Prior to this, during a conversation in a Bolton pub, a close friend bet Roberts £1 that he could not set up his own company and disrupt the white goods market by selling appliances online.

[5] As well as selling directly to consumers, the company also sold kitchen appliances on behalf of other retailers such as Next, House of Fraser and B&Q.

[9] In 2015, AO.com announced plans for their second overseas website, AO.nl[10] In the same year, a number of AO employees completed a Germany to Bolton bike ride to raise money for a new playground.

[17] In January 2018, the retailer, reported that it had opened a new office in Manchester city centre, which was to be home to the business's in-house multimedia, IT and sales teams.

[27] Announcing its interim financial results in November 2019, Roberts confirmed that AO would close its operation in the Netherlands to focus on its German business.

Roberts explained that the team did not have the bandwidth to fix both markets but remained committed to future international expansion once the German model was proven.

[28] In April 2020, AO Business continued to grow and after only six months in the housebuilders sector, secured over 12,000 building plots.

In a five-year deal, the rebranded AO Arena would see live events resuming once the current COVID-19 related restrictions on venues are lifted.

[32] In October 2020, AO announced plans to open five 'stores-within-a-store' with Tesco as part of a six-month partnership trial with the supermarket.

[36][37] The following month, AO successfully completed a planned £40m capital raise to strengthen its balance sheet and increase liquidity back to historic levels.

[41] In the same month, AO announced it was the new headline sponsor of Manchester Thunder, the current and four time Netball Super League champions.

[42] AO announced in October 2024 that it would acquire musicMagpie, an online retailer that buys and sells refurbished electronics, for approximately £10 million, as part of expanding the firm's consumer tech businesses.