Shop Assistant Etiquette

So, I was in the Fossil shop, buying a slightly Navajo Indian-inspired wallet (think I may be going a little ethnic in styling terms this summer), when the 19-year old shop assistant serving me started telling me what a nice wallet it was and how he really needed a new wallet because his had been stolen two weeks ago, and it was full, and there was no chance of getting it back. "It really hurt man". I was completely baffled as to how to react - initially, I expressed sympathy in a kind of grunty British embarrassed way, but he just carried on, rather as if he expected me to do something about it. I ended up feeling like I should be offering to buy him a wallet too. I wonder what Emily Post would have advised...?