contribution margin is under five points, the fee and advertising layer is the problem, not the product. Third, as a sanity check on your own books. A seller whose books show a 70 percent gross margin in furniture, where the benchmark is 30 percent, almost certainly has COGS understated, usually because freight and duty were expensed separately or because inventory is valued at supplier invoice rather than landed cost.
The way not to use them is as a target. Damodaran’s figures are weighted aggregates of large companies with retail stores, wholesale channels and brand budgets. A $3 million marketplace seller is a different animal and should benchmark against its own trailing quarters first. The dataset’s value is in the shape of the categories, not the exact number.
Sources
All margin, SG&A and firm-count figures: Aswath Damodaran, “Margins by Sector (US),” NYU Stern School of Business, data as of January 2026, 5,994 firms. Ecommerce share of retail: US Census Bureau, Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales, 2nd Quarter 2026, released August 18, 2026. The categories in the Damodaran dataset are his classifications of public companies and do not map one-to-one onto marketplace product categories; the closest matches were used.
