Adobe Commerce is at the centre of a dispute with Adorn Cosmetics, the Australian beauty retailer that 7NEWS reported on 8 November was facing closure. Founder Briony Kennedy told the broadcaster the migration damaged sales. Adobe declined to comment for legal reasons, according to the report.
Adorn’s homepage carried the appeal “Help Save our Aussie Business” when checked after the report. It said stock remained available and referred to Channel 7’s coverage. Products and prices were still displayed.
The report put Adorn’s peak annual turnover at $6 million. Kennedy said sales fell by roughly 30% after launch and paid social-media adverts failed to lead customers back to the website. 7NEWS identified Convert Digital as the implementation agency and said the retailer later moved to Shopify.
The broadcast described bankruptcy risk and a possible closure the following day. Sulat has not verified a bankruptcy order, company liquidation or completed closure.
The broadcaster also reported unsuccessful mediation. Adobe’s response was to 7NEWS; Sulat has not contacted Adobe or implementation agency Convert Digital.
Watch the report: 7NEWS Australia on YouTube (2 minutes, 41 seconds).
The upgrade was announced in 2021
The migration predates this week’s coverage by five years. A September 2021 announcement in B&T described Adorn moving from open-source Magento to Adobe Commerce, with plans for better product search, a larger loyalty programme, personalised recommendations and inventory integration.
Kennedy welcomed the proposed improvements in that announcement. Adobe APAC executive Scott Rigby also endorsed the project. Those statements document what the companies promoted at the time, rather than independently measured results.
An Add To Cart interview published on 8 November 2021 records a more positive early account. In its auto-generated transcript, Kennedy describes problems with the old site’s accumulated plug-ins, Adobe’s involvement in the project and faster pages after the upgrade. The recording date is unverified, so the publication date cannot establish exactly where those comments sit in the launch chronology.
Adobe was still presenting Adorn as a customer success story in an August 2022 company blog post. It described improvements to page loading, product discovery and the use of customer data in marketing. The post supplied no Adorn-specific performance measurements. Early satisfaction and later technical problems could coexist; these public accounts alone do not settle what changed.
Adobe’s record on access and exit
Beyond Adorn, public records document disputes over cancellation costs, access to older software and a withdrawn cloud service. These involve different products and contracts. The U.S. subscription case does not determine responsibility for Adorn’s Australian Commerce implementation.
The U.S. cancellation case
In June 2024, U.S. regulators alleged that Adobe obscured annual-plan commitments and early-termination fees, and obstructed cancellation. The FTC described a charge of 50% of remaining payments when customers cancelled an annual plan billed monthly during its first year.
A federal court entered final judgment on 10 April 2026. The settlement order requires a US$75 million civil penalty payable to the United States and US$75 million in free services, rather than US$150 million in customer refunds. It also requires clearer fee disclosures, informed consent, reminders before free trials lasting more than seven days convert to paid subscriptions, and simpler cancellation mechanisms.
The defendants neither admitted nor denied the complaint’s allegations in the order, apart from specified admissions. Adobe publicly denied wrongdoing and said it had made signup and cancellation more transparent. The settlement resolved the case without a trial finding that Adobe deliberately deceived customers.
Older software restrictions
In May 2019, Adobe told some Creative Cloud customers that certain older application versions were no longer licensed for use. BleepingComputer reported the notices and obtained Adobe’s response: continuing to use those versions could expose customers to third-party infringement claims, and Adobe would not discuss the matter because of ongoing litigation.
The warning concerned specified older subscription versions and possible claims by third parties. Adobe’s statement did not threaten to sue its customers itself. The practical consequence was pressure to upgrade, including for users who depended on an older version for an existing project.
A cloud-sync service withdrawn
Adobe’s Creative Cloud Synced Files shutdown was phased through 2024–25. Its notice said general-purpose desktop-folder syncing and shared links would end and cloud copies would be deleted. Adobe said it would give affected users at least 90 days’ notice and focus instead on purpose-built creative collaboration. Cloud Documents, Libraries, Lightroom storage and Frame.io were unaffected.
Local files generally remained, but Adobe warned that some older desktop clients could also delete local synced copies unless users backed them up elsewhere. The transition required action: Radboud University told staff in February 2025 to save affected cloud files elsewhere before its 4 March deletion deadline.
What remains unresolved about Adorn
The financial figures and allegations in the broadcast have not been independently verified by Sulat. The project contract, launch correspondence, implementation records and accounts would be needed to assess responsibilities and quantify losses. A decline following a migration establishes a sequence of events; determining its causes requires evidence about orders, traffic, advertising and trading conditions.
ABN Lookup identified the operator as Adorn Mineral Cosmetics Pty Ltd and showed active ABN and GST registrations in a record extracted on 9 November 2026. An active tax registration does not establish solvency. The company’s online appeal likewise shows it seeking support, without confirming its ability to fulfil orders or meet its debts.
Sulat has not independently verified a filed claim or court finding establishing liability in this dispute. Its reporting is based on published sources, and it has not contacted the parties. The earlier promotional statements provide context, but neither Adobe nor Convert Digital has answered the detailed project allegations in the material reviewed.
Sources include 7NEWS, court records, the FTC, Adobe’s statements and support documents, Adorn’s website, ABN Lookup, B&T, Add To Cart, BleepingComputer and Radboud University. No private Adorn project records or financial accounts were available for review.
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