LONDON, May 18 (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer apologised to customers on Saturday after its website and app went offline for several hours because of a "technical issue".
Visitors to the group's site were from around lunchtime greeted with the message: "PLEASE BEAR WITH US. Sorry you can't shop with us right now. We're working hard to be back online as soon as possible."
A spokesperson for M&S, one of the biggest names in British business, said the website and app were back up and running as of 1700 GMT
The company said the outage was due to a third-party service provider experiencing a "technical issue" and apologised to customers "for the inconvenience caused."
Several British retailers have recently been hit by online outages.
In March, Sainsbury's, Britain's No. 2 supermarket group, apologised to customers after it couldn't fulfil online orders.
M&S unveils annual results on Wednesday and is expected to report a big jump in profit. (Reporting by James Davey; editing by Giles Elgood and Timothy Heritage)
Marks & Spencer (MKS)
Sainsbury's (SBRY)