Purchase and Activation of IPhone 5s

If I order or purchase and Iphone 5s from Apple store or Apple superstore, do they activate it there or do I take it to te carrier( Verizon) store and get it activated there? Have Verizon and am due for an upgrade.

They'll either activate it there or you can do it yourself - it shouldn't be necessary to bring it to a Verizon store.

You should just be able to put your sim card into the phone and away you go, This is all i did when i got the iPhone 5 from the apple store here in the UK.
I simply purchased the phone and got my new nano sim from vodafone and popped it into the iPhone and it worked right away.