Discovery Store

Full review
I'm hot under the collar right now, which probably means I should cool off before writing a review, but things are fresh in my mind, so here goes.

It's Christmas time, and to save myself some shopping at the mall, I went online to find presents for the kiddies in my life. To save some time, I ordered each item gift wrapped ($4.95 each) and ordered the website-suggested batteries for each item.

I purchased three toys - a remote controlled Vampire Bat for about $14.00 (I just looked online and now it is only $9.97 - BLAST it) and two remote control "Moon in my Room" which allow a child to have the moon go through all phases each night slowly as it is lit up by a projector or something. I'm not sure how it works, it just seemed like a nice concept for a child's room.

Order Accuracy and Delivery Speed

My items came in time - and this was a good thing being Christmas season and all. One box was banged up pretty good, and the boxes were HUGE considering what was inside.

However, there were two glitches that really irritated me.

1. When I put each product in my cart, the website has suggested a purchase of batteries for an extra amount, and so I did. I naively assumed that the batteries I was purchasing would be sent along with each gift, and I could include them as a separate item. But NO! They came in odd packaging amounts, so I had to open each package and just "tape" the right combinations right onto each gift . . . looking as if I hadn't bought brand new batteries - it was just so annoying. AND, when I figured it all out, I was STILL short two Double AA batteries! So the website actually had miscalculated how many batteries each product needed. Thankfully I had a few sitting around the house.

2. "Gift Wrapping," for which I was charged $14.95, consists of a product being placed inside a thin, flimsy, plain brown cardboard box with the Discovery Globe stamped on the top. Wow. There weren't any "To, From" stickers or tags on two of the packages, and the third actually had a sticky note adhered to it with some note from the warehouse?!

Customer Service

I immediately called and demanded a refund of the $14.95 for the "Gift Wrapping." The customer service agent sounded tired and apathetic, and asked me if the toys had come in cardboard boxes. I knew that if I said 'yes' she would tell me I couldn't have my money back, so I just said, "Oh they arrived in a cardboard box alright . . . and it was unfit for giving to a child for Christmas - gift wrapping assumes some WRAPPING."

I was given my money back, to her credit, but I could tell she had to get permission from a supervisor to do so. I wasn't the first person to complain - that was obvious.

Overall Satisfaction

I was incredibly UNDERwhelmed with my experience shopping online with the Discovery Store. When I think of the Discovery Store, I thing quality, educational toys, and I guess I expected order accuracy and more than shoddy, thrown-together plain cardboard boxes being called "Gift Wrapping" - let alone being charged $4.95 for each item being "wrapped"!

The website suggesting battery purchases for each separate item seemed like a very thoughtful idea, but the website had misinformed me about the number of batteries, and I ended up short in the end.

Tacky and not recommended. My only positive is that my money was refunded without too much hassle.

Thanks for reading,

Melissa
"hempem"