LONDON (Reuters) - British retailer Marks & Spencer apologised to customers on Saturday after its website and app went offline for several hours due to 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 a third-party service provider was experiencing a "technical issue" which was temporarily affecting access to its website and app.

"We hope to be back up and running soon and are sorry to customers for the inconvenience caused," they said.

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)