厂商
chǎngshāng · HSK 6
firm
🏭 厂商 = factory (厂) + merchant (商) = maker/firm
厂 is the factory radical (a slanted roof/shed) and 商 means merchant or commerce. Together they cover the producer-and-seller side of business: manufacturers, vendors, firms.
厂 — single radical 厂 (cliff)
厂 is a pictograph of an overhanging cliff or rock shelter, showing a sloping line where stone juts out over the ground. It serves as a radical in many characters relating to factories, workshops, or things found under cliffs. In modern simplified Chinese it was also borrowed to write 廠 (chǎng, 'factory').
商 — 亠 lid + 丷 + 冏 window/enclosure
In oracle bone script 商 depicted a raised platform or altar-like structure, and it served as the name of the Shang dynasty and its capital region. The modern components are a late simplification of that pictograph and carry no separate meaning. The sense 'trade, merchant' arose later, traditionally linked to Shang people who travelled to buy and sell after their dynasty fell.