STORES CLUSTER, BELIEVING COMPETITION BREEDS SUCCESS.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

When is enough too much?

The intersection of Victory Boulevard and Canoga Avenue boasts four major stores - Circuit City, CompUSA, Staples and Best Buy - that sell computers and other consumer electronics.

Just a short way south on Canoga Avenue is Fry's Electronics, which like its rivals up the street is stuffed to the rafters with computers and every other high-tech gadget anyone would ever need.

With so much already, it's difficult to see how there could be room for more.

But more is exactly what the area is going to get when Brisbane, Calif.,-based The Good Guys opens a 28,750-square-foot Audio Video Exposition Store in the new Warner Center Marketplace. The store, opening by February, is to be constructed on the northeast corner of Victory and Canoga.

It replaces the much smaller 17,280-square-foot Good Guys on Topanga Canyon Boulevard a block south of Victory - which, perhaps not surprisingly, is just a stone's throw from the already crowded corner.

While some say the clustering makes economic sense and can only benefit the consumer, others see trouble ahead.

The Woodland Hills/Canoga Park area is ``a good viable center with strong retailers,'' which together form a magnet for shoppers from throughout the San Fernando Valley, Good Guys spokeswoman Pam Colangelo said.

``The way we're looking at it is competition breeds success and people will know if they want to buy the latest new audio and video product, they're going to come to Canoga Park,'' she said.

Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce chairman Bob Pearlman sees it much the same way. The existing stores do a brisk business and the addition of one more won't hurt the retailers but will give consumers more choices.

``From a business standpoint it's wonderful that all these retailers have chosen Woodland Hills to put their store,'' he said. ``As a consumer it's wonderful, because it gives me an incredible amount of choice in a concentrated area so I don't have to drive all over the Valley.''

The Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce has not taken an official position on the issue, he said.

But mention the new electronics store to Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County, and he softly groans.

Not out of any concern for the consumer, who will come out ahead as the rival stores ``are slugging it out to get you through the door.''

But the stores will lose money as they cut their prices, he said. Meanwhile, they will face stiffer competition from online vendors, which eventually will more aggressively court the consumers who become disappointed with the service at the increasingly indistinguishable chains, he predicted.

``Sooner or later one of these people will fold up its tent and steal away into the night,'' Kyser said.

Kyser isn't the only one who thinks the area doesn't need another consumer electronics store. Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, said last month his group would rather see the parcel remain an industrial site.

``We have more than enough shopping centers. We don't see this as Phi Beta Kappa at all,'' he said. ``We're short on industrial land.''