Buying a sim card at an Orange store in Paris

I shop at the Orange boutique on rue de Rivoli, across from Metro Saint Paul, and can offer some tips for a smoother transaction, no matter which boutique you go to:
First, do some research online into the product you want, print the page and bring it with you. This will avoid confusion and you will get exactly what you want.
Second, avoid going to the store when it first opens, during lunchtime (12 - 2), or when it's about to close. Too many people, not enough salespeople, too much frustration. Saturday is not a good choice, either.
Third, always begin with "Bonjour, Madame (or Monsieur)." The salespeople will speak English to you, but you'll have a much better experience if you're polite while doing business. When you leave, say "Merci beaucoup."
Fourth, if you don't understand something, ask in a calm voice for it to be explained again. Yelling will get you nowhere, and fast.

If in doubt about the boutiques in your neighborhood, walk by and see how many customers are in there. If it's too crowded, my advice would be to choose a different location.

Hi Mary, I've been buying the Orange Holiday SIM, which is 40€ and comes with 2 hours of international calls, plenty of texts (1000?), and 1G data, and it's good for 2 weeks. The shop I went to on Boul. St. Germain was busy, but really helpful and it didn't take too long for them to set me up. The first guy who helped me didn't speak English, but he got someone who did. Remember to take your passport because they need to see it when you buy a SIM for some reason.

Buying a local SIM on arrival in Europe used until fairly recently to be the conventional wisdom.

I now see quite a few posts where fellow travelers have found the prices offered by certain US and Canadian providers are quite competitive and folks just get the plan before they leave home and use what they need in Europe.

It might be worth posting here what sort of phone you currently have and who your provider is. You may be surprised.

Thank you to everyone for your help.

Chexbres has good advice above. Despite our efforts, though, we got very poor service and a product we didn't want from the Orange store on rue de Rivoli in the Marais. The salesman, who seemed also to be the manager on duty, spoke no English and our French wasn't up to the task of identifying just the product we needed. Once he had entered us in Orange's system he said there was no turning back. If I'd been thinking more clearly I'd have just walked out at that point, before paying, but of course I wasn't and so did. This was a couple of years ago so doubtless the people are different now, but the experience has stayed with me as a low point among many great memories of Paris.

Unless you're very fluent and confident in French, look for a salesperson whose English is good and is willing to explain carefully what your options are. My own experience will cause me to look for a company other than Orange in the future.

Good point about bringing your actual passport, and not a copy. This is to prevent terrorist activity.
I can testify that the service in most Orange boutiques has improved tremendously - as long as you don't go when the manager is relieving salespeople for lunch.
The salesperson will insert the SIM and unlock your phone, making sure everything works before you leave. You'll have to sign paperwork, and will probably be in the boutique a good 30 mins, maybe more.

Dick's experience is not unique to Paris or to Orange. A few years ago, my sister went into a T-Mobile store to get the exact same plan I had; she was told no such plan existed, and was offered a much more expensive one she didn't want or need. Luckily, since she wasn't in a hurry and since she knew from me the salesman was lying, she simply walked out.

Moral of the story: do follow Chexbres's advice, and print out the plan you want from the website.

But even before you do that, Nigel's point is also very important. Would your US carrier have a plan that meets your needs, and how much will it cost? It's certainly easier, and these days may not cost more.

Slightly off topic, but last year I bought a 30-day plan with a limited amount of data and limited minutes from the Boutique Orange in the shopping mall by Gare Montparnasse. They said 30 days was the minimum you could buy. I had first gone to the Boutique Orange location near the Pantheon, but they said they did not have SIM cards for foreign phones so I needed to go to a different location.

Two days later the data allowance was used up -- due to my ignorance of what does and doesn't use up data. At that point I was in Chartres so stopped in at the Boutique Orange there and the salesman (very nice, fluent in English) sold me a 30-day unlimited plan including both calls and data. Theoretically he said I could have topped up my existing plan, but only if I returned to Paris to the Montparnasse shop where I'd bought my initial plan.

Naturally I wasn't all that happy about paying for another plan, but figured it was the cost of learning my lesson in cell phone intricacies.

However, 4 days into the 30-day "unlimited" plan, when I tried to make a phone call within France, I got a recorded Boutique Orange message saying my plan had run out! Even more bizarre, I was able to make a call to the UK and to an international 800 number, but I could not make any calls within France! At that point I was hundreds of miles away from Chartres and about to leave France, so I never did find out why this happened.

I second what Nigel says about just adding an international plan to your home service. That way you keep the same phone number, you don't have to figure out the plans and you know exactly what you are buying. We use Verizon and bought a $40 plan which gave us 100 minutes of talk, 100 outgoing texts (incoming were free), and 1 gb of data. DH kept his phone on airplane mode 90% of the time and connected to wifi for most everything, so this was plenty. They also offer a $10 per day plan which allows you to use your home plan internationally. I used this one day on my phone when I knew we'd need GPS, and kept my phone on airplane mode the remainder of the trip. Saving 30+ minutes of hassle in a cell phone store on my vacation is worth $40 to me!

I agree with Celeste. It's worth it to keep your regular cell phone if your provider can give you an international plan.