“I’ve earned over a million Qantas Points”

EFTPOS is a must in retail – and this seafood market gets rewarded just for using it. Notaras Fish Markets in Sydney’s Cronulla earns Qantas Points for every customer transaction made through the EFTPOS facilities provided by Live eftpos, a payment solutions provider. “Nearly everything’s on a card these days,” says co-owner Damian Notaras. Why did you choose to use a Live eftpos device? It was referred to me by a friend. When he told me you get points when people use cards in your establishment, I said, “Really?” Now people come in, they spend and we receive points. Also, our Live eftpos representative goes out of his way to be helpful. He emails you back straightaway and calls you every few weeks to check everything’s alright. He’s a really nice guy. How do you use the points earned from customer transactions? We travel to Queensland and Victoria to touch base with suppliers. Sometimes we’ll take staff – we have 20 to 30 staff depending on the time of year – and it’s a real treat for them. My brother [Peter] and father [John, the founder of Notaras Fish Markets] co-own the business and we’re very hands-on – we serve, we cook if we have to. So we take turns having time off and use the points for holidays. In July, I took my family to Greece. My wife and eldest daughter flew Business Class and I sat with our other two children in Economy. My wife hasn’t heard the end of that yet! Is it hard working in a family business? Like any small business, if you take your foot off the accelerator, then sometimes you can fall behind. But we have very good staff and if I’m not working, my brother looks after everything. My dad, who’s 63 and very old-school, comes to work every day. How did Notaras Fish Markets start? We’ve been in this business more than 30 years. My dad came to Australia from Kythira, south of Athens, when he was 10, got a job packing seafood for a man from the same village and opened shops with his brothers out west. We’ve been by the seaside for 15 years now and when it rains, it’s hard because not as many people come. But the area is changing and developing a lot. And the more that happens, the more people come in.