By just after 6am, Wanda Kaluza’s Wal-Mart shopping cart was already full. There was a Disney Tumble-Time Tigger for $24.88, a children’s sleeping bag and piles of clothes.

“Boy, it’s a madhouse in here. Excuse me, excuse me,” she was saying as she manoeuvred the trolley through the crowded aisles of the electronics department.