The National Retail Federation is not expecting this year’s holiday shopping season to be the sort of thing that will make the hearts of retailers glad. At least not much.

Overall receipts are expected to decline by 1%; all the price slashing that will be needed to lure wary and broke customers into stores will eat into profit margins.

The landscape is not of the most promising but Leah Oviedo, proprietor of Mercado del Mundo (translates to “Market of the World” in English), remains cheerful.

Mercado del Mundo is an online retail establishment selling clothing and accessories (including jewelry, handbags and fine art) handcrafted by artists all around the world. Leah works craft shows, which is where she finds many of her artists. Some are also recommended to her.

Like most online retailers (according to a Shop.org retailer survey conducted by BIGresearch), she will be having an inventory-wide sale on Monday (CyberMonday). Leah has also announced the sale to her email list, and to her blog readers.

Leah has also been using another common cost-savings strategy: social media for marketing. She can be found on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and about thirty Ning communities.

“How do you find time for all that?” I asked her.

“Well, because it’s online,” was her immediate response. “Because it’s easy, I can get up in the middle of the night and work on it.” Then she paused for a beat before she added, “I don’t work all the time, I do take time off.”

Overall, Leah tells me that she works about 70 hours per week, “only I guess because it’s my own business and I love it, it doesn’t feel so much like work, it’s just my schedule,” she told me.

That’s pretty typical of microbusiness owners, as is Leah’s feeling that she isn’t interested in making hers a million dollar business. All she wants is enough money to support herself (and, eventually, “the family I’ll someday have”); there are other things about running her own business that matter to her more than traditional business growth.

“The payoff to me is so worth it, being able to be my own boss and call the shots, running the business in the way that I feel is in the best interests of my customers and me,” Leah said, adding, “What’s important to me is not the money.”

So, it’s not too surprising that her merchandise targets a solidly middle class customer and her tag line has nothing to do with exotic styles from around the world or anything like that. Rather, her online stores “link Artists and Markets.”

And the mission statement of Mercado del Mundo concludes with this: “Our Goal is to improve the world’s economy one artist at a time.”

Which, as it happens, tells you quite a lot about Leah Oviedo. And it makes perfect sense of another of Leah’s projects: her Investing In Women web site.

The site states that Investing In Women is all about “empowering women through information and appreciation.” It offers all sort of information on topics of interest to the typical neophyte woman business owner. Leah isn’t in a position to provide financing but she has been able to launch and maintain a micro-grant program.

Originally, grant seekers would submit their applications, which would be reviewed by a panel of judges and then Leah would get to make the final decision. More recently, Leah has changed that process a bit, to make the whole thing more transparent and participatory.

A potential winner will be selected and their information posted at the Investing In Women web site. There, site visitors can choose to invest in that women-owned business by either making a donation, by buying ad space on the site, or by becoming a member of the site.

That’s how Leah will raise the money (up to $500) for the grant and everybody else will know where the grant money came from.

Ultimately, her goal is to award 100 grants over the next two years, either by finding investors and raising the money or by financing it (presumably when the credit markets improve).

As is probably the case with most retailers of any size these days, Leah’s biggest business headache is the recession, the job market, and their impact on sales.

She says, more specifically, that her biggest problem is finding new customers but then she quickly corrects herself. “Well … finding customers willing to shop. People just aren’t willing to spend right now, that’s the bottom line.”

Her own sales are “okay.” Receipts are roughly the same as they were last year, down from two years ago. Customer acquisition is a challenge; Leah is finding, though, that her regular, repeat customers are her bread and butter right now.

Like so many other microbusiness owners, Leah remains optimistic. “[Sales] aren’t great but they’re good. They definitely could be worse.”