Sainsbury's has fixed the "technical glitch" which knocked its ordering service offline for two days.

But thousands of online shoppers will be left without their groceries until Saturday when deliveries will resume.

The supermarket chain was forced to take down its online home delivery service on Tuesday after a technical fault hit its website. Deliveries on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were cancelled.

The problem left Sainsbury's unable to process customer orders, although the company has stressed that no personal details were compromised.

The website is now up and running allowing customers to change existing orders or place new ones.

"We experienced a technical glitch which affected our ability to process orders," Sainsbury's said in a statement.

"We have been contacting customers whose orders have been affected over the last couple of days and would like to apologise once again for the inconvenience this has caused."

Shoppers affected by the problem have been offered £10 vouchers as compensation.

Some reports suggest that the supermarket chain has already lost nearly £1m in sales, and that rivals such as Ocado, Tesco and Adsa have picked up many new customers.