Explore Scientific — Local services in Springdale

Explore Scientific was a company recommended by NASA as having authentic solar eclipse glasses for the solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. After some research of the companies that had not yet sold out of the glasses, I chose to order from the Explore Scientific website on August 4, 2017. I also paid for two-day shipping. The website said to allow for one additional business day for processing. There were no indications of problems on their website or Facebook page. They were still encouraging orders and cautioning against buying from companies that may be selling counterfeit products.

Over the next two weeks I received no acknowledgement of my order or any issues beyond the original confirmation email. Their customer service email and phone number went unanswered, only to route calls to a full mailbox. They continued to post on FB that they were working hard to get orders out. They blamed a glitch in the software that had happened in early August, but reassured the customers they would ship all orders. They were no longer shipping orders based on first ordered, first sent. People also complained on their website of receiving reassurances that their order had been mailed, but having nothing show up. There were probably other options for purchasing glasses from other companies, albeit at increased cost, through August 13th. However, Explore Scientific encouraged people to continue to wait by posting pictures of full boxes of orders waiting to be shipped and posting that they were working hard to ensure everyone received their order.

I received an emailed cancellation on August 18, 2017, three days prior to the eclipse. This was long after the point where most individuals could make other arrangements to purchase glasses or arrange for shipping. They posted an apology about their software malfunctioning and that they were unable to realize the full impact until a few days prior. Then they insulted all of those they’d disappointed by posting a video of how to watch the eclipse indirectly with binoculars, and insinuating that it had only been “some orders” affected. We’re expected to believe that prior to August 18th they had shipped “millions of eclipse products successfully”, but apparently only a small number of people were affected by their mistake. In the meantime, there were numerous complaint posts and comments, plus a growing amount of 1-star ratings. At some point during the week of August 14th their Facebook star rating system disappeared, but that didn’t stop them from posting a 5-star rating from a faceless person on August 14th. The number of comments also appeared to decrease as time went on, as Facebook allows comments to be deleted. For example, the comments under their apology post, which were overwhelmingly negative, went from 199+ to 97. I fully expect that my own commentary will disappear at some point. They are doing everything that they can to make it appear that Explore Scientific behaved with integrity, which is...

Great products and great company. Use many of thier products for my astrophotography and get great results.

To the people complaining about the solar eclipse glasses, if you waited till the last minute to buy, that is your fault. 25million+ people ordered counterfit glasses from another large vendor and were told not to use them last minute because they weren’t safe.. In a 2 week period, people scrambling to find glasses last minute were sent to Explore Scientific and other manufacturers .. because of high quality goods.. and there just wasn’t stock to make them.

People were planning this for years ahead because they knew what would happen to meet demand. The last minute counterfit fail by Anazon vendors caused lots of problems with supply. Go leave a bad review there instead. Explore Scientific didn’t have supply, time or staff to meet that demand on such short notice and shouldn’t have had too. Not to mention shipping company issues with localized disasters going on at that time. Wildfires all over, Hurricanes that decimated parts of Florida, Houston and Puerto Rico, etc.

This was the most viewed event in history, and rightly so with over half of the US population getting glasses and equipment to view this event. If you were affected by Amazon counterfit glasses, you should leave your bad review there. If you weren’t and didn’t plan ahead far enough, that’s not really Explore Scientific’s fault. Explore Scientific is known in the Astronomy community to always over deliver and repeatedly do this.

Bad reviewers, go ahead and place your orders now for 2024 and get ahead of everyone else. Then you won’t have...

I typically don't write reviews unless I've had an "exceptional" experience. What started out a negative experience has been improving recently. As bad experiences can happen most anywhere, in my view it's how a bad experience is addressed and handled that makes a difference. I bought a used refractor that needed cleaning and collimation. Customer service agreed to work on the scope without charge but said it would take 60 to 90 days - which I understood. As 90 days neared I called and left a handful of messages that were never returned. When I did finally connect (with sales, as customer support wasn't picking up) I was told it was being worked on and would be returned soon. To be fair I've seen previous reviews of good Explore Scientific customer support and heard anecdotal reports that most astronomy businesses in general are overwhelmed with increased demands. When I got the scope back (roughly 90 days into the service) it had apparently suffered from shipping - there was a lot of particles on the lenses and several of the collimation screws were loose (I'm giving Explore Scientific the benefit of doubt). I've since discussed this customer support and their response has been timely and...