Rattan and bamboo are important forest resources for the North Eastern Region (NER) of India. Naturally growing in abundance, they find use in a number of industries such as housing, construction, handicrafts, furniture and food industry. Of late, this industry has seen considerable growth outside the NER. But it has not been able to realize its full potential in NER due to significant lack in market orientation of the craftsmen who work from remote areas in NER and try to sell in urban markets. This paper looks into the urban markets, which holds the highest scope for revenue growth for this industry and investigates the gap in the customer preferences and current industry value proposition. The main gaps found are: lack of awareness, limited training focused only on techniques, lack of design awareness and sensitivity (ergonomics, attention to detail, finishing, presentation), lack of branding and marketing knowledge and limited outreach of self help groups (SHG) and clusters. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017.