mterry2 wrote: ... to disable caching ... is not an option.
Well, any e-commerce will have difficulties with caching the complete site. So, disabling it for at least the shop parts, or enabling it for only the other parts, must be an option.
If, in the long run, you don't want to disable the cache completely, but for the shop only, then go back to the threads you found: there are sometimes cache extensions mentioned providing you a more fin-grained selection of what is to be cached and what not.
Sorry, but until then you will continue having problems unless you disabled the Joomla cache completely.