Jaycar Electronics - A conversation with Gary Johnston
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- In this interview from 2010, Gary Johnston of Jaycar Electronics recounts how he started with electronics as a young hobbyist. The conversation covers how he progressed to building amplifiers and other projects of the day. Later, whilst working for a component supplier, he met Dick Smith which would form a long-lasting relationship. Eventually, Dick asked him to work for him and together they worked for several years before Gary went out on his own. Gary started Jaycar Electronics and in this interview, he explains how he managed to steer the company away from the then Woolworths owned Dick Smith Electronics.
Today, Jaycar Electronics is the largest franchised hobbyist and enthusiast retail chain in Australia and has stores in other countries like New Zealand as well. Despite huge competition from the Internet and overseas companies, they have survived and continue to provide locals with a chance to walk into a store, ask questions and purchase electronic components and equipment.
This interview took place in Sydney 23/11/2010.
My Dad worked with Gary in the 70's. Dad always talked about how great Gary was, i was lucky to meet him. Rip champion.
RIP Gary. Thanks for all the fish.
Great work on the interview Karl.
Thanks Dave. Much appreciated.
I notice that Jaycar have rebranded themselves and gone back to their roots with a more technical focus. Good news as they were starting to look more like Dick Smith. We are lucky here having Jaycar and Altronics, both locally owned ozzie businesses. He was prophetic about Dick Smith Electronics
Agreed. It’s been a while when I went to Jaycar. Went there last week and I thought, wow this is Dick Smith again. It ignited my love for electronics. Now will get back to it.
Gary in the early 70's was sales manager for component supplier Auriema who distributed Solitron semiconductors. They had the most rugged TO3 power transistors in the world at that time...the 97SE113. We at JANDS bought thousands of them for our power amplifiers.
Later we enjoyed each others commeradery on the initial Variety Club Bourke to Burketown Bash plus many other events.
Gary was a fantastic fun loving guy and nothing was too much trouble...he will be sadly missed.
Thanks for your comment Phillip. RIP Gary
RIP Gary, you will be missed.
I buy a handful of components from a city Jaycar store twice a week when I'm actively building something. They are uniformly over priced but I know what they have, they rarely run out of stock, and I am soldering those parts that night. They are hiring entirely non technical people and I often explain to them what the part is, or how to find it on their system. They are pleasant enough and I don't mind that. Gary's departure will be an acid test of their maker focus. Electronics experimenters are fewer in number today than 10 years ago. The maker crowd uses different products and tooling to what Jaycar offer. I am watching the 1Mohm resistor stock... (PS I wish they would stock the larger surface mount components).
Love the Arduino comment.
I was surprised at how long it took Jaycar to really start to get into Arduinos. Guess I know why now!
Bulk waste council pick ups are like Christmas to me. I scavenge heaps of parts from it and then send the leftovers to recycling.
I worked for Gary for too many years. He was onto an idea that made him rich, very rich. He was a tyrannical manager of the business. Yet brilliant, in the way that he held Jaycar to its song. I met a lot of brilliant retailers that by weight of personality expelled the talent to a detriment of the business. I have always wondered how much bigger the business could have been if that talent had stayed. Not much for a clutch.
I worked for Gary who was a tyrannical business leader
a John singleton of electronics I liked him in ways but he knew how to take advantage of the dorky radio guys He milked Dick Smith but not his philanthropy but his business acumen .He was a smart guy
Excellent interview. I wonder if it was his scavenging in tips or one of the component manufacturers he worked for where he was exposed to asbestos. RIP. Glad to see Jaycar going away from cheap toys and junk products again too.
How is he now? And was he the one who funded the really amazing investigation to our new Submarine program?
He died today
Love me some good junk.
Interestingly he was a little dismissive of the Arduino popularity but it was 10 years ago and it's a big line for them now. "Whether it still remains in our product line"😆
Yeah, that commentary (and the Open Source stuff too) really didn't age well.
Top bloke - guess where i go first for components/tools. Please dont stop doin what ya doin.
Hi, Mr. Johnson....
Since you are, essentially, Jaycar elec. do you have a U.S. accesible ph.# for info and orders?
Many builders, like myself, have been playing Hades getting most anything audio from china...
And besides, i would rather keep my expenditures in Allied hands.
Thanks,
BRIAN.
Unfortunately jaycar can not compete with eBay free delivery from China. Unless you need the thing today.
I do click and collect, pick up next day. Jaycar is about the enthusiast, the hobbyist the experimenter, not just fast delivery.
There's a Jaycar five minutes down the road from me. I'll wait five minutes over two weeks any day.
Ebay is great but it is no replacement for the convenience of Jaycar. Yes, you can buy anything under the sun on there but if you order from China, you never really know if your gonna be waiting 2 weeks or 2 months. You could order from from sellers within Australia and get your parts in about a week (maybe even less if you're metro) but then you'll have to pay at least like 3x the price plus shipping. At that point, you may as well just go to Jaycar. The only limitation is the range.
I miss the Dick Smiths of the early to mid 80's. Long live Jaycar.
Γεια σου φιλαρακι Gary μου!!!
Mate, with all due respect..... you really need to improve customer satisfaction in your online ordering system. I read nothing but negative comments relating to the majority of customer experiences with your online customer purchases. I have recently placed an online order, and after reading past and present customer experiences I’m very nervous about what to expect. As you know, customer service experiences are very, very important to the success of future ecommerce business for Jaycar. Please focus on that aspect of your business..... it would be a shame for another Australian business to lose its market share in the future.... then all we’ll have is WES (wagner).