Web help for going under the knife

An advertisement for a hospital that conducts plastic surgery draws the attention of a passerby in Chongqing. Photo provided to China Daily

It is human nature to want to look your best, but for 36-year-old Jin Xing, it's a career.

In August 2013, Jin founded Soyoung.com, the first online community where people can share photos of their experiences with plastic surgery. The service has now become the largest in China, attracting more than 100,000 visitors a day. The website also has an app with more than 3.5 million users.

Soyoung provides an online shopping service, with more than 1,000 hospitals and clinics selling their plastic surgery-related services and products through the website and the app.

"Before we started the business, no one believed customers would buy plastic surgery through the Internet, but we made it," Jin says.

Users daily spend an average of 1 million yuan ($161,200) for hospitals and clinics via the platforms, he adds.

Jin, from Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, had worked as a product director in a number of famous IT companies, including Tencent, before quitting the jobs to become an entrepreneur in 2007.

"The plastic-surgery industry is perhaps one of the least user-friendly industries in China, and that actually provides great opportunities for Soyoung, because we give people what they need," Jin says.

The industry has grown exponentially in China, but most Chinese still see plastic surgery as slightly shameful, Jin explains.

Among popular plastic surgeries in China are eyelid, nose and chin jobs, and breast enhancement.