I read an interesting article on ZDNet.com this weekend that discussed 50 companies that are using the Internet in beneficial ways. There, at #20, was biochemical and specialty chemical and medical equipment provider Sigma-Aldrich (Nasdaq: SIAL), not exactly the type of business that is measured in terms of some new-economy, new-world psychobabble metrics: No amount of "eyeballs," mindshare, or clickthroughs would really help Sigma-Aldrich, which makes money when people buy its chemicals and life sciences materials.

We're not talking Pine-Sol, either. Sigma-Aldrich chemicals are used in analytics like capillary electrophoresis -- don't ask me -- in drug discovery, even in artificial flavorings. Sigma-Aldrich makes more than 200,000 products, each highly specialized. Even the most educated potential and existing customers may have no idea what exact usages each product has, nor will he or she have a complete idea of which Sigma-Aldrich products are best to address the task being undertaken. Ask any component producer, from drugs to chemicals to telecommunications equipment, and he'll tell you a key problem is matching a customer to the ideal product.

That's due in no small part to information inefficiencies. Even the best product will not sell if customers do not have access to adequate information about it and its uses.

That's what I find so cool about Sigma-Aldrich's Internet initiative. It recognized early on that the Internet provided a low-cost, customizable channel to further sales of existing products. By giving all of its technical information away online, Sigma-Aldrich is providing customers with more reasons to place trust in its products.

How has it worked? Well, the website currently accounts for more than 16% of Sigma-Aldrich's total sales, which would put it at an annualized clip of about $190 million based on the company's total revenues of $599 million over the first six months of 2001. To compare, fallen e-commerce angel Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) has an annualized rate of $720 million in Internet-derived revenues. I use Yahoo! as the comparative example because both companies' Internet strategies are to have commerce driven by content. But where people are currently asking, sarcastically, what Yahoo! will be when it grows up, Sigma-Aldrich was selected by its customer base as having the single most useful website in their industry.

Thus far this year, Sigma-Aldrich has grown total revenues by 6.3% over the same six months of 2000. The continued strength of the dollar has harmed its short-term returns to some degree, as Sigma-Aldrich derives more than 55% of its sales from overseas -- 40% from Europe alone. Currency issues are external to a company's performance, as there's not a whole lot Sigma-Aldrich can do about the fact that the dollar has been so strong.

Where the company could improve is in its balance sheet, where it has taken on short-term debt levels 70% higher than last year's, in part to fund a significant buyback of shares. Unless there are real extenuating circumstances -- such as a stock price that is grotesquely undervalued -- I'd prefer to see a company retiring debt before it buys back shares, not issuing debt to do so.

Still, this story is about an under-the-radar company that is using the Internet in a cutting-edge fashion. Two years ago the common belief was that new, nimble Internet-centric companies were going to spring up and destroy the behemoths of the old economy. Now it seems that the world is completely discounting the Internet as a viable and profitable conduit for conducting business. Sigma-Aldrich's web successes to date suggest that both of these conceptions are wrong.

There are more than 200,000 uses for Bill Mann, each highly specialized. His stock holdings can be viewed online, as can The Motley Fool's disclosure policy.