Problem solved...
phildon hit it right on the head... it issues were caused by a caching solution that my hosting provider uses. Once the exception rules were added all came well :-)
In my case I didn't have to limit browser client side caching. The only thing that was needed was those exception rules being added. FYI I use WPEngine to host my websites. Here's an article they have posted that might help someone else:
http://support.wpengine.com/wpengine-ecommerce/
Thanks for all the input
Rudy