Inside Penneys: Behind The Scenes With Kelly-Ann Carroll

Tell us about your career to date in Primark?

I joined Primark over 16 years ago, after a brief stint with the brand as a model when I was about 4 or 5! I always knew I wanted to get into buying but at the time there wasn’t an opportunity to study it in Ireland. When I joined the business, there was just one store outside of Ireland and the UK, so it’s a privilege to have seen our international expansion journey.

Beginning in admin, I worked my way up from trainee buyer, gaining experience across a number of departments including lingerie, menswear, license and womenswear. In 2016, I decided to take a career pivot and joined the brand and marketing team as our first product business partner. As part of this role, I worked with all brand and marketing functions and the product and retail teams to deliver our marketing strategy. The move was really beneficial for me as I was passionate to support the customer journey after the product had made it to the depot, and the brxand and marketing world was only really in its infancy at Primark at the time with the birth of digital and social media.

I was responsible for the health and beauty division – the beginning of my journey in this space! Last year, the opportunity came up for the role of Head of Buying within this team and I jumped at it, as my dream was always to become a head of buying. I felt my journey in Primark had shaped me to be prepared to step into this role – as I understood product development, merchandising, design, quality, retail operations, brand and marketing, store design, equipment and compliance. I am now over a year in the role and absolutely love it!

Tell us about your role, what does it involve?

My role is the head of buying for the health and beauty product offer globally at Primark. My role can look very different day to day which is what makes it so exciting. Some of the big call outs would be identifying future and emerging trends or product opportunities and partnerships in the health and beauty space and working with the buying, merchandising, design and quality assurance teams to bring them to market at pace, ensuring they reflect the best quality and value to excite our customers. I also look at the trends or products that are in decline and how we can transition out of them.

There are a number of ways I identify this, from spending time in our stores across our different markets and listening to our customers and our retail colleagues, to reviewing product sales and performance weekly. I also conduct research across the beauty market, gathering a picture of what is trending or emerging and blending that with insights from trend forecasting reports, our design team, our innovation team and one aspect that is becoming more and more important is spending time on social media, monitoring beauty trends that are going viral.

I spend a lot of my time attending meetings with my team, these can be trend or design presentations, trade performance meetings, lessons learnt and strategy meetings for the upcoming season, or sign off meetings when we finalise the product offer for the next season. These meetings are my favourite as this is where I really get to see the final product come to life, touching and feeling the product componentry and reviewing the product formulations and pay off.

What are your key highlights of 2023?

I have an incredibly talented team and stakeholders across the business I work with, and we’ve had a great year in health and beauty as it continues to grow and perform strongly. We’ve had some amazing moments so far like the launch of iconic products including the Prep and Perfect Moisture Barrier Primer and the PS…Instant Tanning Drops, which became viral hits online, selling out across stores.

It’s been fantastic to see the growth in trust and love for our PS…Beauty products, and I love seeing our customers share their reviews and get ready with me content online. The Primark Beauty hashtag on TikTok has over 350 million views!

My biggest highlight for 2023 has to be the launch of our reusable cleansing pads range. We made a decision over a year ago that we no longer wanted to sell single-use disposable cotton pads and we set ourselves the challenge to find a better alternative for our customers. It was a rollercoaster of a project, as we knew disposable cotton pads were one of our customers favourite products, so we pushed to create something they would love and make the switch to. We’re delighted with how the new range is performing in stores and it’s been fantastic to see our customer’s content online, showing how they use reusable cleansing pads to remove make up and encouraging others to make that small behaviour change.

The world of beauty is constantly evolving, what trends do you think we’ll see in 2024?

As you mentioned, beauty trends are constantly evolving and there is always a new trend bubbling up on TikTok. In 2024, I think instant bronzing will become the new tanning, the PS PRO…Instant Bronzing Drops in both light and dark shades, and the addition of the PS PRO…Instant Blush drops are must haves to give your skin that instant healthy glow. Speaking of blush, the ‘blush rush’ trend isn’t going anywhere from liquid, to cream and powder formulations. Some other cosmetic trends emerging we are excited about are ‘eye cocktailing’ including pearlescent shimmers and multichromatic and embellishment, and hybrid ‘one and done’ formats, which are long wear and easy to apply.

Skinification of health and beauty is only becoming more and more important and is infiltrating more product categories. Skinification is when a formulation includes skin or hair loving ingredients to benefit and care for you whilst also delivering in the moment results. Some examples of our hero skinified product launches are our new Primer which will include niacinamide to help the appearance of pores, fine lines and benefits the skin barrier, along with mushroom extract, hyaluronic acid and aloe vera. Our PS Pro Bond hair care collection that includes a range of products from a pre-shampoo, hair oil, intensive moisture mask, frizz shield and heat protecting cream are formulated with ingredients to restore, strengthen, condition and protect the hair. Hair care is definitely now the new skincare!

What are your go-to Primark Beauty products?

Where do I start! I am addicted to so many of our products but if I had to pick my go to’s it would be the ‘Prep and Perfect Moisture Barrier Primer’ and the ‘Prep and Perfect Up All Night Setting Spray’ especially for days where I need my make up to really last. For my ‘no makeup, make up days’, I love using our ‘Prep and Perfect Flawless Primer with SPF 50’ and adding our ‘PS…Instant Bronzing Drops’ to give my skin a health glow. Our makeup brushes are my go-to, I am still a powder eye shadow girl and I love using our brushes to achieve the perfect smokey eye application. I use our Gentle Micellar Water and our reusable cleansing pads for makeup removal, and our PS…Skin 2% Hyaluronic Serum is a favourite of mine for an instant hydration shot as well.