Westlake Firm Wrote the Book on Shopping Mall Catalogues

Three years ago, Caryn Wiley had left her publishing job after becoming pregnant. But Wiley was soon fast at work again to test an idea that has since become a full-blown and fast-growing business: shopping center catalogues.

“At the time we started, the shopping centers were doing a lot of newsprint-type tabloid inserts,” said Wiley, whose firm, Wiley Designs, is based in Westlake Village. “They weren’t doing nice, glossy, full-color photography because it was so expensive. We wanted to show them it was worth it.”

So, when Wiley was eight months pregnant, she convinced the Oaks Mall in Thousand Oaks to publish a catalogue. The result was a small but successful eight-page fold-out featuring products from 12 mall merchants.

Now, Wiley’s 20-employee firm creates slick, full-color catalogues for shopping centers and malls across the nation, including Century City Shopping Center, Fashion Island Shopping Center in Newport Beach, Brea Mall and others. Last year, the firm completed its largest job yet: a 100-page catalogue for a Boca Raton, Fla., mall that was mailed to 135,000 residents. The cost: $200,000.

Wiley, whose firm has begun creating catalogues for individual retailers as well, said many malls start off slow. They begin by paying for better-quality photos, then more expensive paper, then full color. “They saw that each little step was getting a better response,” Wiley said. “And once one shopping center starts doing it, the rest want to catch up.”