I have tried to order stuff in from my local HMV store (Inter-National chain). they have a large database on their computers, but can't order anything that isn't on their list.
Guess what! they don't have any new (ish) YELLO on their databases, so they can't order any in. I have asked, and even tried to source out titles to bring in, to make finding them easier. This is not easy when you don't know of newly released CD singles, titles, release dates, distributers,etc. If I had all that information, I would order it directly, as I would know who to contact.

This is surprising, There's a thing called AMROC (http://www.amroc.com.au/) in Australia which is a database for *all* music retailers listing pretty much *all* the music available in Australia. It's fairly easy for even small Indy labels to get their stuff listed in AMROC, and of course all the big labels are in there.

I guess I always assumed most other countries had similar services set up!

If your local retailer needs more information about a release before they can order it for you I'd suggest doing a search on one of the many Amazon sites out there. DON'T just do a search on Amazon.com, especially for European stuff. Try doing a search on Amazon.co.uk or on Amazon.fr and copy the details (Record label and catalogue number) from there.