Top Merchant Categories Query | Dataford Interview Questions

How would you use GROUP BY and aggregate functions to find the top 5 performing merchant categories?

Assume performance is measured by the total value of successful payments. Use the merchant_categories and payments tables.

Output

Return one row per merchant category with category_name, successful_payment_count, and total_successful_amount.
Include only the five highest-performing categories, ordered by total amount descending, then payment count descending, then category name ascending.

merchant_categories

Column	Type	Description
category_idPK	INT	Unique merchant category identifier
category_name	VARCHAR(100)	Merchant category name

payments

Column	Type	Description
payment_idPK	INT	Unique payment identifier
category_id	INT	Merchant category associated with the payment
amount	DECIMAL(12,2)	Payment amount
status	VARCHAR(20)	Payment processing status

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