Celebrating 20 years of Appliances Online

In 2025 Appliances Online turns 20 years old. That’s two decades of helping Australians shop for their perfect appliance replacements or upgrades from the comfort of their own homes (and workplaces, and buses…)

Twenty years of Appliances Online is really twenty years of our website. Unlike a lot of Australian businesses, we are a digital native retailer, born into the world of the web. This is how most people have found us, compared products and prices, and made the decision to buy. Alongside the site, our Sydney call centre has been here around the clock: real people answering questions and taking orders, day and night. But it’s appliancesonline.com.au that tells the story of how Aussies made the shift to buying big, important home appliances online - and never looked back.

Contrary to his dad’s concerns that ‘nobody would buy a fridge online’, the new venture gained traction, and within three months it was clear that Australia’s appliance shopping game had changed forever.

Let’s go back to the early days and see how things have evolved over the past twenty years.

Right from the start, we did things differently, announcing our free delivery, free connection, and free removal of old appliances. Our logo featured the circle design that would become a mainstay, but the ‘Appliances Online’ wording was in all caps, something that would later change.

At that time, our range was focused on the basics: fridges and freezers, dishwashers, washing machines and clothes dryers. In 2005, your choice of dryer was either vented or condenser. Today, heat pump dryers dominate our range, illustrating how far technology and expectations around energy efficiency have come in two decades.

Back then, our service area was limited to Sydney and surrounds, home to then-Prime Minister John Howard. The homepage proudly declared we had $2 million in stock, which seemed enormous at the time, and we ran a competition to win a 23-inch LCD TV - state-of-the-art for the mid-2000s when screens were smaller and plasma was still a popular display technology. Today, you’d be hard pressed to find many TVs less than 32 inches in size, and more Aussies now opt for 65 and 75 inch screens, or bigger.

By 2008, Kevin Rudd had swept into office, Australia was celebrating hosting World Youth Day in Sydney, and the first iPhones had made it to our shores, kickstarting another shift in the way we would connect, browse and shop.

For Appliances Online, growth had been rapid, with the homepage now stating that the value of our stock had tripled within three years to $6 million, and our delivery network now reached Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and the Gold Coast.

Our product range had expanded too, moving beyond laundry and refrigeration into ovens, cooktops, rangehoods, small appliances, sinks, tapware and vacuum cleaners. The idea of buying a new cooker or vacuum online may seem normal now, but in 2008, it was a leap of faith for many.

By 2012, Australians were well and truly digital consumers, with smartphones in most people’s pockets and streaming services tolling the death knell for Blockbuster DVD rental stores. Australia had its first female PM in Julia Gillard, while Michael Clarke was leading Australia onto the cricket pitch.

After undergoing a redesign to today’s lower case lettering in 2010, our Appliances Online logo now featured the tagline ‘Australia’s largest online appliance retailer’ - a claim accompanied by an image of our growing fleet of branded delivery trucks.

We had become a national player, advertising our delivery across the country, and not just to the capital cities, along with a customer support line that was now open 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our range had grown again as well, to include BBQs, heaters, and hot water systems, cementing our role as more than just a laundry and kitchen specialist.

By 2014, Game of Thrones was dominating water cooler TV chat and Tony Abbott was Prime Minister. Australians were spending more online than ever before, on everything from fashion to groceries, as well as appliances.

Appliances Online launched a bold new site design, with TV and Audio prominently displayed after having become a permanent product category two years earlier. We proudly spruiked our Price Matching and expanded our legendary free delivery promise to include Free Next Day Delivery* to more areas. For many people, today, that’s the first thing that springs to mind when they hear the name Appliances Online. Our customer support was now also available 24/7, a rarity not only at the time, but to this day.

2016 saw Malcolm Turnbull take his turn as Prime Minister, while Adele was topping the music charts and the Rio Olympics gave Australians lots to hope for, but sadly little to cheer about.

The Appliances Online website had been refined again with a sleeker look, and more prominence given to our free appliance recycling service - a key component of our growing focus on sustainability.

We had also adopted the tagline ‘Legendary Service’ beneath our logo, and our ORIAS win for Online Retailer of the Year was proudly splashed across our homepage.

But the true icon of this era was the Appliances Online Legend Blimp, a picture of which sat next to our logo. As the only airship in the southern hemisphere, it had floated over the eastern seaboard for more than a year prior, drawing national media attention and even hosting radio duo Hamish & Andy among other high profile passengers.

2020 was unforgettable for reasons none of us expected. As PM, Scott Morrison was at the helm as the pandemic reshaped daily life, and households spent more time at home than ever before. Demand for appliances surged as people upgraded fridges, freezers, and dishwashers to cope with home life on overdrive. We'd dropped the .com.au from our logo by this point, because this internet thing was established enough not to need to remind everyone that we were online.

Our website saw refinements to make it easier to navigate, and our range expanded once again: Outdoor Living joined BBQs, and the new category of Health, Beauty & Fitness appeared, reflecting the increase in home gyms brought about by Covid.

By 2022, life was slowly returning to normal, though the pandemic’s shadow lingered, with our website still carrying the unmistakable stamp of the times: a COVID Safe Handling policy. By now, Anthony Albanese had taken up residence in The Lodge, Succession was winning Emmys, and Pat Cummins was leading the baggy greens onto the oval.

Appliances Online’s homepage from that year reflected the shifting needs of households, with Beds & Mattresses, Furniture, and Home Office categories joining the product range. The worst of the pandemic was behind us, but it was still the work-from-home era, and our homes had become multi-purpose spaces for living, working, and relaxing.

Which brings us to today, when the Appliances Online site is being continually refined to offer the most user-friendly experience yet.

In 2025, streaming platforms have eclipsed free-to-air TV, phones fold in half again, and AI is powering everything from healthcare to entertainment. Australians are more comfortable shopping online than ever, and there are millions of us who wouldn’t dream of wasting precious weekends traipsing around white goods stores.

In 2005, offering free delivery on a fridge in Sydney was groundbreaking. In 2025, delivering a fridge by the next day, and even same day, almost anywhere in the country happens all the time for Appliances Online customers, reflecting not just how we have evolved, but also how Australians have embraced the winning combination of cutting edge digital retail, family values and old fashioned customer service.