Slight Increase in September Retail Sales

Retails sales in Valentine and Cherry County finally seen a decent increase over last year’s numbers in September. For the first time this year, Cherry County retail sales hit 10.1% improvement over 2024.  The Valentine community was not quite as strong with an 8% increase.

By comparison, Ainsworth was up only 4.1%, Chadron up 2.8%, Gordon was down 5.8%, O’Neill down 10.3%, Broken Bow up 4.9%.

Bigger communities like North Platte, was only up 1.1% and Grand Island up 2.4%.

These numbers indicate tighter spending habits by area residents making it imperative that residents shop local and support those local merchants whenever they can, especially during the holiday shopping season.