It is generally accepted amongst the writers and cast that the main problem with the episode is that while the writers wrote it as high farce, Alexander Siddig and Armin Shimerman saw it as a much more serious piece, in the tradition of Family Business (1995); a comic episode with serious undertones. As Shimerman says of Siddig, "He wanted to make it less of a comedy and more of an exploration of the relationship between a bickering mother and son. He tried to push the envelope and take Quark into an area that Quark isn't used to going in. I applaud him for it, although we reshot some of the scenes, like the heart attack, because he had a much darker vision than the writers had imagined."
Slug-o-Cola and Eelwasser were originally created by Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe for the book Legends of the Ferengi.
This episode received Star Trek 101's "Spock's Brain" Award for Worst Episode of Deep Space Nine.
In retrospect, Ira Steven Behr sees this episode the biggest disappointment of his entire time at Star Trek; "If you look through the list, "Profit and Lace" was really the last Ferengi show. The Emperor's New Cloak (1999) is a mirror universe show, and the Ferengi portion of The Dogs of War (1999) is only the A-story or the B-story, depending on how you look at it. So this was the nail in that coffin."
In the teaser, Quark attempts to extort sex from Aluura as part of her job. He ignores Sisko's explicit ban against him doing so in the early season one episode Captive Pursuit (1993).