As a car dealer, sometimes a deal is so good it just begs to be shared. The Mazda Verisa is one of those good deals. Allow me to explain why.
Everybody knows good cars that are in high demand. The Demio is a good car that is in high demand. But being a good car and being a good deal are two very different things. The Demio is known, so people want it. But what if the Demio had a brother that was just as good in every way, but was not so famous? Being relatively unknown means the brother is not in high demand, and low demand for a car means that the price will be low.
And that is the case with the Verisa. The Mazda Demio – or Mazda2 – is famous worldwide. It is a bestseller in the UK, in Germany, in Japan, in the US and pretty much everywhere. The Mazda Demio has benefited from millions upon millions of advertising dollars. But all the advertising drives up demand, and demand drives up the price. All the while, the Mazda Verisa has been sold rather quietly in just one market – the domestic Japanese market. And all those used Verisa’s, when they go on auction, sit there. I logged into the auctions today and found one after another – not sold, not sold, not sold. Many Japanese do not know about the Verisa. But why? The seats in the Verisa are thicker than those in the Demio, the interior is better quality, and the price is marginally higher. But Mazda dealerships push the Demio and put the Verisa way in the back. One Mazda dealership did not even have a Verisa available for test drives. Why? This is just conjecture, but I think the Verisa is seen as competing with the Demio, and every auto maker wants that Best Selling status. So if too many Verisa sell, this takes a bite out of Demio’s sales figures. And I would also suspect that the Demio has a higher profit margin than the Verisa. In summary, I can say that if you want a reliable, the Mazda Verisa is usually going to give you more for your money than a Toyota Vitz, a Honda Fit, Mitsubishi Mirage, Suzuki Swift or Nissan March. This is especially true when buying from Japanese auctions because the demand simply is not there for used Verisas.
