How Joe Myers Uses SamCart to Boost Conversions and Curb Cart Abandonment for Ice Made Clear

Cocktail enthusiasts, cold brew drinkers, and iced tea sippers alike know the importance a good ice cube can make in a drink – not just for looks, but for taste, too. Creating an ice cube that’s crystal clear in clarity, tastes better, and lasts longer in a drink is what led Joe Myers to create the Ice Made Clear silicone tray that thousands have purchased and enjoyed.

After hundreds of product iterations, Joe launched Ice Made Clear via Kickstarter and Indiegogo, raising enough to mass produce his product and begin selling trays. He found SamCart about four years ago and has continued to use our simple, functional sales funnel and conversion-boosting features to sell his ice trays and additional accessories.

In our conversation with Joe, he recounted the early days of Ice Made Clear and the decisions that led him to SamCart to drive sales and grow his bottom line.

“I knew that SamCart would make the [checkout] experience for the customer a lot easier.”

The early days of building Ice Made Clear

Joe has always loved inventing things. He mentions that, five or six years ago, he saw that people on the Internet were trying to figure out how to make clear ice that doesn’t taste or smell like a freezer and melts slower so as to not dilute your drink.

He got to work with a 3D printer, creating over 100 different prototypes, before starting a few crowdfunding campaigns that turned out to be remarkably successful. After that, he turned his focus to direct sales.

“I didn't want to go through a big third-party, like a big online retailer. They were going to take a large percentage, especially since the main component of my design is made in the United States and that does increase cost to some degree while, at the same time, the customer gets great quality.” 

Joe continued to do his research, and recognized what he needed was something that would enable him to keep the single-page website that he built, so prospective customers could get all the information they need and buy his products early if they want to. He also needed something that looked great on mobile and allowed him to incorporate “buy now” buttons that would take customers directly to a single-page checkout with the smallest number of required checkout fields.

“I loved your simple, single-page checkout. It worked really well with what I was trying to do.”

This is when Joe landed on SamCart.

“I loved your simple, single-page checkout. It worked really well with what I was trying to do – sell 3 simple packages. I didn't have this wide array of products that needed a big, in-depth shopping cart. I knew that would make the [checkout] experience for the customer a lot easier.”

How Ice Made Clear boosts conversions with SamCart’s seamless checkout experience

“Since then, I've been very happy with SamCart. It’s been easy to manage and easy to integrate with my site,” says Joe.

In addition to seamless integration and business management, Joe has used a number of SamCart’s conversion-boosting features to net more profit and sell additional products and accessories from the Ice Made Clear line, like Simplified Upsells:

“I offer the opportunity to buy 2 sets; a ‘Give 1, Get 1’ kind of a deal where you're saving a good percentage if you pick up 2 of them. Oftentimes people want to buy one so they can give one as a gift. Rather than just upping the quantity to two, they see that they can pick up two through this upsell and save money. I sell a fair number that way. I also offer four at a time for an even greater saving, so if you've got a cocktail bar or a small restaurant, places like that often use that bundle.”

Through A/B testing capabilities on the SamCart platform, Joe was able to conclude that upsells work better than order bumps for his particular use case.

“Customers see one of the three buy buttons on my site; if they choose to purchase, they click and are presented with a Sam cart checkout immediately. They can finish that up quickly because it's simple and easy to do. I've got a couple of upsells that come after that gives them the option to add additional trays or storage, if they so choose, when they're finished with their transaction.”

“[SamCart] has always had people that were willing to take the time and try to dig into that and try to solve problems with me.”

In fact, checkout has been one of the biggest opportunities that SamCart has created for Joe’s business, noting that a service like Shopify or another cart service or storefront would make it harder for customers to purchase and, ultimately, more difficult for Joe to drive sales and make a profit:

“The biggest thing that SamCart has been able to offer is the uber simplicity of the offering. Every click is an additional pain in the butt for the customer, and I know this as a customer. I can't tell you how many times I've been excited to buy something and I've been on a website and it just becomes a frustrating experience. 

I don’t want to go through all the steps, so I figure ‘You know what? I'll come back and do it tomorrow when I have a little more time’ and I never end up coming back. That's not good for me. It's not good for the customer. The reason I'm using SamCart is to keep everything really simple and straightforward and not frustrating for the customer.”

In addition to frictionless checkout, SamCart’s ease of use has been one of the biggest components of Ice Made Clear’s success. “Yeah I mean it's easy to use,” says Joe. “It's easy to set up. I built my own pages, but SamCart’s got tons of predefined templates that all look great. It's really easy. You can be up and running very very quickly. I think I was up and selling with you guys probably within a week.”

Finally, Joe notes that SamCart’s customer support team has been integral to keeping the sales engine running, whether he has had issues or questions arise or needed deeper technical support like Facebook pixel setup or other API integration issues.

“Over time, I've developed relationships with various people to the point that I'm able to send them an email and get a response to find out what sorts of features they’re working on long-term or exciting new rollouts and they’ve always given me a lot of honesty in return.

You've always had people that were willing to take the time and try to dig into that and try to solve problems with me and that's been very appreciated, because that's one of the first things I look for. I expect technical issues to pop up with any computer-based system anywhere and the big thing isn't that they won't pop up, it's that you know you have people that are willing to try to solve them.”

In addition to filmmaking and other side hustles, Ice Made Clear has become Joe Myers’ main source of income thanks to SamCart and a few other tools (mainly those he has built himself), which have helped him scale his business and boost his profits.

“I don't know that I'm changing the world through clear ice,” says Joe, “but at least I'm changing someone's drink.”

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Want to replicate the success of Ice Made Clear, which has produced thousands of sales over the years? Check out SamCart’s latest suite of checkout solutions and conversion-boosting features by clicking here.