NORWAY – To catch some of this holiday’s profits, Main Street business owners must brace against the cold winds of a tight economy, aggressive corporate competitors, and a growing online retail market.

“This season so far has gotten off to a slow start,” said Shallen Tripp of Pick-A-Lily, a novelty and clothing shop. “I’ve talked to other business owners in town, and everyone is saying they have made a third of what they usually did,” she said, referring to Black Friday sales, or the day following Thanksgiving.

Lorrie Bean at Lola’s Boutique said she’s offering huge discounts, like 25 to 50 percent off her clothing, to lure the so-far scarce shopper. “It’s very bad. It’s been very bad this year. There’s no Black Friday anymore,” she said.

Because the period beginning the day after Thanksgiving to the day after Christmas is the time when many local shop owners do a big chunk of their business, any hardships can be anxiety producing. And no one says that surviving as a little shop in a little downtown is easy any more.

Jennifer Dilworth at Cattails, a card and gift shop, wondered if the deep price cuts in electronic goods, which Wal-Mart especially pushed this year, could be eating up consumers’ holiday budgets.

To try to stir up business, Dilworth has offered a 20 percent discount on boxed holiday cards, a price slash she typically does not offer until after Christmas.

Lesley Dean, who manages the rugged clothing store L.F. Pike & Son, said that so far, so sluggish. But she was optimistic things would pick up the last week-and-a-half before Christmas.

That’s when the shoppers who have searched the malls and the Internet sites, head to her shop to buy what they can’t find anywhere else, she said.

“I’m not worried,” she said. “What’s worry going to do?”

Other shop owners are coming up with creative ideas to entice shoppers.

Vickie Farr, who works at Maine Made & More, which she plans to buy soon, said she’s invited all SAD 17 employees to the store this Friday evening to enjoy a blanket 20 percent discount on everything. She has worked as a substitute teacher and said she understands teachers don’t have a lot of extra income.

Farr, unlike some others, said she’s seen a decent amount of foot traffic into the gift shop. And she’s not alone. Erica Jed, who opened Books N Things this year in Norway, is glowing with good cheer. She said just relocating from the Oxford plaza on Route 26 to downtown Norway has pushed sales up 50 to 70 percent, which says a lot about this street’s potential.

Eventually, too, Jed said she will allow her customers to order online by developing her Web site – the Web address is printed on her shop window. Currently, her site just shoots her e-mails when people request books.

Because the Internet is just as much a competitor as Wal-Mart and Lowe’s – which both have online components, too, to boot – more local shop owners are contemplating strengthening their online presence.

Wal-Mart, for instance, says that its online sales spiked 60 percent the Monday following Thanksgiving, which is now being called Cyber Monday. It offered many online specials.

“Walmart.com anticipates a 40-to-60 percent traffic increase throughout the rest of the holiday season and is on track to meet its goal of 700 million visits this year,” Wal-Mart corporate spokesman Ravi Jariwala wrote in an e-mail.

Local stores can’t quite conjure up 700 million visits, but they can expand their customer base and generate more publicity with a Web site.

“It’s nice so people don’t have to drive up here for blueberry jam,” Farr said. And her Maine Made & More of Oxford Hills Web site, which will be built after she settles into her shop and moves into a new location, could attract customers from across the nation and maybe around the world, as people are nostalgic for the country wholesomeness associated with the Maine brand.

“We’re in the process of building a Web site,” said Frank Shorey, owner of Western Auto of Norway. The store sells home appliances and furniture. “It’s another way to put our name before Western Maine consumers. It’ll be up after the first of the year.”

But Shorey, who is looking at a future with Lowe’s as a neighbor (the hardware giant is moving in on Route 26 across from Pizza Hut), said the best way for small stores to compete is to offer exemplary customer service. Bottom line.

“Our prices are competitive with big-box stores,” Shorey said. But it’s just a matter of pulling customers away from the heavily advertised chain stores and into his store. “And we do something they don’t. We deliver, we service and the owner is in the store. This is how we have survived and this is how we will continue to survive.”