Reviews of Explore Scientific (Optics Shop)

Zach Taylor

THE BEST telescopes in the business (at least in most peoples' budget) and a super knowledgeable and friendly staff. This retail location is actually where they repair their products as well so you're in great hands here.

Erick Leong

Placed an order online with this company and unfortunately due to high demand they had to cancel the order. Though they pride themselves on customer service the five business day delay between the order placement and cancellation was unacceptable. I can only hope that this business learns the limitations in their capability instead of over promising and under delivering.

James Buck

Excellent customer service and great products. Whole line of optical equipment from telescopes, binoculars, rifle scopes, and microscopes all backed by their excellent customer service departments.

Chris Davis

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 these problems.

Scott Clark

I ordered 200 solar eclipse glasses from here on the 31st of July. While I paid for two day shipping and it took a week to get the order, I did receive my complete order.

TheBikersurgeon .

Wow, to post such scathing reviews over an isolated experience, which is related to a "once in a lifetime event" (lesson: for once in a lifetime events plan WAY ahead and acquire your stuff), an event by the way for which there was an unexpected NATIONWIDE shortage of glasses, seems kind of silly. I've been dealing with these guys and gals for about a year, am an avid amateur astronomer/imager with 35 years experience, and find them to be exemplary. They have bent over backwards on a few occasions to help. They are well stocked, the merchandise is very well made (way above expected for the prices), and the warranty is practically no questions asked. Amazing really. I wouldn't hesitate to refer anyone there, in fact I'm about to go there today and see what's new.

Amy Dunn

Could not be more disappointed! As soon as I understood that special glasses were recommended for the solar eclipse, I did my research and found that NASA was recommending this vendor as a safe, reliable place to get the correct glasses. I ordered 2 pair on August 6th...in plenty of time to get them for this momentous event. As the weeks went by, I called to see when to expect the glasses and was assured that they were being shipped as quickly as possible and would be arriving soon. Today was the last postal delivery before the eclipse, and I have no glasses for my daughter and I. The local stores have been sold out for awhile. So even though I planned well ahead, here I am scrambling with everyone else trying to find at least one set of glasses. Not happy.

John Wyatt

Everyone is knowledgeable and helpful. Gets you off on the right foot.

Lea Lane

Joining the army of ripped off and unhappy people. Ordered my eclipse glasses on 08/05, order was "shipped" 08/07. No glasses 1 day prior to the eclipse, no chance to buy somewhere else. Going to inform NASA about this "reliable vendor". Shame on you for stealing the eclipse from us!!!!

F Mateo

Don't buy online, purchased an item more than 3 weeks ago and company failed to fulfill order, still waiting.

Emily West

They were very helpful. I waited until almost the last minute to get solar eclipse viewing glasses, so I thought I would be out of luck. They were out of glasses, but they did have sheets of the film and they provided a template to make your own. The gentleman I spoke with mentioned that they really just want people to be safe, and he provided plenty of instruction on using the film.

Christopher Barbosa

Amazing service! I couldn't be happier with the service and personal attention I received. Sold me exactly what I needed to have an enjoyable experience looking at the stars. I am also very happy with the quality of products that I purchased.

Robert Crane

Do not do business with this company. Either through incompetence or just plain old greed they completely botched the solar eclipse viewing glasses program and cost THOUSANDS of people this once in a lifetime opportunity.

erich hopkins

During the "rush of the eclipse" to get glasses we bought from wrong vendor, along with half the U.S. We ordered from Explore Scientific but decided we should probably drive to the store to be safe and get the camera filters, so we drove 3 1/2 hours to the Explore Store to get filters and a sheet of the eye protection film to make our own eye wear. They were working feverishly to make more eye wear, package and fill orders, seems everyone ordered from the wrong vendor and placed orders LAST MINUTE from the explore store/ explore scientific, USA. They gave us a free template to make glasses, we bought a telescope safe for sun viewing and a few other items as well. Our family is completely satisfied with their service and they saved the day, Thank you Explore Store! Your customer service was above and beyond to us as well as the other customers I witnessed you helping during the stressful time Pre-eclipse bum rush. We will be back again.

Sarah McReynolds

I purchased a telescope here as a birthday present for my daughter. The guys there were so helpful and gave me a great deal.

M K

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 completely untrue.

Mitie

Great people at all levels of the company that sells great optics.

Cop Stop Radio

This company will scam you! Solar glasses never showed up. My family can't watch eclipse now. This company ruined our plans with lies and never shipped order.

Collin Vaughn

This company ripped me and my family off. Sold us solar glasses and claimed they shipped them via email and they never came. Would return my call or emails. Scammer!

Christopher Martin

Update .... I was able to receive a full refund when I called. They answered the phone promptly. Perhaps they were overrun. I'm not sure. Honestly, I couldn't have used the glasses as the cloud coverage in Jacksonville was pretty thick. I wish no further I'll will to this company and revise my review. .............. I ordered 50 eclipse glasses on August 2. I paid for two day shipping. I ordered them for my coworkers and their families. I haven't received the glasses as of August 18. I have reached out to them several times. They emailed me saying the glasses were in transit and gave me assurances that the order would arrive on time. I trusted their assurances and am now in a position where my coworkers and their families will not be able to view the eclipse with glasses from this vendor. The other reviews talk about the hectic ordering and customer service. I'm not sure of the veracity of those reviews as being from customers. I can say that this company has not answered my recent calls, has not provided a tracking number, and has not provided me with a manner to request a refund. I have documentation to support this statement.

Todd Varner

Great helpful staff. A place to fuel your dreams