Shuttle trading (Russian for shattle trader: Russian: челнок, chelnok, pl. Russian: челноки chelnoki) is a term used for a Russian economic practice in which traders shuttle backwards and forwards across the country buying goods from cheap sources in Moscow, major port cities or outside Russia and selling them in the Russian interior. One of the main commodities traded in this way is cars.
The OECD defines shuttle trade as the activity in which individual entrepreneurs buy goods abroad and import them for resale in street markets or small shops. Often the goods are imported without full declaration in order to avoid import duties.