Retail Salespersons Salary in the United States (2026)

Retail salespersons help customers find products, answer questions about features and prices, process sales and returns, and keep the sales floor stocked and organized. The work ranges from general merchandise and clothing stores to specialized sellers of cars, furniture, electronics, and building materials.

How to become one

Most positions require no formal education beyond on-the-job training, which is why retail is a common first job. Product knowledge is learned at work, and some employers prefer a high school diploma for roles that handle financing or technical products.

Pay for Retail Salespersons is influenced by geographic location, years of experience, employer type, and educational background. Location alone is a large factor: Washington pays an average of $43,530, while Mississippi pays $31,150 — a gap of $12,380 per year.

What a store sells matters more than the job title. Workers selling high-ticket items such as vehicles, appliances, or electronics often earn commission on top of an hourly base, which pushes them toward the upper percentiles. Part-time schedules are common, so annual figures can understate what a full-time worker earns.

These figures are the wages employers report to BLS: base pay plus commissions, production bonuses and tips. They exclude overtime pay, shift differentials, year-end bonuses, benefits and self-employed workers, so total compensation can be higher than the numbers shown.