Toyota Australia could easily charge more for Sold out GR Yaris compared to the $39,950 it did at launch, but to this day, it has no regrets — even if we really doubt that each of those first cars was sold at a loss or at rates super small profit margin.
Why? Because the company feels like it can nurture a new generation of car enthusiasts (lots of GR forums attest to this) and sees the lack of profit as another form of marketing.
The company basically took the money they could have dropped on big budget ads for pocket rockets, and instead used it to help lower the price of the sticker and thus secure a team grateful brand ambassadors.
Even though price increase after first allocation to $44,950 (and more for the Rallye), the company sold about 2100, and had to order pause for over a year when it caught up because the production quantity was very limited.
Suffice to say, it would sell off its scarce allocation even if it charged more than it should, and if it did, could make a much smaller sum.
“It won’t change a thing,” said Sean Hanley, vice president of sales and marketing at Toyota Australia, last week.
“It puts GR [branding] on the map… we needed to make a statement about GR in Australia and basically what we did was instead of using multimedia to make that claim… we used advocates.
“We had someone tell people about the car. So you turn your customers into brand ambassadors. We had cars on the road. “
While we strongly suspect that Toyota has gone as far as to sell the first batch of GR Yaris cars ‘at a loss, Mr. Hanley has played a figurative straight bat for that conundrum.
“Well, I’m not going there, but I’d say they were sold with an investment in the GR brand,” he said, before adding a pretty good hint if you’re reading mid-line.
“I will not discuss profit margins. I would say the entire Yaris GR strategy is an investment in the GR brand. So no, there’s nothing to lose when you look at the totality of what it’s achieved for us.
“…We invested the money back in the people who wanted these cars and it worked for us. So I will change it? Not a single letter.”
Unfortunately, don’t expect a Toyota to perform a similar ploy with equally wildness GR Corolla launch in the first quarter of 2023, as the GR brand is now much better recognized by the market – that’s exactly the bottom line.
“Different circumstances, different times, because we made a statement with GR Yaris. The GR brand is now on the market,” said Mr. Hanley.
“However, having said that… we really want these cars to be achievable. We want enthusiasts. We want these cars to reach people who want to love driving Toyota performance cars.”
This is a dig into speculators or people of inherent size who have already started buying lots of cars in demand and selling them at exorbitant prices, which Mr Hanley criticized this week while calling for a some form of intervention where legally possible.
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