We went through this ourselves first.
We bought B300s for our own use. Along the way we saw the quotes with five to ten percent quietly added, the allocation that turned out to belong to somebody else, and the facility that was keen right up until we asked how quickly they could actually rack it.
We got there on time and without paying for the privilege. But with the network we have now, we’d have been racked about two weeks sooner — and on a deployment this size, two weeks of idle kit costs more than the spread we had just avoided.
What we kept was the list — distributors who priced straight and actually held stock, facilities that would commit to a date rather than a maybe. That list is the whole business.
Having been the buyer is the difference. Most of the people quoting you have never bought this hardware, never had their own money riding on a delivery date, and never had to explain a slipped quarter to a board or an investor. Your deadline is an abstraction to them.
We know which questions to ask because we had to ask them, and we know which answers actually mean yes.