A variety of sugars are provided for use as inhibitors of lectin-conjugate binding or for eluting glycoproteins or other glycoconjugates from columns of agarose lectins. These sugars are supplied as dry powders. If reconstituted in 5 ml of water or buffer the resulting sugar solutions are 400 mM, except for L-fucose and N-acetylgalactosamine, which are each 100 mM.