TheFind is a popular shopping search engine that also boasts an award-winning tablet app offshoot, Catalogue.

Glimpse Catalogues is a collaboration with Microsoft aimed at extending TheFind’s traditional online appeal by bringing the Catalogue tablet app’s feel and ease of use to web browsers without sacrificing any of the richness or performance.

New tech for old school experience

In order to bring a more intuitive experience to shopping online, Glimpse Catalogues makes extensive use of HTML5 to present a flippable selection of print catalogues—much like popular magazine tablet apps, except that Glimpse Catalogues works through standard web browsers.

The layout looks remarkably similar to Pinterest (albeit with a much darker palette), presenting users with a grid-like selection of catalogues. Users simply click on the cover of whichever catalogue they like to flip through the pages, as they would a print magazine.

Any items you like can be purchased immediately through links to the online retailers themselves. Australian shoppers may encounter some restrictions imposed by individual retailers, but in principle it’s open to all.

Fuzzy logic

While the idea behind Glimpse Catalogues is strong, its execution leaves a little to be desired. The biggest fault is that the images from the catalogues are heavily compressed – which doesn't affect images but renders the accompanying text hard to read.

Nonetheless, to bring an app-like richness to traditional web browsing is certainly a welcome step and no doubt many will be watching with great interest to see what kind of an impact Glimpse Catalogues will have on online retail.