Good salesmen can smell money and sales. A Zurich store will have such staff. A prize example: My uncle was the scruffiest man you could imagine, but only he was invited out of the crowd at the Aston Martin stand at the Motor Show. The old salesman suspected correctly that he was the only man in the crowd who could write out a cheque for one (or two) without blinking, and was the kind who would buy such a car; correct again, for he had, in his youth, bought a 1948 Triumph roadster off the stand, number one of the model. He was that type of bloke.
No sales assistant would really make such a bad judgment on a handbag sale, though I can't imagine what bag it was; vintage Hermes in crocodile doesn't fetch more than £10k. More likely is that it was in a locked cabinet and Oprah got a bit huffy.