LYNN – With economic news seemingly getting dimmer each day, small businesses are relying more than ever on local consumers. But with national brands offering similar products at competitive prices, some local business owners are in for a fight to keep their customers.Salvy Migliaccio, owner of the Lynn florist shop named after his late father, “Salvy the Florist,” says national floral companies are “sucking the wind out of the florist business.”While the shop’s sales have remained steady throughout its 62 years, Migliaccio admits newly developed online dealers have proved to be a hindrance on his business and hopes that face-to-face contact, choosing suitable flowers and keeping money local are more important to shoppers than the cheap, fast and easy deals.”Those businesses are not florists, I call them ‘flower gatherers’. They’re national brands aggressively pursuing my current and potential customers,” said Migliaccio, a former Lynn city councilor. “The customer who orders the flowers online doesn’t realize that company is tacking on a commissioner and passing the order to a local florist, like me, to fill the order.”After multiple publications predicted a massive drop-off in Valentine’s Day spending, Migliaccio said the company spent the two weeks before Feb. 14 aggressively buying and pricing their flowers.”Our expectations weren’t very high, quite frankly,” said Migliaccio. “But we did well, we were able to keep the cost and price pretty low and pass that along to our customers.”Leslie Gould, president and CEO of the Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce (LACC), said it’s especially essential during the recession for local residents to support their local businesses.”The business and residential communities go hand-in-hand and one has to help the other,” Gould said. “During these tough economic times we need to take care of our community so the products and services are around even in good times.”According to Alan Piccole, owner of Mr. Specs in Lynn, said small businesses like his actually hold an advantage over larger companies.”We’re able to make adjustment a lot quicker than the big businesses. I don’t need to answer to stockholders or have things voted on in committees,” Piccole said. “We’re able to make changes mid-stream that serve in the best interest of our customers.”According to Piccole, Mr. Specs has held up well against the bigger companies.”We get nervous every time we see a chain open up, but we’ve been able to outlast most of them,” Piccole said. “We actually have seen a lot of our customers who had left us for bigger brands return because they weren’t being treated right.”In preparation for economic storm being forecasted, some local companies have adopted the wait-and-see approach.Attwill Furniture of Lynn has spent the last 80 years restoring furniture new and old. Owner Ronald Trapasso says while business has slowed, “the phone is still ringing.””In a way, we actually tend to be busy during tough times,” said Trapasso, who bought the business 30 years ago. “When times are tough, people tend to want to repair things rather than throw them away and buy something new.”Trapasso is now the sole employee of Atwill, which at one time employed six.”Everyone’s running scared right now, but there’s nothing much we can do,” he said. “But we’re going to remain optimistic.”Migliaccio is taking a more-aggressive approach.”Everyone’s been affected by the economy, but we’re past that. Now it’s about how we deal with it,” he said.Unable to compete with the amount of advertising revenue at the disposal of national florists, Migliaccio said the floral shop will focus its advertising locally, hoping to “re-establish” their product within the city.”The worst thing that could happen would be for our customer to feel uncertain about our future as a business. We’re in our 47th year; we’re going to be around for another 47.”Lynn has been great to us,” added Maglaiccio, who began working at the shop at 11-years-old. “I was raised out h