DANVILLE — Local retailers launched the holiday shopping season today, offering deals and special hours for shoppers eager to get a bargain in a struggling economy.

Black Friday, considered the busiest U.S. shopping day of the season, may not carry the same one-day cachet locally as it does nationally — but it still officially starts the shopping season in the Danville area.

Village Mall got into the spirit a week ago, with the rollout of its annual Christmas village display — and the arrival of Santa Claus.

“For a lot of retailers, this is the time of the year they make their profit,” said Cindy Compton, mall manager. “It’s make or break time.”

Sears and Elder-Beerman opened at 4 a.m. today, with mall doors opening at 3:30 to accommodate anyone standing in line.

The mall itself has events scheduled throughout the season to bring in shoppers, including a “Winter Wonderland” event Dec. 5, with entertainment, activities and promotions all day, and Christmas concert Dec. 12.

Compton said mall gift coupons will be handed out at all of the events.

“Hopefully they’ll come back here and spend it,” she said.

“It’s a very big time,” said Kmart manager Pat Montney. “Everything in the store has a special for (Friday).”

Montney said the store opened early today and would be announcing more seasonal hours.

“As we get closer to Christmas, there'll be more extended hours,” he said.

Wal-Mart managers would not speak on record but confirmed special Black Friday price “blitz” items. Many larger retailers have been displaying Christmas items since before Halloween.

While larger retailers offer deep discounts today to get a jump on the rest of the holiday season, smaller shop owners here say the Black Friday benchmark is overrated — except as an official marker to the Christmas buying season.

“I don’t expect to get the big crowd rush (today) like the big-box stores,” said Laury Graves, owner of Danville’s River Barge Freight Company. “But we’ve been getting Christmas sales for over a month now. It seems like it didn’t start quite as early last year.”

River Barge, open seven days a week, sells new and slightly used merchandise, including home furnishings and electronics. It purchases the goods as display, open-package and return models.

“We get a lot of unique items and can discount them substantially,” he said. “We think we offer things (customers) just won’t find out there.”

Cycles Plus employee Keith Gower said the business does increase its stock of kids’ bikes around Christmastime, but the season only offers a small up-tick in businesses compared to the rest of the year.

“This time of year we kind of pump up the 20-inchers,” he said of the number of kids bikes in the stock of 300. “It used to be, a week after Thanksgiving and we had to double the people in the shop. But bike shops have been hit a lot by the video revolution.”

He said a parent in the store recently was considering spending $300 on a bike and announced the price was too high. Then Gower asked how much video-game equipment the family possessed.

“It added up to be over $1,800,” he said.

Both River Barge and Cycles Plus offer layaway for customers.

“Black Friday’s not really a big day for us,” said Jack Hunter, owner of Hunter’s Originals, which set up its gift and candy shop last week at Village Mall under a seasonal lease. “We’ll do better on Wednesday because people are coming in on Thanksgiving. After that, that’s when it gets busy,” he said.

The Covington-based, at-home business only uses the storefront once a year to sell homemade candles and Wolf Candies made in Attica.

Bear Trap, a Native-American gift shop, and the Day-By-Day calendar kiosk sponsored by Waldenbooks, also are both open at the mall during the holidays. Waldenbooks is open as well and has yet to give an official departure date after announcing it would close early next year.

Vermilion Advantage CEO and President Vicki Haugen said it doesn’t matter which stores shoppers spend the money — as the long as the stores are local.

“It’s more important this year than ever to keep the focus local,” she said.

She recommended local shoppers use the Chamber Dollars program with more than 70 participating businesses. Last year more than $250,000 in local purchases were attributed to the program.