After Sinegal started as a grocery bagger at
FedMart in 1955, he discovered that he loved the retail industry, and he was excited by the opportunities at this rapidly growing retailer. At FedMart, he worked his way up to executive vice president in charge of merchandising and operations. He was a vice president of merchandising for Builders Emporium from 1977 to 1978 and an executive vice president for the Price Company from 1978 to 1979. From 1979 to 1983, he worked with Sinegal/Chamberlin and Associates, a company that acted as a broker and sales representative for food and nonfood products. Together with Seattle retailer
Jeff Brotman, he co-founded Costco. From 1983 until his retirement in 2011, Sinegal served as Costco's president and CEO. of the "
warehouse club" concept. Most if not all of Sinegal's business philosophy can be attributed to Price; Sinegal has said that he "learned everything" from Price. Sinegal is known for a benevolent style of management rooted in the belief that employees who are treated well will in turn treat and serve customers well. Sinegal, through Costco, provided his employees — at every level of the company, including the stores — compensation and benefits that are much higher than retail industry norms. For example, over 90% of Costco employees qualify for employer-sponsored health insurance; the US retail industry average is just under 60%. As a result, Costco has one of the lowest employee
turnover rates in retail. In 2006, Costco's turnover rate was 17% overall and 6% after one year of employment. In 1993, when growing competition threatened both Price Club and Costco Wholesale, Sinegal was invited to a partial merger. The two companies entered into a partial merger just after Price's earnings dropped by 40%. The new company, named PriceCostco, Inc., focused heavily on international expansion, opening stores in Mexico, South Korea and England. Despite best efforts to recover losses, sales continued to drop. Robert Price and James Sinegal had different opinions regarding company direction and recovery policies. A breakup between the companies was formally announced in 1994. Price's breakaway company was named as Price Enterprises. Sinegal still continued to manage PriceCostco, Inc. In 1997, the name of Sinegal's company was changed to Costco Wholesale. In an interview published in the
Houston Chronicle on July 17, 2005, he told Steven Greenhouse that he did not care about Wall Street analysts who had criticized him for putting good treatment of employees and customers ahead of pleasing shareholders. Investors might want higher earnings, but Sinegal stated, "We want to build a company that will still be here 50 and 60 years from now." A favorite quote attributed to Sinegal, in part about his philosophy on dealing with success, is "You have to take the shit with the sugar". Investors who bought $10,000 of Costco stock in 1992 found it worth $43,564 just 10 years later — a return of 354% (15.855%, annually). From 1985, when Costco went public, to 2020, the company's stock value increased 19,000%. In 2009, Sinegal was named a TopGun CEO by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency. == Retirement ==