My use case is variable and database table/column naming. The table will reference professional photography service providers. While appropriate unabbreviated naming is a must, a shorter name would be preferable. 

My intuition suggests that a vendor is rather selling products than rendering services, but I am completely unsure about how real and how essential this difference is.

Is it appropriate to replace 'service provider' with 'vendor' for reasons of brevity in this and other cases? 

Thank you