Ballyhoo needs your old smartphones and tablets!

Testing is a crucial part of what we do here at Ballyhoo and with the rise (and rise) of smartphones and tablets it's becoming even more important.

Over the coming months we hope to build a lab of smart devices which we will open to the wider web community for free. To help with this, we're looking for good people like yourself to donate old, unused or even broken smartphones and tablets.

We're sure you can imagine that the cost of buying the hundreds of devices available would be astronomical which is why we're hoping that anyone, anywhere with a phone or tablet they don't use will see fit to donate it to us.

If you can help, please get in touch.

Are you keeping your social profiles up to date?

Social networking is the biggest thing to happen to marketing since the launch of the Internet. If you're not taking advantage of this marketing medium already, you should be. 

However, it's not enough to simply have a presence on the main social networks. You have to be an active user too.

Getting into social can be daunting but we're here to help. Ballyhoo can set up profiles for you, we can ensure your brand is consistent across all of your social channels, we can automatically post new pages and products from your website and we can help create shareable content that your followers will love.

Learn more on our website.

New top level domain names and what they mean for you

You may have noticed the recent wave of new top level domain names being released, with extensions such as .plumbing, .systems and even .ninja flooding the market.

The United Kingdom now has it's own .uk top level domain too, putting us on a par with countries like France (.fr) and Germany (.de). Most interestingly, anyone who already owns a .co.uk domain is automatically entitled to the .uk counterpart. You even have a whopping 5 years to decide if you want to purchase your .uk domain name before it's up for grabs to anyone.

But, with the plethora of new domains now available, what does this mean for your business? We've outlined a number of points for you to consider before taking the plunge and switching domain name, read more on our blog.

Important changes to distance selling regulations

New business to consumer selling regulations came into force on the 13th June 2014. If you sell to the public through the Internet you need to take note of the Distance Selling Regulations and update your website terms and conditions.

A number of online resources are available, Ballyhoo can even help you source e-commerce terms and conditions templates, but ultimately as the business owner you are responsible for the content of your T&Cs and must ensure that you adhere to them.

Some of the areas that the new rules affect include pricing breakdowns, cooling off periods, premium customer service helplines, delivery and cancellation.

We'll also be looking at how the new rules affect the Ballyhoo Commerce e-commerce engine and will keep you updated on this matter.