Simple assembly required as these arrive in a box about half their height so you will need to put two pieces together and fluff it up.  It arrives with the branches and greenery compacted.  In order to get the most fullness out of this tree, I rearranged all of the greenery using my fingers to pull branches from the inside of the spiral wire frame (where it cannot be seen) to the outside.  I bought two 6ft tall trees...even after I fluffed them up as much as possible, they are a little too skimpy for our home's scale.  I kept them but did not end up using them by our front door as I had planned.  Definitely plastic looking from up close but a reasonable fake from far away.