Dive Brief:

• Some 61% of American shoppers have a higher opinion of brands with well performing mobile apps, and 40% use a competitor’s app if a mobile experience is bad, according to a study by research and content evaluation company Latitude.

• Mobile apps by Amazon, Groupon, Fanatics, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. performed well in the study, while apps by Costco, Sears, and Home Depot were among the ones that needed work, according to research by software developer Pivotal Labs.

• For its Second Annual Pivotal Labs U.S. Retail Apps Report, Pivotal Labs looked at top 25 U.S. retailers headquartered with smartphone apps for iOS and Android and used the 50 most recent app store customer comments about performance, features, and design.

Dive Insight:

While Pivotal Labs found that three of the retailers with the best mobile apps are e-commerce companies, the fact that Wal-Mart is up on the list shows that m-commerce performance doesn't have to be dominated by online-only retailers. And the findings by Latitude show what retailers are increasingly discovering: Mobile performance is not just about enabling purchases, but also a reflection of retail brands.